It's time to address toxic masculinity at work

In This Week’s Email

• What’s on our mind: Tackling toxic masculinity at work
• Upcoming events: October is UK Black History Month
• Hustle Crew Academy: On-demand career skills training
• Techish podcast: Join us live in London
• Free inclusion resources

According to Oxford Languages, toxic masculinity is a ‘set of attitudes and behaviours stereotypically associated with or expected of men. It is regarded as having a negative impact on men and on society as a whole.’

These attitudes and behaviours may present themselves as:

• a man who who suffers pain in silence
• a man who who shows no emotions other than bravado or rage
• a man who does not depend on anyone
• a man who does not do anything that could be construed as weakness

How does it show up in the workplace?

In 2018, Jennifer L. Berdahl,Peter Glick, and Marianne Cooper asked thousands of workers in the U.S. and Canada from different organisations whether various masculine characteristics were highly prized in their workplace.

As a result, Jennifer L. et al (2018) found four masculine norms, which together encompassed a term called masculinity contest culture.

They also found the masculinity contest culture was highly correlated with organisational dysfunction:

1. “Show no weakness”: a workplace that demands swaggering confidence, never admitting doubt or mistakes, and suppressing any tender or vulnerable emotions (“no sissy stuff”).
2. “Strength and stamina”: a workplace that prizes strong or athletic people (even in white-collar work) or those who show off their endurance (e.g., by working extreme hours).
3. “Put work first”: a workplace where nothing outside the organization (e.g., family) can interfere with work, where taking a break or a leave represents an impermissible lack of commitment.
4. “Dog eat dog”: a workplace filled with ruthless competition, where “winners” (the most masculine) focus on defeating “losers” (the less masculine), and no one is trusted.

Impact on the workplace

According to Harvard Business Review, toxic masculinity at work creates pressure for employees to prove an “I have what it takes” attitude.

As a result, an employee shifts their focus from accomplishing organisational mission and objectives to proving masculinity.

As a result of this, the workplace has endless “mine’s bigger than yours” contests, such as taking on and bragging about heavy workloads or long hours, cutting corners to out-earn others, and taking unreasonable risks either physically (in blue-collar jobs) or in decision-making (e.g., rogue traders in finance). The competition breeds unspoken anxiety (because admitting anxiety is seen as weak) and defensiveness (e.g., blaming subordinates for any failure), undermining cooperation, psychological safety, trust in coworkers, and the ability to admit uncertainty or mistakes. Together this creates miserable, counterproductive work environments that increase stress, burnout, and turnover.

Similarly, Jennifer L. et al (2018) found numerous negative consequences that harm junior staff and put the organisation’s effectiveness and reputation at risk.

They found that organisations that score high on masculinity contest culture tend to have toxic leaders who abuse and bully others to protect their own egos.

Similarly, there is low psychological safety present in these organisations such that employees do not feel welcome or safe to express themselves in the workplace.

They also found these organisations have sexist climates where women experience either hostility or patronising behaviour; harassment and bullying, including sexual harassment, racial harassment, social humiliation and physical intimidation; higher rates of burnout and turnover; and higher rates of illness and depression among both male and female employees.

While we can identify toxic masculinity, doing something about it in the workplace can be a daunting challenge for business leaders.

What can we do about it??

Here are some steps you can take to combat toxic masculinity in your workplace.?

• To detoxify workplaces, organisations can promote more women to high responsibility jobs. Many studies have proven that this helps make the company culture evolve.
• Organisations can also organise awareness workshops, promote company diversity and equity values. Loudly championing change will help women feel more at ease to stand up to gender based inequality in their career progression.
• It is also very important to stress the fact that men should not feel pressured to adopt ‘manly’ codes. Men often even tend to outwit the manhood that is expected of them, for example, they might be reluctant to ask to work part-time to take care of their children as they assume that the company will more easily allow this to a woman. It is important to set an environment where gender norms and values are expected of colleagues in the workplace.
• Organisations must stress the importance of education and of integrating these issues into staff training, so that future employees and managers are aware of those gender stereotypes and biases in companies that they need to work against. It is a way of raising awareness at an early stage and preventing such behaviour from happening in the workplace.

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Upcoming Events

October is UK Black History Month and you can catch Hustle Crew Founder & CEO Abadesi at the following events:

• 4th October at OpenCast HQ
• 6th October at StackWorld Women & Power Summit
• 10th October at the NED Club in London
• 11th October at Babes on Waves mentoring
• 24th October at Huckletree
• 25th October at Techish LIVE

Hustle Crew Academy

This year we launched our first ever fully-funded accelerator Playschool for early stage founders who value inclusion.

We wrapped up our three-week accelerator last week with:

• a networking session and photoshoot at Huckletree East
• a dinner with founders and mentors at Bao, Shoreditch.

We’ll be sharing more stories from the cohort soon, and giving you access to all the expert-led talks from the programme through our online Academy.

Playschool founders and mentors at Huckletree East, London, 22 September 2023 (not all the founders are pictured here because some were getting their headshots done ?? by the talented Chidinma Chuku)

Join Techish LIVE in London on 25th October

Listen to our Top Ten in UK charts podcast?LIVE in London, grab your ticket here — co-hosts Michael and Abadesi dive into the essential stories across tech and pop culture??????.

Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts to get a shoutout on the show! ??

Free inclusion resources

• Understanding Bias Cheat Sheet
• 10 Ways to Create Impact with Your Inclusion Initiatives
• Inclusion Scorecard