Good evening!
The place of men in the mix,
This is what I propose to explore together tonight.
Originally, there is a shock.
We are on October 14, 2010.
I am at the Women’s Forum in Deauville.
On stage, Anne Lauvergeon speaks
in front of about a thousand women who are there.
She is a little upset; she tells us :
“Listen to my little girls, that’s enough!
It’s been almost ten years since we worked on gender diversity
and the progression of careers in the feminine, but nothing happens.
Why do you think?
Look around you!
Who do you think is missing in the room?
Where are the men ?
Men represent between 83 and 90% of COMEX positions
in the western world.
They therefore represent between 83 and 90% of decision-makers.
But they are not here.
They are not here to understand with us,
hear, and act.
So now, let’s invite them to the table. “
A few words about me: I am the fourth of a couple, after 3 boys.
So I spent my youth trying to understand them.
We have all benefited from an education
relatively un-stereotyped.
My brothers were all housework,
me, of all the football games, and vice versa.
And, when it comes to making orientation choices,
I was, again, little affected by feminine standards.
This is how after a teacher, a priest and a farmer,
I was the first in the family to enter the business world.
You will tell me that with such a classic family plan,
he was missing the soldier.
It’s me who got stuck in a certain way,
because my first job was for the Canadian Armed Forces.
And what served as the backdrop for my first professional experience
was a big bath of manhood.
Another shock, which engaged me to be interested in the question of men
in the mix,
it was precisely in those Canadian years, in the 90s.
I noticed that – and it was recurrent –
that male-female relationships were a little skewed.
That is to say that the men were a little timid,
did not dare to be funny,
and all that because they were pretty … leaded by feminism
which was originally very very hard in North America.
It has since been much more balanced, thank God!
Back in France, I discover women’s networks,
professional women’s networks. I enter with great joy.
I find great women, role models,
women who have remained examples for me, many friends.
I find a cocoon in which I can talk about my professional life,
and I even discovered that I had brakes,
brakes that I did not know.
I learn, in particular, to negotiate my salary,
to negotiate him as a man,
that is to say in an uninhibited, factual way.
And, the reflection that I made after this, it is:
yes, we have brakes, we women:
speaking, highlighting, wage bargaining.
But that’s not insurmountable.
From the moment we decide to be sensitive to our brakes,
and that we put the means to overcome them, we can get there.
It’s a message that I continued to keep and that I pass
to young professionals today.
Strong of this initial shock of 2010, with Anne Lauvergeon, I say to myself …
– since, in the meantime, I became co-president of this network –
I say to myself, “We will try an experiment,
a new experience: we will engage men.
We will embark the men, in any case, try. “
That’s how we created a series of events
where men were invited.
In the hall we had 50% men, 50% women.
And we started to discuss together our respective reports
money, authority, power, stereotypes.
And there!
O surprise!
Against all odds, I was going to say,
the men who were there were extremely enthusiastic.
It was very “fun”.
There was a lot of goodwill and they were ready to embark.
It is true that in the hall, with us,
some had been brought in by members of the network.
So some might have been there by force, but anyway,
– as maybe some in the room tonight –
there was a lot of enthusiasm and goodwill.
I said to myself: “But, my God, what a pit of support!
What levers of change! “
So, I decided not to stop there, and to try
to act and to engage them.
For that, I started to meet, with my friends,
a lot of experts who helped us understand
where were the men to better engage them.
First discovery!
Another shock, a big shock:
the pillars of masculinity.
What are the pillars of masculinity?
It’s these stereotypical masculine behaviors
who will make a man say:
“Oh yes, it’s a man! “
So what are these pillars?
First: to be a leader.
Second: show no cracks in the armor.
Third: to be a leader of men, a real guy,
– you have different examples stereotypes of real guys –
and above all, have nothing feminine.
There, I said to myself: “This colleague who keeps interrupting me,
who always wants to speak louder than me,
my ideas in meeting, in fact, it’s nothing personal!
These are the pillars of masculinity that speak. “
First discovery!
Second discovery, even stronger:
Atlas syndrome,
– the Atlas syndrome, from the name of this Greek god,
who was condemned by Zeus
to carry the Earth on his shoulders
until the end of time.
So, Atlas syndrome,
what does it mean when we talk about men?
It means that men, unconsciously,
are high, since they are tiny,
with this idea that they will have to bear the financial burden of their home.
