I’m getting a slight sense of deja vu.

A few years ago I sat and wrote a piece for International Women’s Day.

The piece was titled ‘I love being a woman, but’ and I’m pleased to say it was Creativebrief’s ‘most read’ piece that week.

I wonder who read it.

I can guess it was largely a female audience.

Which is great. But more and more, I realize that we need to speak to - and actively include - men in the conversation about equality. Because despite what the myths and misinformation on the topic would have us believe, men have as much to gain from greater equality as women do.

In more equal countries, human beings are generally happier and healthier. There is less crime, more creativity and higher educational attainment. And in hard cash terms, the gender pay gap is estimated to be costing the world economy $7 trillion due to the gender pay gap which is exacerbated by gender biases and inequalities that place women in low-wage occupations.

We need men’s help. To help us all.

But, sadly, there seems to be a widening divide.

A stark ideological gap between the sexes is emerging globally. According to a Financial Times analysis, in the UK there is now a 25-percentage point gap between men and women's political stances, with women becoming more liberal and men growing more conservative in their viewpoints. 

Myths and misinformation have been weaponized in a strange and fruitless battle; ‘The Gender Wars’.

It works - and pays - really well for those who are looking for anger-fuelled clicks.

For example, The Telegraph released an article ahead of International Women’s Day with the suitably divisive headline:

‘Women’s equality has gone too far, say half of Britons’.

If you read the actual research from Ipsos upon which the rash headline is based, it’s neutral and credible but this article, like many, happily pours petrol on the already hotly disputed topic around equality.

A hot take has people believing that any gain by one group is somehow at the detriment of another. These myths and misinformation have many intelligent men (and women) thinking and saying that in the current world of work, more women than men are being promoted and hired in a bid to rebalance the imbalance. 

More than one (arguably) intelligent man has actually said to me “I’ve got no hope of promotion nowadays.”

But it’s simply not true. 

Besides my progressive views, I’m strangely old fashioned when it comes to facts. Humour me whilst I share some. In 2023, across the FTSE 350 companies, 50% more men than women were appointed to exec and top leadership jobs. And men still make up over 90% of board positions. Factually speaking, a 2022 report from Deloitte revealed that only 6.7% of chairs on boards were held by women.

It’s an entirely false narrative that “Women are being promoted more than men”. And it’s false narratives such as this that are feeding a huge backlash against gender equality. A huge backlash before we’ve even made the smallest of dents. (And no, that’s not a gendered joke about driving skills.)

The thing about humans, and how we’ve been trained by societal norms, is that our perceptions are warped. Research shows that if women take up 30% of a space they’re believed to be dominating. Just 15% of women in a space ‘feels’ equal. In short, men assume women are dominating the conversation when we speak just 30% of the time. 

Busting the equality myth

Don’t let the myths and misinformation spread by populist media and social media algorithms addle your mind and have you saying things like “They’re only promoting women now.” It’s not only inaccurate, it’s insulting. If you do see that a woman has been promoted, perhaps consider the fact that women over-index in the qualities proven to make the most effective leaders: emotional intelligence, self-awareness, humility, integrity, and coachability, to the extent that if we hired based on those qualities right now, 70% of leaders would be women.

In reality, we’re nowhere close to equality, yet alone female domination. And still, thanks to the myths and misinformation, the majority of men (53%) now feel that they’re the ones being discriminated against. Gen Z men are even more likely to believe that they are being actively discriminated against than older men.

Perhaps surprisingly, 16-29-year-olds are more negative about feminism than men over 60. Clearly social media plays a huge role. We’ve all (unfortunately) heard of the self-professed ‘misogynist influencer’ Andrew Tate who utilized social media to reach boys to exploit their naivety and confusion around the topic, converting them to a misogynist mindset in alarming numbers. (Tate is awaiting trial for charges of human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. Which he denies.)

But make no mistake, Tate is a symptom, not the problem. Even if he were to disappear in jail there are plenty of equally influential alternatives waiting in the ‘manosphere’. And the impact of their zealously anti-women narratives is very real. New research from Vodafone found that 70% of teachers today have reported a rise in sexist language in the classroom over the past year, and one in five parents say they've also noticed a gradual negative shift in the language their sons use to talk about women and girls. Educators describe “an obvious harshening of the way boys talk about women; and a growing sense that somehow they must be mistreated and hated.” 

And it doesn’t stop there. Misogyny and other forms of discrimination are inextricably linked. Official statistics released by the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners in 2022, showed a 24% increase in hate crimes across England and Wales compared with the previous year. The majority of hate crimes were racially motivated (70% of 109,843 offences). Sexual orientation hate crimes increased by 41%, disability hate crimes increased by 43%, and transgender identity hate crimes increased by 56%.

This all paints a worrying image for the future when you consider that six-in-10 (69%) boys aged 11-14 have been exposed to online content that promotes misogyny and other harmful views. And it’s not that they’re seeking out this content, they’re often being led to this content through innocent and unrelated searches due to AI algorithms.

Ah yes, AI. Brilliant on the one hand. Biased on the other. But as more and more of us turn to AI, we’re likely to find results that reflect and perpetuate human biases within society and when such bias goes unaddressed, it hinders people’s ability to participate in the economy and society. It also reduces AI’s potential because businesses can’t benefit from systems that produce distorted results that foster mistrust amongst women, people of colour, people with disabilities, the LGBTQIA+ community, or other marginalized groups. The Brandtech Group's Head of Emerging Tech, Bekki Sykes, was so concerned about bias she created a tool to specifically address it, called Bias Breaker, which adds a layer of probability-backed inclusivity to prompts.

It’s not an easy fix. In the last week Google's AI tool, Gemini, has been in the press for being inaccurately, over-politically correct.

Without wishing to sound naive and as someone who very much sees the immense potential of AI, perhaps it’s time we got a bit more HUMAN. 

Perhaps it’s time to appreciate that we are all dealing with our own challenges. Perhaps it’s time to be more curious about each other’s lived experiences. Let’s care less about manipulative headlines and more about the facts. Let’s care more about each other as fellow humans. 

Because there is quite literally nothing to be gained from either ‘side’ winning in the Gender Wars. There’s nothing to gain from winning at ‘having it harder’. 

But there is everything to be gained from working together. So instead of being another soldier in the sordid ‘Gender Wars’, join the good fight. 

The fight for humanity. 

Because greater equality really could benefit us all. 

Fact.

PS. I honestly think the world would be a better place if we all read Lori Meakin’s book No More Menemies. I’m in conversation with Lori this week in The Shard, as part of the Jellyfish program for IWD.