Avoiding the Grief of Male Allyship
This is a message to myself as much as to any other man.
If you are a man who is working to be an ally because you pay attention to and speak out against harmful male behaviors towards women and non-binary people in the workplace, thank you. Take a minute with that thank you. It’s real.
But here is the next shoe to drop. And too often it does not. I believe many of us who are active allies do so from an emotionally disconnected space. We view “women’s issues” exclusively from the seemingly civil frames of the workplace. Allyship in support of women becomes a question of hiring or advancement, a question of elevating women’s voices. In viewing our allyship exclusively from within the policies and systems of a relatively protected workplace worldview, we intentionally insulate ourselves from experiencing the grief and sorrow a wider lens can evoke in us. A wider lens that fully acknowledges the epidemic of political, economic and physical violence that impacts women globally.
As much as we rely in the illusion of it, there is no magical separation for the women in our daily working lives from the violence women face all over the world. Not only are the women we know linked by blood and empathy to what is playing out everywhere, the worst kinds of violence are also happening right in our offices…
