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The idea that men in positions of influence can be highly effective champions of gender equality is nothing new. In 1848, Frederick Douglass, a leader of the American anti-slavery movement, strongly defended Elizabeth Cady Stanton against criticism of her ‘Declaration of Sentiments’, a statement of women’s rights modelled on the United States Declaration of Independence. In Britain, John Stuart Mill, the eminent economist, philosopher and also then a Member of Parliament, presented a petition in 1866 to the House of Commons in favour of women’s suffrage. The following year, he added an amendment to the 1867 Reform Act, which was aimed at giving many more working men the vote: Mill substituted the word ‘person’ for ‘man’. His amendment was defeated by 194 votes to 73 but helped the suffrage movement to gain momentum and Mill continued to advocate strongly for equal rights for women. He wasn’t exactly typical, however: fifty years later British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst called on men to champion the cause of women’s right to vote in her famous ‘Freedom or Death’ speech, recounting, ‘One woman broke the windows of the Guard Club … some of the guards came out and they said “Why did you break our windows? We have done nothing.” She said, “It is because you have done nothing I have broken your windows.”’
In 1926, Serbian-American inventor, engineer and visionary Nikola Tesla gave an interview published under the title ‘When Woman is Boss’. Tesla foresaw the dramatic impacts of wireless technology alongside the ‘acquisition of new fields of endeavour by women’. He asserted, ‘It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women.’
And critically, men can be the most powerful advocates not only for women’s progression, but also for appropriate behaviours towards us. Ben Bailey Smith, better known by his stage name Doc Brown, is a leading and compelling advocate for men to be respectful to women. Speaking at a school in 2013 he pointed out to his male audience, ‘Men that are older than us have somehow created a world where we’re supposed to believe that girls are somehow secondary to us.’ He added, ‘we have the power to change that, you have the power, I have spoken because now people listen to me’. I met Ben when we were both being interviewed on Woman’s Hour, and he told me that when he started working to improve attitudes towards women, particularly amongst young black men, he experienced a backlash from some of his fans who challenged him, saying he wasn’t ‘cool’. Ben has two daughters and a famous sister, the novelist Zadie Smith, and is convinced that weak men prey on the vulnerable, whereas strong men will use their power to improve things, including railing against the objectification of women.
The history of feminism shows how the involvement of men has ebbed and flowed, varying from times when men – often just a few enlightened individuals – have proactively sought to help correct what they have recognised as a wrong – to episodes of ‘sisters doing it for themselves’. When I was a child, the ‘second wave of feminism’ (the suffrage movement being denoted the ‘first’, although there were earlier advocates of women’s rights) was in full swing and the image portrayed by the media was that feminists were anti-men and militant. A woman could be a feminist or feminine but not both.
The words actually spoken by women at the time suggest that this was not an accurate picture. On 22 March 1971, the date of my fifth birthday (in case you’re wondering, I wasn’t actually listening at the time), American academic and feminist activist Kate Millett was interviewed by Sue MacGregor on BBC Radio 4. Millett suggested that ‘men and children, as well as women, could live much freer lives without this oppressive, patriarchal social system’. The presenter summed up her ambition: ‘You’re not out for an equal slice of the cake as it stands today, you’re out to change the recipe.’
But there was little receptivity to this way of thinking in the 1970s, and the message became distorted. In the same interview, Millett suggested that many of the ideas of the feminist movement at the time were being misrepresented and portrayed as destructive because the establishment felt ‘very threatened’. She stressed that, contrary to reports, the movement was ‘not out to demolish anything’ but was looking to build new, additional lifestyle choices and for basic human rights to be bestowed on women. The goal was not that women take on the ‘oppressive’ qualities of the very system they were trying to change: specifically, she said, she hoped for less of the violence associated with masculinity.
This really is possible now. I see men everywhere (although admittedly not every man) looking to encourage women and girls, welcoming our progress rather than feeling threatened by it. They are conscious of the changes in our world, aware that the ‘old’ system needs changing too, and are often extra-motivated by talented daughters. When the 2015 Oxford and Cambridge Women’s Boat Race finally – after 186 years – took place on the same day over the same course as the men’s race, helped by Newton’s sponsorship, I was a little unsure how it would be received, given the iconic status of the (men’s) Boat Race. As Newton’s then-CEO, it was wonderful to be greeted warmly by many, including men, as I walked with my husband along the pathway by the Thames, and as my whole family watched at the finish line. The overwhelming feedback was that the women’s presence ‘modernised’ the Boat Race and that it was ‘about time too’. That reaction revealed just how far we have already come.
It is a sign of confidence and strength now for men to support gender equality; we should extend our hand to them, to work with the men in power today to create a world where that power is shared. We should use our feminine qualities to work collaboratively and achieve far greater progress together, as the 30% Club did on a small but symbolic scale to create change in the very traditional British boardroom.
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