Redefining Male Workplace Roles Takes Time but Beats a Gender War

Women are in the workplace to stay. They want careers, not jobs. They want tough assignments. They want pay equity. They want to be judged on their performance rather than how they “fit in.” They want benefits that facilitate balancing home and work. They want to behave like women and not be judged incompetent because they don’t act like men.

As a result of these requests, male executives find their work environment charged with sexual static. The source--working with women as peers and bosses--creates feelings among men of confusion and discomfort. Unlike static on the radio, the sexual static generated by women is difficult to avoid. Consequently, like Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady,” men ask, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”

As women pursue new opportunities outside the home, men see their opportunities dwindle inside the office. They are being asked to remove their unearned knapsack of privilege and climb the corporate mountain like those who historically had none.

This leaves white males disoriented; they have never had to think much about the advantages contained in that knapsack. Many men feel the rules have changed in the middle of the game and that work is a male construct under siege.

“We’re losing control in politics, sports and the family,” one male executive complains. “Our last stand is work. It’s the only place we still call the shots.”

All men worry about workplace changes, particularly those that affect them personally. They feel victimized by sexual harassment laws they don’t understand and by affirmative action guidelines they feel provide women with their own knapsack of privilege.

Acknowledging gender differences as a source of sexual static is a first step toward lessening their negative impact.

The standards for measuring success historically have been based on male attributes, and that is why it is important to talk about gender differences. Men and women are different--in the way they communicate, in the way they motivate others, in the way they exercise power and in the way they allocate their time. Denying differences is counterproductive.

The second step toward minimizing sexual static is for men to understand how their assumptions and expectations of women color their workplace interactions. Women, for their part, need to be patient. This does not mean accepting sexual discrimination or harassment in the many forms it takes. Rather, it means being sensitive and understanding as men struggle with the fact that their roles are changing, often without their consent.

The reality of gender role flux is brought home to Americans daily. Hot-button notions--”gender war,” “white male outrage,” “women and power” and “family values”--permeate books, periodicals and television. Discussions in boardrooms and living rooms are alive with heated arguments, as well as attempts to find answers.

But there are no easy answers--no magic bullets, no one-minute solutions, no proven formulas. Every organization has to test its own atmosphere and measure the sexual static that exists. Once measured, its sources need to be located and actions taken to minimize its impact. This means modifying male and female behavior, as well as organizational policies and procedures. Minimizing sexual static requires men to admit that shedding their knapsack of privilege strikes at the heart of male self-esteem. If women can do what men can do, what does it mean to be male?

Today, men find themselves facing not only a major restructuring of work that creates uncertainty about their economic future, but also a redefinition of maleness that speaks to their personal psyches. If the assumptions I have articulated are correct, what’s needed is less combat between men and women, not more.

Men and women will have to work together to invent and accept new roles. That implies becoming comfortable with gender differences--seeing them as a resource, not a problem, and valuing them, rather than using them as common fodder in a gender war.