Searching for ‘male allies:’ Looking for positives in fact women’s leadership event draws few men

RALEIGH – Over 900 attendees filled the Raleigh Convention Center today, packing the rooms of the Raleigh Chamber’s Women’s Leadership Conference 2022.

Topics included how to challenge traditional workplace norms, ensure gender parity, and create an equitable environment for all.

Overwhelmingly, most of the attendees were women.

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“I can’t thank you enough, the male allies that are here,” said Jim Hansen, who represented the conference’s lead sponsor, PNC. “And I wish me had more, and we’re going to continue growing and working hard to grow it up.” Hansen is the Regional President of Eastern Carolinas at PNC.

Shelley Westman, Senior Enterprise Transformation Leader at Wolfspeed, Inc., started attending the Chamber’s women’s conference in 2018.

Not many men were in the crowd at women’s leadership conference in Raleigh. (Photo by Sarah Glova)

Westman said that she was glad to see some male attendees at this year’s conference.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of men at this event,” said Westman. “Because really, as women, we need more men as allies, standing up for our rights, standing up for the next generation of women, and making sure that women have an equal footing.”

Wolfspeed was also a conference sponsor, and the organization’s CHRO, Margaret Chadwick, was on the 2022 Task Force Committee for the conference.

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“To me, it was really great looking across the room and seeing the men who came to support women during this event,” said Westman.

Also in attendance was Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Stewart, a Raleigh City Council member who has also served as Mayor Pro Tem since January 2021.

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Stewart said the question of men at a women’s conference was not “an either-or” but a “yes, and.”

“So, yes, women need these spaces to be together—helping each other understand that we see each other, we’re experiencing the same thing, and we’re not alone,” said Stewart. “And, we need another space where, maybe we bring one or two men from our organizations in, and say, ‘We need to do this together. I need you to learn with me, so we can grow together.’”

When the burden of changing workplace culture falls on women and people of color

One of the packed breakout rooms focused on “Creating a Culture to Support Women”. The conversation started as an exploration of how companies can create equitable environments that support women. But it morphed when audience members began asking questions.

Participants asked the panelists how women might address workplace discrimination or challenge male leadership—without risking their jobs.

One of the panelists was Wendy Gates Corbett, President of Refresher Training and the current Director-at-Large of the Association of Talent Development (ATD) RTP Chapter.

“The question I heard was, ‘How can I speak up without risking—or, how can I speak up and not offend someone, potentially, by speaking up?’” said Corbett during the session. “And that’s part of communication, that’s part of the trust. You can say something like ‘I’m gonna risk saying something, and I hope that you can hear this with the intention that I have behind it.’”

Stewart said that the challenges women have—to balance their individual careers while also driving greater workplace culture changes—is not a new challenge.

“So it’s nothing new,” said Stewart, “but it’s exhausting. It’s what they call ‘emotional labor’ that we constantly do, as women and people of color, and it’s hard to flip it on its head, especially when the men aren’t in the room to hear it.”

She also said that the panel helped to highlight how everyone has a place in workplace culture-building.

“It’s not the folks at the top that create the culture,” said Stewart. “It’s everybody. And it’s how we treat one another.”

Keynote speaker Rebecca Ryan also mentioned male allies.

“Let’s not fall into this binary that we’re in an ‘either or’ trap,” said Ryan from the stage. “That’s an illusion. The truth is we want all people to prosper.”

The conference was held on Tuesday at the Raleigh Convention Center.