- Determine your vision of the different EO partnerships with men;
- Few organisations have given serious thought to the range of
potential partnerships with men. Many have limited their ideas to
partnerships established by formal committees or councils, eg. an EEO
Committee, or a Diversity Council (something that has become quite
popular in organisations). These committees and councils rarely
represent the diversity of possible partnerships with men. Instead the
men who are participants are usually older and in more established,
management positions in organisations. Rather than being genuine
partnerships, they might be better termed "patronising partnerships
with men";
- One way to get a quick check on this is to ask a question about
the gender and age make up of your diversity council, equity strategic
group, or EEO committee. In two recent examples in organisations where
it was intended to select representative groups from within the
organisation to develop a diversity strategic plan, out of ninety
people selected, there was only one man who was under 30 years of age.
Yet 20% of women were in this age group. As an aside, the other group
often missing is older women; and
- Men in these partnerships therefore are often engaged in a
structural rather than an emotional or even strategic way. Yet there
are considerable opportunities to engage men as partners (recognising
of course that the engagement with these issues is a critical, but
challenging process).
|
back to top
