Catalyst Blog

Are you a Catalysto?

A Catalysto is a man who wholeheartedly supports the work of Catalyst. He is an advocate for women, a role model for other men, and a positive force for change.

Catalystos are influential. In March, at the 2010 Catalyst Awards Conference, Frank J. McCloskey, Vice President of Diversity at Georgia Power and a true Catalysto—spoke about the impact one voice can have in the fight against inequity. “If you can just get one or two of several hundred to understand [gender inequity]—that’s a success,” said Frank. “They might impact millions.”

With this in mind, I wanted to amplify the voices of the Catalystos I knew. And I’ve started with the ones closest to me—the men who work at Catalyst.

I asked them why they support our mission, and I’ve broken their responses into two blog posts. I’ve changed their names to protect their privacy.

These Catalystos have some common traits, including a deep-rooted sense of empathy and fair-play. I was inspired by their answers. Hopefully, you will be too.

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Todd, Marketing and Public Affairs:

I come from a family predominantly of men (father and three brothers). My mother, not allowed to maintain a profession once a wife and mother (a nasty combination of religious, cultural, and patriarchal beliefs), channeled her formidable entrepreneurial and natural talents into creating sons who believed in boundless opportunities for themselves—a great challenge since we were in rigid boarding schools by first grade! She was my biggest and most unflappable fan—another challenge since I was not becoming a priest as assumed by said boarding school (and father).

I was in my late teens when my parents divorced and my mother found herself quite free to pursue her passions. She went back to her profession of nursing where I witnessed her nurture in ways I could only envision being honored to do. My own career has been very much shaped by my mother. Since her passing, I have worked solely for women and for women’s causes, and I have been extremely satisfied in those choices.

Jeffrey, Information Technology:

My wife works as a chemist and I saw that her pay is not the same as her male colleagues. Most of her supervisors are men. Hopefully, she could get paid the same someday and move up to better opportunities within her company. I do think many women out there also experience this.

Connor, Consultant:

Social justice has been a core concern of mine all of my adult life.  As a consequence, I have been involved in one form or another with empowering those at the margins.  Having worked in both corporate life in the States and having lived and worked in the developing world for ten years, I have witnessed firsthand the disparities in both access and equity so many women face every day at home and at work. I believe passionately that Catalyst’s mission, and the delivery of its expertise, has the potential to ably address these issues within corporate culture, and hence, to more broadly influence women’s lives across the vast expanse of their endeavors.

Vincent, Information Technology:

Since my wife and I are expecting a daughter soon, I care about the Catalyst mission now more than ever. I hope that my daughter never meets with discrimination based on stereotypes so that she can do and be whatever she wants.

Change can happen in the least likely of places.

At the Waldorf during our Awards Conference in March, I overheard a well-dressed man grumble: “Now I know what it feels like to be a woman.” He didn’t say this during a break-out session—he was waiting in a long line for the men’s bathroom! Staff at the hotel had converted several Men’s rooms to Ladies rooms— hence the shortage.

But the comment got me thinking…sometimes all it takes to understand another person’s perspective is to stand in their shoes—even for a brief moment.

At the conference, Frank J. McCloskey, Vice President of Diversity at Georgia Power, explored this very theme. During a session on men supporting women’s advancement, Frank said his upbringing had conditioned him to be a “typical guy.” Raised in the South, he played football at Georgia Tech, drank beer, and never thought about inequality. “Men—we are just who we are—we are not a very evolved species,” he mused. He said he suffered from a “pathology” that held “anyone who is different is less than.”

Frank had an “a-ha” moment on inequality when he revisited a painful episode involving his wife Debbie. “Whatever progress I have made in my own way was because of pain I inflicted on someone else,” he said. Empathy was the key to understanding his wife’s perspective.

Frank recalled that when Debbie was pregnant with their first child, she asked him pointedly: “Are we going to do this together?” Frank responded: “I’ll be with you all the way.” But soon after their child was born, Frank was offered a promotion. “It was a 2 year commitment— 24/7— and I accepted it,” he said.

It wasn’t until years later that he understood what he had done to his wife. And he felt terrible. He had accepted the promotion “without thinking of the consequences it would have on her and the child,” he explained, noting that the incident had been “the first time in our relationship that we had a breach of trust.”

Life lessons were thrust into sharp relief. “I managed to understand that maybe someone else has a different life experience. And once I started hearing other women’s voices…I was hearing things that were so difficult to hear,” he said. For most of his life he tried to minimize those voices and blame the women so that he would feel comfortable. “It took me a long time…to acknowledge that maybe something is going on with others that is not going on with me.”

This realization led Frank to ask himself two questions: “What am I doing to create that experience for you? And what should I do with myself to counter it?”

At Georgia Power, Frank oversees an array of gender initiatives. He believes that “leadership means men being part of the solution.” They should “unravel the pathology, hold themselves accountable.” He now believes, he said, that “if anything takes away from women as a whole, I should fight it.”

Catalyst research suggests that before individuals will support efforts to right an inequality they must first recognize that the inequality exists. Here is Frank’s advice for men on creating awareness: “Who are those that are closest to us outside of work—wife, daughter, sister?” he asked. “Say to them, ‘Help me understand how your life is different from mine.’”

For the women reading this, I’ll add some advice of my own. Allow the men you know to see the world from your eyes. Share your experiences. It can change their perspective, or even their lives.