For male allies
You don't have to be a woman to help change the conditions. You may work beside her, support her, or make decisions that affect her working life. Your role may give you access to information, opportunities or decision-makers she can't easily reach. What matters is how you use that access, and whether it helps on her terms.
There is a place for you here. The starting point isn't speaking for women. It's listening, examining what you can influence and taking responsibility for your part.
You don't need to have all the answers. Allyship isn't a title this website awards. It's something you practise through the decisions you make, the opportunities you share and the commitments you keep.
A practical guide
Some barriers are easier to notice when you experience them yourself. If you're beginning to see something you missed, start there: listen, learn and look at what you can change.
These follow the meeting practices in the Bias Interrupters meeting toolkit from the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Law San Francisco.
Use your network to open doors, not only to amplify posts. Offer relevant introductions, recommendations and speaking opportunities, with her agreement.
These are practical recommendations, not tested ways to advance anyone's career.
When she trusts you with a concern, start with sections 1 and 2 below. The sections after that go further into decisions, sponsorship and follow-through.
1 · Start with what she wants
She may have thought carefully about whether to tell you. She may not yet know what she wants to do, or whether she wants to do anything at all. You don't need to resolve that for her. Thank her for trusting you, and give her time. Being heard without being pushed toward a decision can help in itself.
Before offering advice or taking action, you might ask:
She may want perspective, a source, a question to ask or time to think. She may not want anyone to step in. Useful questions:
Don't make your support depend on her making a complaint, confronting someone, leaving her job or sharing more than she chooses.
2 · Be clear about your limits
Be honest about what you can keep private. If your role carries reporting or other obligations, explain those limits before she shares details.
Don't forward messages, identify her to others, contact her employer or use her account as an example without her agreement.
3 · Examine the decisions you influence
You can examine the practices within your own responsibilities.
Who receives visible, career-building work? Who handles the coordination and follow-up that keep things moving? Are those contributions recognized in workload, evaluation and advancement? How are people selected for stretch assignments, training and time with senior leaders?
Is the person who did the work credited when it's presented? Who gets to explain the technical judgment behind a recommendation? Does responsibility come with the authority needed to deliver? When someone's contribution is overlooked, can you correct the record accurately?
Are the criteria specific enough for candidates to understand? What does feedback such as "executive presence" mean in observable terms? Are candidates assessed against the same requirements? Who can explain the decision, and what would qualify someone for the next opportunity?
Can the organization explain how pay decisions are made? Do people have the staffing, budget, information and decision rights their roles require? Who can review an inconsistency? What would show that an agreed change actually happened?
These are questions to look into, not proof that a particular decision was unfair.
4 · What you can do from your role
Examine how advancement decisions are made, who is accountable for them, and where barriers recur across the organization.
Look at decision authority, promotion criteria and whether responsibilities are spread unevenly.
Make technical contributions visible, attribute credit accurately and examine who receives decision authority.
Listen, respond to concerns fairly, and give feedback specific enough to act on.
Open access to opportunities. Put qualified candidates forward using clear criteria and specific evidence of their contributions.
Help examine the workplace conditions, not only the individual's behaviour.
Support evidence-based improvements to institutions, policy and law.
Listen, help find an original source, or offer the practical help she actually wants.
5 · If you're a sponsor
Advice can be valuable. But be clear whether you're offering advice, making an introduction, recommending someone for an opportunity, or advocating for her where decisions are made. Ask yourself:
Be clear about what you can offer, what is outside your control, and when you'll follow up. Don't promise a promotion or opportunity you can't deliver.
Why sponsorship matters. In the 2025 Women in the Workplace study, 31% of entry-level women had a sponsor, compared with 45% of entry-level men, and employees with sponsors were promoted at nearly twice the rate of those without. Women with sponsors were promoted at 1.7 times the rate of women without one; for men, it was 2.0 times.
