(Cheers)

Wait, wait. What?

What do men have to do with gender equality?

Gender equality is about women, right?

I mean, the word gender is about women.

Actually, I'm even here speaking as a middle class white man.

Now, I wasn't always a middle class white man.

It all happened for me about 30 years ago when I was in graduate school,

and a bunch of us graduate students got together one day,

and we said, you know, there's an explosion

of writing and thinking in feminist theory,

but there's no courses yet.

So we did what graduate students typically do in a situation like that.

We said, OK, let's have a study group.

We'll read a text, we'll talk about it,

we'll have a potluck dinner.

(Laughter)

So every week, 11 women and me got together.

(Laughter)

We would read some text in feminist theory and have a conversation about it.

And during one of our conversations,

I witnessed an interaction that changed my life forever.

It was a conversation between two women.

One of the women was white, and one was black.

And the white woman said --

this is going to sound very anachronistic now --

the white woman said, "All women face the same oppression as women.

All women are similarly situated in patriarchy,

and therefore all women have a kind of intuitive solidarity or sisterhood."

And the black woman said, "I'm not so sure.

Let me ask you a question."

So the black woman says to the white woman,

"When you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror,

what do you see?"

And the white woman said, "I see a woman."

And the black woman said, "You see, that's the problem for me.

Because when I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror," she said,

"I see a black woman.

To me, race is visible. But to you, race is invisible. You don't see it."

And then she said something really startling.

She said, "That's how privilege works.

Privilege is invisible to those who have it."

It is a luxury, I will say to the white people sitting in this room,

not to have to think about race every split second of our lives.

Privilege is invisible to those who have it.

Now remember, I was the only man in this group,

so when I witnessed this, I went, "Oh no."

(Laughter)

And somebody said, "Well what was that reaction?"

And I said, "Well, when I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror,

I see a human being.

I'm kind of the generic person.

You know, I'm a middle class white man. I have no race, no class, no gender.

I'm universally generalizable."

(Laughter)

So I like to think that was the moment I became a middle class white man,

that class and race and gender were not about other people,

they were about me.

I had to start thinking about them,

and it had been privilege that had kept it invisible to me for so long.

Now, I wish I could tell you this story ends 30 years ago

in that little discussion group,

but I was reminded of it quite recently at my university where I teach.

I have a colleague, and she and I both teach the sociology of gender course

on alternate semesters.

So she gives a guest lecture for me when I teach.

I give a guest lecture for her when she teaches.

So I walk into her class to give a guest lecture,

about 300 students in the room,

and as I walk in, one of the students looks up and says,

"Oh, finally, an objective opinion."

All that semester, whenever my colleague opened her mouth,

what my students saw was a woman.

I mean, if you were to say to my students,

"There is structural inequality based on gender in the United States,"

they'd say, "Well of course you'd say that.

You're a woman. You're biased."

When I say it, they go, "Wow, is that interesting.

Is that going to be on the test? How do you spell 'structural'?"

(Laughter)

So I hope you all can see,

this is what objectivity looks like.

(Laughter) (Applause)

Disembodied Western rationality.

(Laughter)

And that, by the way, is why I think men so often wear ties.

(Laughter)

Because if you are going to embody disembodied Western rationality,

you need a signifier,

and what could be a better signifier of disembodied Western rationality

than a garment that at one end is a noose and the other end points to the genitals?

(Laughter) (Applause)

That is mind-body dualism right there.

So making gender visible to men

is the first step to engaging men to support gender equality.

Now, when men first hear about gender equality,

when they first start thinking about it,

they often think, many men think,

well, that's right, that's fair, that's just,

that's the ethical imperative.

But not all men.

Some men think -- the lightning bolt goes off,

and they go, "Oh my God, yes, gender equality,"

and they will immediately begin to mansplain to you your oppression.

They see supporting gender equality something akin to the calvary,

like, "Thanks very much for bringing this to our attention, ladies,

we'll take it from here."

This results in a syndrome that I like to call 'premature self-congratulation.'

(Laughter) (Applause)

There's another group, though, that actively resists gender equality,

that sees gender equality as something that is detrimental to men.

I was on a TV talk show opposite four white men.

This is the beginning of the book I wrote, 'Angry White Men.'

These were four angry white men

who believed that they, white men in America,

were the victims of reverse discrimination in the workplace.

And they all told stories about how they were qualified for jobs,

qualified for promotions,

they didn't get them, they were really angry.

And the reason I'm telling you this is I want you to hear the title

of this particular show.

It was a quote from one of the men,

and the quote was,

"A Black Woman Stole My Job."

And they all told their stories,

qualified for jobs, qualified for promotions,

didn't get it, really angry.

And then it was my turn to speak,

and I said, "I have just one question for you guys,

and it's about the title of the show,

'A Black Woman Stole My Job.'

Actually, it's about one word in the title.

I want to know about the word 'my.'

Where did you get the idea it was your job?

Why isn't the title of the show, 'A Black Woman Got the Job?'

or 'A Black Woman Got A Job?'"

Because without confronting men's sense of entitlement,

I don't think we'll ever understand why so many men resist gender equality.

(Applause)

Look, we think this is a level playing field,

so any policy that tilts it even a little bit,

we think, "Oh my God, water's rushing uphill.

It's reverse discrimination against us."

(Laughter)

So let me be very clear:

white men in Europe and the United States

are the beneficiaries of the single greatest affirmative action program

in the history of the world.

It is called "the history of the world."

(Laughter) (Applause)

So, now I've established some of the obstacles to engaging men,

but why should we support gender equality?

Of course, it's fair, it's right and it's just.

But more than that,

gender equality is also in our interest as men.

If you listen to what men say about what they want in their lives,

gender equality is actually a way for us to get the lives we want to live.

Gender equality is good for countries.

It turns out, according to most studies,

that those countries that are the most gender equal

are also the countries that score highest on the happiness scale.

And that's not just because they're all in Europe.

(Laughter)

Even within Europe, those countries that are more gender equal

also have the highest levels of happiness.

It is also good for companies.

Research by Catalyst and others has shown conclusively

that the more gender-equal companies are,

the better it is for workers,

the happier their labor force is.

They have lower job turnover. They have lower levels of attrition.

They have an easier time recruiting.

They have higher rates of retention, higher job satisfaction,

higher