Male Gate-Openers
Since starting Palsa & Pulk and The E-Waste Column, I have spoken a lot about working with an all-female team, the hurdles to fundraising as a female entrepreneur, and the role different women have had on my career. Something I have not spoken about as often is the role men have had throughout my career.
As someone who started out in corporate law (at a law firm with under 12% female partners) and then pivoted into working at the nexus of electronics and tech, raw materials and e-waste, as well as AI and energy (which are all heavily male-dominated), saying that I have seen more than my fair share of sexism and gender-based harassment may well be the understatement of the century.
That said, I also have to say that I have had the privilege to see some of the very best gender advocacy and championing by men from up close. I have gotten to see men short-circuit broken systems to the benefit of their female colleagues. I have also gotten to see men actively and repeatedly open doors for me and my female colleagues that would not have otherwise opened at all.
If I had to make a wish list of things I hoped every woman had in their life and career, based on my personal experiences to date, it would probably include the following:
♀️ I hope that when you are born, one of your father’s main criteria for choosing your name is that it is worthy of a “strong woman”. I honestly also hope he suggests that a part of your name comes from the female protagonist of a major feminist work of literature.
♀️ I hope you have a male professor at university, who will tell you that he learned to negotiate from his mother and grandma, before proceeding to teach you all the best negotiation strategies and tricks he used throughout his career on the Wall Street.
♀️ I hope you have a brother who will text you: “Rawr! 🦁” or something similar, throughout your early twenties, every time one of your male colleagues tries to undermine you or one of your male bosses fails to step up.
♀️ I hope you have male officemates that remind you – whenever you start to doubt yourself – that your strength and value are not determined by what some guy, who has chronically failed to accept women as equally worthy and capable, has to say.
♀️ I hope you have male colleagues and business partners that will fanboy so hard over your work and its impact that even the guy sitting in the last row will have to take note.
♀️ I truly hope your path will cross countless times with men who see your wit, strength, and brilliance with complete clarity and will then do you the favor of holding up a mirror so you can see it too.
Those are the types of men that pave the way for gender equity – and I hope you will meet a version of all of them. I hope they will back you in pursing your dreams, building companies and wealth of your own, and in becoming the truest version of yourself. They have always been a part of my journey, and I sincerely hope they will be a part of yours too.
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