Source: McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org · 2025 · Women in the Workplace 2025. Workforce data from 124 organizations and a survey of about 10,000 of their employees in the United States; it shows a link between sponsorship and promotion, not proof that sponsorship caused it.
Keep the door open. Women shouldn't lose access to meetings, feedback, mentoring or introductions because someone feels unsure about working with them. If one-on-one meetings make you uneasy, set the same arrangement for everyone, such as an open door or a group lunch.
Source: LeanIn.Org and SurveyMonkey · 2019 · Men continue to pull back from interacting with women. In this survey, 36% of men said they had avoided mentoring or socializing with a woman because they were nervous about how it would look. A United States survey from 2019; the practical advice above is ours.
6 · When you see something yourself
You don't always need a woman to explain a problem before you examine your own conduct or a process you manage. Possible responses:
Avoid inventing motives or presenting your interpretation as her account. If stepping in could identify her or affect her situation, talk with her first where you can.
Challenge the remark. Check in privately. When a sexist remark is made in a group, challenge the remark without speaking for her. Consider the circumstances and her safety. Check in privately afterward, and respect her choices about what happens next.
Source: Huang and Evans, UBC Sauder School of Business · 2026 · How male leaders should address sexist remarks. Experiments with 1,216 women in the United States; the findings describe responses in study settings, not every workplace. Her safety and wishes come first.
Fictional example
A director tells a senior colleague she was passed over for promotion. The feedback was that she needs "more executive presence."
An unhelpful response would be to decide straight away that she needs coaching, or that discrimination has been established. A more useful one might be:
If the colleague takes part in promotion decisions, there's a separate question he can raise himself, without using her account:
The aim isn't to deliver a verdict. It's to keep her choices separate from his own responsibility for the processes he influences.
7 · If you're a partner or friend
Try not to turn the conversation into instructions such as "Just quit," "You have to report this," "You need to be more confident" or "I'll speak to them for you." A more useful starting point:
She remains the person deciding what happens next.
8 · Follow through without taking over
Before the conversation ends, be clear about:
When you get something wrong. If she corrects you, listen without asking her to reassure you. Acknowledge it, adjust what you do, and follow through.
What leaders told me
Across more than 1,000 interviews with male CEOs, I've asked about their biggest regret. The answer I heard most often was missing time with their children as they grew up.
Those interviews stayed with me. They made me question what workplaces reward: people's contributions, or how much of their lives they're prepared to give to work.
These experiences aren't the same as women's. But they give leaders another reason to ask whether constant availability is being mistaken for contribution, and what they could change now rather than regret later.
— Darrell Ellens
These are my own interviews and observations, not a representative survey.
The two-way chart applies here too
From one woman toward institutions, you can help her find information, clarify a question or support a step she chooses. From institutions back to one woman, you can check whether the policies and decisions you're responsible for are understandable, usable and followed through.
Those are connected, but they're not the same permission. Her private experience doesn't become organizational evidence or research material just because you want to help.
Choose a place to start
Work through a question
Use the eight questions to separate events, interpretations, uncertainty and possible responses.
Use the eight free questions →Explore the evidence
Read the workplace research, including what each finding does, and does not, establish.
Explore Women at Work →Understand institutional change
Trace the connections between experience, collective action, evidence, authority and law.
Explore Changing the Rules →Discuss a possible collaboration
If your role involves supporting women or changing workplace practices, tell me the question you want to look into. Please don't send someone else's confidential account.
Discuss a collaboration →These resources can inform professional conversations and leadership practice. Using them doesn't create training, certification, endorsement or partnership, or permission to present these methods as validated.
Further reading: Catalyst · 2025 · Why we're focusing on Mutual Accountability, Real Change (MARC) · Catalyst's program for engaging men in gender partnership. Listed as an outside resource, not a partnership or endorsement.
You don't need to be the centre of the story to contribute. Listen carefully, use your influence responsibly, and do what you agreed to do.