What does it mean ? It is an injunction of success.
That means, no choice: do not show your emotions
and succeed, go very high, very fast.
You tell me, we women have many other brakes,
– they are multiple, and we know them -,
many obstacles in our careers. But we do not have that one.
As Pierre Bourdieu says:
“Virility is a privilege, but it is also a burden. “
[Fear. Ignoring. Apathy]
Third discovery that is a consequence,
which is a corollary of these first two concepts
pillars of virility and Atlas syndrome,
these are the brakes that men have
when they wish to engage in the mix.
These brakes were studied by an institute called the Catalyst Institute,
an American institute.
There are three of them:
firstly: fear,
the fear of getting involved because they would be afraid to say nonsense.
They would be afraid of the eyes of their peers.
They would be afraid of losing their status
because to commit to the mix, it is not super sexy.
So, fear.
Second: ignorance.
I was surprised and I continue to be surprised
by the level of ignorance of many men
on the issue of diversity: the numbers, the effect of the glass ceiling,
wage disparities.
All of this, these are things that many of us, women, know,
but that men know very little.
So, if there are no problems, why engage?
Finally, apathy.
Apathy is that kind of …
laziness, if I may say so.
” I am a man.
I see pretty well what I’m going to lose, in the mix.
I can not see what I’m going to gain.
Why would I commit to something
who will make me lose something? “.
The consequence of all this (pillars of masculinity,
Atlas syndrome) …
their consequences are dramatic.
There are several types of men, in any case, there are two.
There is – you know him –
whoever will conform to the pillars of masculinity,
will comply with this order of success from the Atlas syndrome,
and he will invest in the professional sphere
200% to the detriment of other family, spiritual spheres, etc.
It’s always higher, always faster.
Nothing exists, we must succeed to have a status …
with the consequences that go with it.
There is a second type of man, which you also know.
These are men who are more distrustful of all this.
who do not identify, who have another value system
but who will still try
to get into this box that is imposed on them.
Besides, it’s interesting to see
that these two types of men do not necessarily understand each other,
when you have one in the presence of the other. The dialogue is difficult.
But, regardless of the type of man, the consequences are the same.
And they are dramatic.
That is to say, there is in men a lot more “burn-out”,
violence against oneself and others,
a lot more alcoholism.
There are three times more suicides in men than in women,
and a shorter life span for men than for women.
So, I do not want to stall your evening!
I will try to finish on an optimistic note,
because we are still there to try to see
how are we going to engage them, these men!
Now that we know them a little better,
and that we managed to capture more their psychology,
here are some tracks.
How to engage them?
First, there is language,
forms of communication.
Language is important, it’s very subtle.
I think of a press title that I had read.
It’s probably the title that shocked me the most.
I have read many since.
“When the COMEX is feminized, it’s good for the company. “
This article reported on a study
which showed that the mix in the COMEX gave better results, that is!
But I’m a man, drinking my coffee in the morning,
reading my newspaper, an economic daily.
I read this and I say to myself: “It means that if we push the logic to the end,
more and more women are needed, and even more women.
It is an essentialist discourse that completely distances me.
I do not want to get involved in it.
It’s a suicide. “
So, let’s use words that are more appropriate
and less anxiety for men.
Another idea is to invite them.
So, there are the internal corporate networks,
external networks as well.
I see a lot today that are becoming mixed.
That does not mean that there can not be zones
where women will talk to each other because they have things to say to each other,
and men will also talk to each other.
What is important and it comes back to the idea of Anne Lauvergeon,
we must invite them to the table.
They need to tame the vocabulary, tame the concepts,
to be able to then engage and engage their teams.
Another thing that men are very sensitive to,
it is the commitment of the bosses.
They need strong symbols.
It takes guys, real, bosses of big boxes that engage,
who speak internally and externally.
That’s why there are many actions today
so that these men, at least those who are convinced,
speak more.
So to almost finish,
another thing: the form of communication.
It’s difficult for us, women,
who work on the themes of gender diversity
and those who are victims of discrimination,
to see the question with lightness.
But, I think that lightness is important and humor too
when we talk about diversity.
Finally, what engages men too,
it is to see that women express themselves,
that they speak, take power without complex.
There you go !
This is what TEDxChampsElysées allows tonight.
So, thank you TEDx.
Thank you Béatrice Duboisset, and thank you to all!
(Applause)
”
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