Women in leadership: The crucial role of men

She also has three kids.

She told me that she stopped mentioning this in her conversations with headhunters. Why? Because she noticed the first few times she did refer to her kids, that the energy, attention and focus of the headhunter changed significantly. They simply were not that interested in her anymore.

We have been running women’s programmes for many years, for women at different levels of organisations. We are focusing on strengthening women, giving them opportunities for self-development and raising awareness about their own and others’ biases when it comes to men and women at work. This has been very successful, and we’ve got some beautiful success stories to tell; one of them being a woman who successfully applied for a very senior position after our programme. She shared that she would have never even have applied for the position without our discussions and concepts introduced to her.

But we knew from the start that ‘women’s work’ is just a small piece of a much larger puzzle! Indeed, we are often asked how men can support, so here are some thoughts on this.

Awareness

The first important piece for men to realise is that our economy favours men over women. In South Africa, the unemployment rate of women is higher than men, and two-thirds of job losses during Covid were jobs held by women (as women are often employed in food service, retail and entertainment sectors). Even when women are employed, they earn up to 35% less than men for doing work of equal value!!! Yes, that’s right, 35%.

Ironically, we have a very high number of female-only headed households in South Africa, which makes this statistic even more shocking and dissonant.

In addition, women hold 32% of senior management positions in South Africa yet make up 51% of our population. How will we be able to create an economic system that provides opportunities and balance for both men and women, when the majority of the decision-makers are male and will naturally have blind spots?

In order to create a better system and a more humane economy, we need greater diversity right at the top.

Greater awareness of the current imbalances and significant shifts required is an important first step. Too often, we work with men who are unaware of just how unequal full economic participation is between men and women.

And even when men and women contribute equally to household income, and – more shockingly – even when women are the main breadwinners, women still carry the main load of household chores! If you are a man and also think this is unfair, here is what you can do in your personal life to promote women in leadership.

Actions you can take in your personal life

I have in a previous article spoken about the impact our socialisation has on women in leadership, and how on a societal level we need to shift deep-seated beliefs about gender roles.

It has been many decades since women entered the workplace but they/we still remain responsible for a large proportion of unpaid work such as childcare, eldercare, and household chores. Unfortunately, not much has shifted in this regard.

In recent years, the concept of women carrying the ‘mental load’ in families has become more recognised and acknowledged. The ‘mental load’ is the thinking of, organising and managing of all household or family matters. It’s the overseeing of all the to-do-lists, remembering what has to be done when, delegating tasks and following up on them. Essentially, project managing the rather complex project ‘home and family’!

In the worst case scenario, this additional mental load can lead to burnout and decreased life and work satisfaction for working women; in the best case, it significantly impacts the ‘load’ of women who have careers and demanding work roles too.

There is a distinct difference between ‘mental load’, which essentially is the managing of everything at home, versus the ‘doing’ of chores. But let’s start at the ‘doing’. In a large study in South Africa from 2017, only 30% of men said they were contributing equally to household chores. So the first thing you can do as a man is quite simply this: contribute more strongly to chores at home!

In addition to doing significantly more chores, women still hold the overall mental load. If men want to support their partners in their work, it is time to share the full mental load and not only the chores. Here are some ideas:

• Encourage your partner to pursue their career and take on senior roles if they aspire to; consider their career and professional fulfilment as important as your own

• Take on the full organization of a portion of your children’s (or parents’) schedules, and make sure to get them to their activities and appointments

• If you’re a new parent, take shared parental leave. Studies have shown that when fathers take extended parental leave, they are more confident and likely to stay involved in childcare activities later

• Have a clear ‘handover meeting’ with your partner after maternity/ paternity leave, where management of tasks get re-allocated consciously. Even though many couples aim to split responsibilities, the reality is that tasks often get done in typically gendered ways and more care work is done by the woman.

Lastly, if you hear comments such as ‘my wife is just naturally so much better at this’ – challenge the person and remind them that any competence is usually because girls have been socialized and praised for being caring, whereas boys were praised for being bold and outspoken. So it is often dependent on what we are expected to do, not what we are inherently better at!

So men, particularly if you have kids, get involved as much as you can. Share the load, physically and mentally. Organise birthday parties, playdates, take your kids to the doctor, volunteer at their school. Help look after your elderly parelnts too. Only once you do this will you free up your partner to have more time, flexibility and opportunity at work.

Actions you can take at work

The first thing to acknowledge about our workplaces is that they still consist of rules as defined by men: men who are often older, and who might have children who are looked after by others. The workplace culture in many organisations does not make it easy to have flexible schedules, to opt for part-time work (regardless of gender), or to take extended paternity leave – all of which keeps household responsibilities firmly with women, even if they do have full-time jobs.

Secondly, speaking about women and impostor syndrome or a lack of confidence in women has us constantly thinking about ‘fixing women’ rather than ‘fixing our unequal workplaces’. It’s important for men to not fall into the trap of thinking of their own career as less flexible and more linear. As long as men continue to believe that they ‘cannot take paternity leave’ for example or work flexibly as it will harm their career, women will stay where they are – in a place of high mental load and unequal opportunity at work.

What else can men do to support and be allies to women in leadership?

• If you are a man in a senior position: similar to all other discussions regarding diversity, equity and inclusion, promote stronger equity! The next time you have an exciting project, give it to a woman who is a mom (if she would like it), as she is the one least likely to be offered it. Make sure women participate in career-progressing tasks and be careful of automatically assigning the ‘office housework’ to a woman.

• Next time a man mentions something about family, wanting to work more flexibly, or even asks about paternity leave, do whatever you can to support it!

• Do whatever you can to work against the negative judgement fathers face at work when they take care of issues at home. As many studies have shown, fathers do want to be more strongly involved in parenting but fear the negative consequences at work.

• Check your workplace policies and point out any factors that disadvantage women.

• Examine the team members in special project teams and ask for more women if there are too few.

• Back women and their ideas, and challenge comments that strengthen traditional gender norms. Once you start listening out, you will be shocked how many such comments can still be heard in today’s workplaces.

In summary, supporting women in leadership starts at home. And make sure to talk about being involved at home to your colleagues at work! Talk about it with headhunters – so my friend can talk about it too.

It’s time we normalise care giving, so we can recognize all forms of work as valuable and create homes and workplaces where both men and women can thrive equally.

Join the upcoming International Women’s Day webinar: Breaking Gender Stereotypes – Men's Role in Advancing Women into Leadership on 11 March 2025, at 3.15pm (Zoom) to be part of this important conversation.

RSVP today: https://contract-sa.ebforms.com/5853840128868352.