The example is misleading. That particular campaign raised more than $100M, which transformed and radically accelerated ALS research<\/a>. Apparently the participants inspired action with their chilly signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bullies don\u2019t get hung up on details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am, in fact, trying to signal a directional change here. Honk, honk guys, we\u2019re off course. Let\u2019s steer away from systemic bias and towards equity. Don\u2019t worry about what the haters say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve also been told that my advocacy is just a hustle aimed at scoring points with women. Sometimes it\u2019s specific: \u201cBro, she\u2019s not gonna sleep with you.\u201d Other people seem to posit a sort of gender-wide currency, redeemable with any woman, worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m disturbed that some of my peers still seem to subscribe to the toxic and juvenile model of woman as vending machine. Offer enough tokens and a prize emerges. Most of us got over that idea sometime during or shortly after high school. Bro, you know that\u2019s not how it works \u2013 right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n More succinctly: Women don\u2019t owe me (or you) shit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I\u2019m being told is that I\u2019m embarrassing myself. I should stop. I look pathetic. They seem to be saying that everybody can see that I\u2019m desperate and lonely. They say that I\u2019m doing it wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re saying that speaking up for women is performing manhood incorrectly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nasty stuff, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there\u2019s the idea that it\u2019s inappropriate and crass to talk about your advocacy. I\u2019ve been told by more than a few peers that they do way more to help women than I will ever know. They just do it so subtly that nobody can detect their good works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While this is theoretically possible, I think it\u2019s unlikely. The things they are so proud of likely amount to the bare minimum required by law. Failure to abuse women doesn\u2019t count as advocacy. Hiring the occasional woman and paying her equal to her male counterparts is the baseline, not some laudable crime-fighting secret identity. Treating daughters and female spouses with respect and dignity is basic human decency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea that a privileged person should not have to be bothered to even hear about bias is, in fact, part of the structural problem. The freedom to not have to talk or think about equity is the very definition of privilege. This is the domain of the \u201cgender-blind,\u201d or the \u201ccolor-blind,\u201d with an emphasis on \u201cblind.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the real problem here is that I\u2019m messing with that privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you keep speaking up for long enough, the threats emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been told that having a reputation for public advocacy will hurt my career. This hasn\u2019t been my experience, in fact I\u2019m hard pressed to think of a way that my career could be going better<\/span><\/em>. Of course, there\u2019s bias and privilege at work there too. I started from a good place and I got loud only after I was well established. I do suggest that early career folks, to quote a speaker at a recent RFS event<\/a>, \u201csecure your own oxygen mask before attempting to assist others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s because vulnerable people do<\/span><\/em> suffer consequences when they speak out. The people who most need advocacy and sponsorship put themselves at substantial risk of reprisal, quiet and loud, when they advocate for themselves. That\u2019s why it is so patently unfair to push the work of advocacy off on members of underrepresented groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bringing it full circle, that\u2019s why I speak up. If I don\u2019t, the burden falls to folks who are much more likely to suffer career consequences for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anybody who started off as a child (everybody) has these patterns baked into them. We impose social judgements on ourselves without requiring external censors or gatekeepers. The only bully needed is the one inside my own head. I\u2019m honestly a bit grateful to my peers for giving voice to those quiet thoughts and allowing me see them clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few years ago, a young colleague approached me, worried that people might think he was \u201ccreepy\u201d if he offered to help with the women\u2019s advocacy group at work. I asked, \u201cwell, are you doing it for creepy reasons?\u201d After a bit of conversation, we convinced ourselves that his intentions were not creepy. I encouraged him to go for it. It\u2019s good to get a sanity check on these things, and it\u2019s a shame that worry held him back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Talking about it helps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, I actually am talking more than I would like here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is limited space in any conversation. Attention paid to one voice comes at the cost of others who deserve to be heard. A really important and challenging aspect of advocacy is the art of holding space so that underrepresented voices can be heard. It\u2019s about knowing when to speak up and knowing when to shut up. A recent New York Times opinion piece<\/a> implored men to \u201clean out\u201d instead of merely telling women to \u201clean in.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But how to lean out without simply maintaining the status quo?<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the bullies and the haters, here\u2019s my commitment: I will quiet down and stop making such an unseemly fuss when our whole conversation is so rich, diverse, and safe for everybody that I feel obliged to back off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until then, get used to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People sometimes ask what motivates me to speak out publicly as an advocate and an ally to women and other underrepresented groups. Sometimes these questions are sincere. Mostly they are not. As I have found my voice on this topic, I have become aware of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-equity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1349"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Taunt #2: Points with the Ladies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Taunt #3: We don\u2019t talk about it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dwan.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Doing-nothing.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe point: Shut Up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s all in your head<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How to shut me up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n