According to a study from Spain’s Center of Sociological Investigations (CIS after its Spanish acronym), 44.1% of men in Spain believe that gender equality initiatives in favor of women has gone so far that there is now discrimination against men. 32% of women surveyed agreed.
The same study also found that women in Spain continue to do more of the housework and much more of the childcare work than men do on average.
There’s a lot to unpack in this study, and we can’t ignore that gender equality and gender issues in general have been in the headlines in Spain in the past year, adding a context that makes a direct comparison to a global context more challenging and nuanced, but the general takeaway is this: There is clearly a growing perception from some men that discussions of equity threaten to take away their power or status.
This comes up again and again. Whether true or imagined, the answer can’t be “too bad,” because men do hold power, so an adverse reaction to equity is dangerous for efforts to promote equity and DEI initiatives.
What can be done?
Everyone in the field of DEI (practitioners, vendors, advocates, and folks with a general passion for it — by the way, Spanish has a great word for this last group which would be “aficionados”) needs to be explaining that these initiatives are not about making anyone lose anything. They’re actually about being inclusive and, inasmuch as there is a threat, about making people earn what they have in the workplace, which is actually ideal for corporations.
That needs to be the core message because without that, we’ll continue to see results like this and they’ll continue getting worse.
Link to the article (which is in Spanish so use google translate if you can’t read it): Un 44,1% de los hombres cree que la promoción de la igualdad ha llegado tan lejos que ahora se les discrimina a ellos - https://lnkd.in/e-nHWFRW
