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The holidays are upon us. So is the great migration back to our offices, factories, schools and other places of work. After such a long time stewing in our comfy Covid bubbles and increasingly virtual worlds where people tend to look and think like ourselves, it’s time to reconnect with reality—in other words, with one another.
Will we all just get along? Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) experts say that like many of us, they’re starting from square one, though this is nothing new. While DEI programs have pushed the needle forward on social issues, making progress stick has always proven difficult. Every action has a reaction, and DEI expert and With-Respect founder Leah Kyaio says that reaction is often men pushing back when others lean in. The reasons are various but they all come down to our conceptions–and preconceptions–of masculinity.
Can we break the cycle–and the ice–at the office party as well as the holiday dinner table this year? Probably, Kyaio says, but only by being respectful of one another. Here’s some advice for happier returns this season:
Listen
First off, Kyaio advises stepping into your ‘respond’ brain as you’re stepping back into the workplace. When we react, she explains, we are operating from our survivor brain, our lower brain. But we want to go high, not low. Being authentic goes a long way. So does curiosity, in the form of asking questions. “Can you tell me how you got to that conclusion?” or “While I don’t agree, I would love to understand better how it is you see it. What do you think influences you the most to see it this way?” are effective ice breakers.
Experts say that questions work because by exhibiting–or even feigning!–ignorance, we are more likely to avoid defensiveness, which fuels hostility. According to Kyaio, being aware of the importance of your tone of voice and body language is critical. We can ask a great question, she says, but if our body language and tone don’t align with curiosity (like sarcasm or dismissal), the impact is the same as if we threw gasoline on the fire.
And sometimes it’s best to just change the subject. “I know this is a conversation where we aren’t going to agree and our relationship and this holiday time is worth more to me than just arguing,” Kyaio offers. “I’d love to hear more about your (X, Y, Z) instead.”
Leave the Shame & Blame
For whatever reason, listening just seems to be harder for us men. Kyaio’s experience has taught her that male resistance to DEI training is amplified by having been the target of weaponized privilege. “To be clear,” she says, “men experience privilege. Yet recognizing the natural defensive reaction to being attacked is logical and aligns directly with the norms taught related to masculinity.”
What Kyaio calls “shame and blame” language has traditionally been used to attack men, particularly white men, as regards the oppression of women and people of color. This, she says, has created even more pushback. Many men feel they are being held responsible for historical acts that had nothing to do with them. They deflect with their own belief systems. “They counter that ‘I’m not a racist’ and/or ‘I have great respect for women and think they all deserve to be paid the same as men.’” Kyaio says. “The taught response is to avoid any opportunity for someone else to point a finger in their direction.”
We’re All Intersections
While men still experience privilege in many aspects of life, Kyaio doesn’t believe in defining anyone by a single lens of their experience. “Regardless of gender or race, we are all amalgamations of our intersectionalities: class, gender identity, ability, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, language, education, ethnicity, racial identity, family of origin, and on and on,” she observes. “That amalgamation guarantees that no one can determine an individual’s experience of systemic oppression simply by looking at them. Remember that what someone looks like is just a small facet of a huge gem.”
In the context of DEI training, intersectionality is the individual experience of the combination of privilege and oppression. It is all about how privilege impacts target and target impacts privilege.
Be An Ally
And it’s worth remembering that we all have an intersectional experience with oppression. Nearly all of us have a place where we can be an ally and a place where we need an ally. We have no more control over being born into privilege than we do being born into oppression. When we neutralize what may seem like divisive language or code and become respectful of individuals, Kyaio says, we avoid villainizing the concept of privilege and eliminate the need for it to be weaponized. In so doing, we allow men to step into DEI conversations authentically and as part of the positive change.
Toxic = Waste
But what of the modern man’s “toxic masculinity”? While we think of this syndrome as machismo or testosterone overload, Kyaio believes the term itself creates men as victims whose egos are fragile and must be protected–a lesson, she says, most women learn at their mother’s knee. We men have been taught that we need not care for ourselves emotionally or to even admit we have emotional elements beyond the “strong” emotion of anger. Within toxic masculinity, she says, strength is misdefined as how much you can lift–physically and emotionally–as well as how much pain you can bear and inflict. Without flinching, ideally!
“Try to understand toxic masculinity–which every boy and man experiences–as a trauma from which men must recover,” Kyaio advises her clients. And find a safe place, filled with love and compassion, in which to recover.
It’s Still A Man’s Work(place)
Unfortunately, workplaces are far from safe spaces for many. We still consider them male dominions. So whenever Kyaio enters a new office or warehouse to start training, she recalls an Audrey Lord quote: “The Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house.”
Progress, she says, requires that those in positions of privilege support any change that will be made within the system of oppression. Liberation is the mind shift necessary to see things as they really are, not as we were taught to see them. Until the “masters”–those who experience privilege and power–internalize that reality, Kyaio says, change is unlikely, though far from impossible.
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This content is brought to you by Scott Bartnick.