For All The Men Cheering Us On

Some of my favorite memories from high school are of shooting baskets with my Dad after dinner in the driveway. Actually, it was me shooting and my Dad rebounding so that I could perfect my shot.

Dad was all-in in supporting my basketball dreams. He attended every game. And, when the cheerleaders at my school balked at cheering for the girls’ team, Dad stepped up and led every cheer from the bleachers…and sometimes from center court. By the end of the season, he’d earned a varsity letter in cheerleading. Somewhat embarrassing at the time, but in hindsight, the ultimate act of support.

Dad wasn’t just all-in on my high school basketball career, he was all-in for all my dreams — helping me with my calculus homework, proofreading my college essays, encouraging me to do better.

On this Father’s Day, I’d like to take a moment to thank my Dad, my husband, and all the men out there — whether they are fathers or not — who have helped or are helping women make the most of their dreams.

I thank them for recognizing that helping a woman to succeed, whether she’s a classmate, a colleague, an employee, a friend, a girlfriend, or a wife, is not a zero-sum game. The fundamental truth that’s getting borne out by research every day is that when women advance, families, businesses, and all of society advance as well. A recent McKinsey study found that if women and men were to enjoy equal footing in the workplace and labor market, the world would be a lot richer, an additional $28 trillion richer.[1]

Over the past year, we’ve been buffeted by daily revelations of harassment, abuse, and worse committed by famous men, particularly in the workplace. Some very powerful and even once-beloved men have been brought very low. And deservedly so. Because of the courageous women who have stepped forward to confront their abusers, society might at long last be changing, and some of the most stubborn barriers to women’s advancement might finally be falling.

Bosses Who Are Doing The Right Thing

But I don’t want to lose sight of the men who have been doing the right thing all along. And the good men we will need to keep recruiting as allies and leaders in the fight for equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal rights for women.

Perhaps it’s an indication of my age and the industries I’ve worked in that I have never had a female boss. Every boss I’ve ever had has been a man — and the success I’ve had in my career would not be possible without those professors, bosses and mentors who recognized my potential and gave me a chance to contribute:

The professors who told me I was good enough to take the highest-level math and statistics classes at Carnegie Mellon and made sure I did. My first boss at Merrill Lynch who shared a piece of advice that guides me to this day. “Always know how much profit you’re generating,” he said, “Know the value of what you are delivering.” Women, he warned, don’t always get full credit on the subjective indicators, so be diligent about tracking the objective measures of your contributions.

My first boss in Silicon Valley encouraged me when I was fresh out of business school to push myself and roll out my own coverage as an analyst and then protected me from layoffs in the wake of the 2001 dotcom crash. That same boss made a point of seeking out and introducing me to senior women in the Valley who could serve as my mentors. And I’ll always be grateful to the boss who ignored the advice of recruiters and decided to take a chance on a first-time CFO, launching my career in the C-suite.

Even now, men still hold the overwhelming majority of executive roles in business, in restaurants, in government. Last year, the number of women leading Fortune 500 companies fell by 25%, reducing women’s already sparse representation to less than 5 percent of all Fortune 500 CEOs. Let’s face it, until we finish breaking that glass ceiling, men still have more power to hire, to change discriminatory or biased policies, and to create opportunities for women. They have the power to support women at home — to share parenting duties and housework so that their partners, if they so desire, can pursue careers outside the home. We’ve got to encourage more fathers to participate equally in the care of their children, and more male executives to use their power to promote women in the workplace. We won’t achieve true gender equality until we do.

Raising Feminist Sons

As parents of two boys, my husband and I are trying our hardest to raise future feminists. Even though my husband has a high pressure and intense job of his own, my sons see their dad taking on housework, taking responsibility for their schedules, picking up and dropping them off at school and hockey or lacrosse practice. We’re striving to raise boys and future men who, like their grandfathers and father before them, will root for the success of the women in their lives — and will view powerful and strong women working in every industry as the norm, not the anomaly. My boys take pride in the fact that their mom is a CEO and hopefully won’t end up with the same unconscious bias that plague so many.

So, to all the fathers out there who are serving as their daughters’ top cheerleaders and as their sons’ feminist role models, thank you.

Happy Father’s Day.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/how-advancing-womens-equality-can-add-12-trillion-to-global-growth