{"id":8260,"date":"2021-04-08T10:32:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T10:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/?p=8260"},"modified":"2021-04-14T08:20:29","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T08:20:29","slug":"lets-end-woke-hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/lets-end-woke-hypocrisy\/","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s be women &#8216;champions&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>A chef I know recently told me about an incident involving a senior manager who declared to her, and others, that women do not belong \u2018on the line\u2019 in the kitchen.<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cI was outraged,\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cHe thinks women can be pastry chefs but that\u2019s it. Then my boss told him, \u2018Look at her! She\u2019s one of our best people, only 20 and working on the line.\u2019 And then a couple of other guys stood up for me. That head chef couldn\u2019t say anything more. I felt really supported.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For my friend, this was a happy ending. She can confidently take her place in a male-dominated industry knowing good men will speak up for her. But as I keep hearing every day, countless other women with the right qualifications, talent, experience and drive have been told by men that \u2018they don\u2019t belong\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>So, in a bid to increase my own understanding of the subject, I asked a number of women professionals to tell me their experience of exclusion in the world of work\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A former gas executive and regulator told me: \u201cIt can be blunt or subtle, but it\u2019s been there for 35 years.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A senior geologist said: \u201cMen brush women off with \u2018she\u2019s not a fit\u2019 because their culture is white guys playing golf.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A mining executive revealed: \u201cI always feel on the fringes of networking conversations because I\u2019m not into sport and men aren\u2019t into kids.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWomen often don\u2019t get invited to meetings where decisions are made,\u201d an executive coach told me. \u201cSo many teams are dominated by men head-butting each other, why would a woman join? And men don\u2019t listen to a woman. She can say something, and no one notices but if a man says the same thing, it\u2019s genius.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>A power industry director said, \u201cMany women take time out to have children and are seen as having less experience, but they bring a totally different perspective to the job. Yet many men making the decisions don\u2019t consider outside views and are unaware they do that.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>During my conversations with these women, the mining executive added: \u201cMy former employer introduced gender equality targets. Two women were quickly promoted but failed because they weren\u2019t set up or supported properly. How do you think they feel now?\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Challenge unfair policies<\/h3>\n<p>I was struck by the similarity of the women\u2019s experiences, particularly after all my interviewees told me men need to speak up for women.<\/p>\n<p>For example, a consultant and mentor told me: \u201cWomen have had to speak up for themselves for decades. Now men have to join them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a variation of the same theme, the chief executive of a large not-for-profit commented: \u201cMen must challenge unfair policies and procedures at work and get them changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, another respondent added emphatically: \u201c[We need to] get a dialogue going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dialogue? I\u2019ve never discussed this subject with any man and, in truth, I really struggle to speak up when someone says something disrespectful towards a woman. My response has always been to ignore the comment, make a joke or gently scold the individual.<\/p>\n<p>I let other guys off the hook because I\u2019ve said stupid things myself and have been too worried about copping flak from other men like me \u2013 white, middle aged, middle class, university educated \u2013 for being a woke hypocrite.<\/p>\n<p>But other men struggle too.<\/p>\n<h3>Appalling behaviours<\/h3>\n<p>A friend told me her husband, a fireman who\u2019ll risk his life running into a blaze to save someone, won\u2019t challenge his mates when they\u2019re speaking disrespectfully about women.<\/p>\n<p>But enough of others; how do I deal with recent news in Australia, where I live and work, that has revealed appalling behaviours toward women by male government officials and politicians at both state and federal level \u2013 including allegations of rape, abuse, harassment and incomprehensible acts like masturbating on female colleagues\u2019 desks?<\/p>\n<p>Thus far, I haven\u2019t regarded this problem as mine because of my self-image as a decent bloke who respects women.&nbsp;But right now, women need men to speak up as their allies.<\/p>\n<p>To be part of the solution, it\u2019s essential to open my eyes to see \u201cthe water you\u2019ve been swimming in since you were born,\u201d as one woman told me.<\/p>\n<p>This doesn\u2019t mean I am to blame or at fault for the whole thing. It\u2019s just that owning the problem is the first step in doing something positive about it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8261\" src=\"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2021\/04\/MilesProtter-banner.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2021\/04\/MilesProtter-banner.png 850w, https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2021\/04\/MilesProtter-banner-300x62.png 300w, https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2021\/04\/MilesProtter-banner-768x158.png 768w, https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2021\/04\/MilesProtter-banner-600x124.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A chef I know recently told me about an incident involving a senior manager who declared to her, and others, that women do not belong \u2018on the line\u2019 in the kitchen. \u201cI was outraged,\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cHe thinks women can be pastry chefs but that\u2019s it. Then my boss told him, \u2018Look at her! She\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":692,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-content","category-homepage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/692"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8260"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8391,"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8260\/revisions\/8391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runyourownwebsite.uk\/sorted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}