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I was wrong last week. Well, I was at least partially wrong.
I made the statement that in my adult life in the workplace, as a white male, I have never known discrimination.
But then I found out that is not true. I found that those like me are discriminated against on the job in a very interesting way. Not because of our whiteness, but because of our maleness, and we know that maleness comes in every color.
A study was published last week by Bain and Company, a consulting firm out of Boston, showing that men are twice as likely to have requests for flexible work hours rejected than women.
Flexible work hours. Fascinating.
The study showed that about sixty percent of men polled wanted flexible work hours, but there was a lack of senior support. Senior management was much more supportive of the idea for women.
According to Bain, male respondents interviewed said that management frowned on them when asking for flexible hours.
Those requesting it often heard responses like, "(flex time) is traditionally something we make work for women."
Others were told that going to flex time would hinder their opportunities for promotion.
"Men are experiencing similar forms of prejudice that women experienced ten to fifteen years ago," says Meredith Hellicar, one of the authors of the study.
The Bain study is backed by one similar conducted by The Australian Human Rights Council in 2014 showing widespread discrimination against men when it comes to parental leave. Men were less likely to get it and when they did they received less time.
Why are women given these flex opportunities much more than men? It seems this comes down, once again, to traditional gender roles that are planted in our brains from a very young age.
Dr. Jesse Olsen from the University Of Melbourne Centre Of Workplace Leadership, says that many jobs still promote these old-style roles.
"In our society," says he, "we have traditional views about roles where the woman is the caretaker and much more likely to be a homemaker, and where a man is more likely to be a breadwinner and go to work full-time. That's kind of ingrained in us from a long time ago...and can impact us subconsciously."
Dr. Olsen says that even when men did have requests for flexible work hours approved, they faced discrimination. Often, for example, they weren't evaluated as well and were not considered for promotions like co-workers who work more traditionally.
This all, of course, is kind of a backhanded benefit to women as it reinforces their gender stereotype as well. But backhanded or not it is still a benefit.
So how do we undo generations of traditional subconscious mind mapping?
First, we promote the thought at home to our children that men and women have the capability of fulfilling whatever role they are called upon to perform or they aspire to.
Second, we do what I suggested last week. We make a concerted effort to stop, think and act in new ways. It's one thing to understand discrimination, it's another to excuse it.
Simply, like any other habit we need to form, we need to make an effort to think in new ways until we, indeed, think in new ways.
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