Flexible masculinities at work (Tool)
Executive Summary
Rigid gender-role expectations and why they are a problem in the workplace
In our daily lives, and especially at work, we face certain expectations about how we talk, behave, dress, and interact with others in person and online. Some of these expectations are explicit (e.g., your lunch break is 30 minutes) and some are implicit (e.g., you should respond to emails within four hours), and failing to meet them can result in consequences.
We also face expectations related to gender roles. These expectations are not based on any inherent or biological gender differences, but rather on gender stereotypes—the preconceptions about attributes or characteristics that ought to be possessed by people of each gender and the roles they should perform.1
Rigid gender-role expectations for men at work negatively affect men, women, nonbinary employees, and organizations because they restrict approved conduct to a very narrow slice of human behavior. In addition, they sanction negative repercussions, such as teasing and exclusion, when men deviate from mainstream expectations.2
In this tool, we explore the negative impacts of gender-role expectations and provide an opportunity for you to identify and deconstruct them.
Our goal is for readers—especially men—to recognize when and why rigid gender expectations persist within organizations and commit to actions that can facilitate more flexible notions of masculinity in the workplace.