Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka, the United Nations Women Executive Director, officially inaugurated the Men Engage Symposium in 2014 by saying, "Gender equality can only be achieved if men and boys take full responsibility, working side by side with women and girls, to redress the dynamics that hinder progress". As a primer to our Conversation, the following resources were shared:

• Futures Without Violence offers a number of programs and initiatives toward the belief that men have a vital role to play in ending violence against women and girls.
• Insights on Engaging Men and Boys in Creating a More Gender Equal Future in Canada presents a national qualitative research study with key findings around how to get men committed to this work and their own liberation.
• The World Health Organization offers strategies for engaging men to address harmful masculinities and improve sexual and reproductive health and rights. 
• The Feminist Majority Foundation makes key points on why feminism is for men, too. 
• Women for Women International has focused on serving women affected by war and conflict since 1993. They also offer resources focused on engaging men knowing that when this occurs, the entire community supports women as they overcome social and economic barriers.

This Conscious Conversation discussed the ways in which you have experienced support from men as allies, how you wish they would engage further, and strategies that you have found successful for engaging men and boys in this work. What are ways in which you've found #HowToTalkWithMen? 

The Conversation began with the attendees sharing our names and titles, and then what drew us here. Common themes spanned both personal and professional reasons and included interest in how the topic was relevant to raising sons, bringing partners along in the work, the lived experience in working male-dominated fields, and the value that has been found in having male allies and their ability to bring other men along in this work in a way that women struggle to engage those same men.  Within the introductions, some horror stories from working in male-dominated environments were also shared; for example, the comments that were received not only from coworkers but the clients as well.

Good storied were shared next. Attendees acknowledged the work of women who came before and the need to pay it forward in terms of our work with men as allies to keep moving the needle. The group felt there was still significant work to be done in helping men understand their privileges and the role they can play in supporting women. Several attendees shared examples of where male colleagues had used their privilege to speak up about discrepancies in the workplace on the burden asked of women versus men. For example, women were quite often asked to perform many additional roles outside their job responsibilities in term of both overt labor in the form of secretarial work or volunteer and committee work, but also in covert ways such as proving additional emotional labor (i.e. woman as daughter, mother, or wife paradigm by Marjorie Hass). Many also reflected on how the dynamic in their family growing up, and parental approach to general inclusion, has framed expectations and how folks operate as adults.

Next, we watched a couple of quick videos together and reflected on their messages:

• As a Man, Four Things You Can Do to Be an Ally to Women
• TikTok Video by @expatriarch

Reactions to videos included the idea that while all of that is well and good, likely one would need to already be deeply invested in the topic to hear many of these messages. There probably is not a high chance that these videos alone are going to suddenly convert someone toward female allyship. Small actions can matter like actively using “she” as the generic pronoun. Others talked about the recognition of working through one’s own dissonance in engaging in the work; that you must recognize your own process of working through it. For example, the topic of asking marginalized groups to do some of the work for you. While that request alone can cause some folks to go on high alert, the overall message seemed well-balanced in how it was going about directly asking how one may be of assistance, while realizing there is work that can be done on one’s own time to become knowledgeable as well. It also became quite clear that different topics take front-and-center given the timing of the message and its relationship to all else that is going on in the world at that point in time.

The Conversation then shifted toward a cautious hopefulness. Again, the fact that a lot of progress has been made was acknowledged, particularly with the younger generation. But, on the flip side, we can all clearly identify where we are still witness to a lot of toxic masculinity. Taylor Swift provided a great example of this. Relatedly, the Conversation took the direction of how the FSAs could support our community through the upcoming election cycle. And we concluded by asking the specific question of what are the next steps then for the Women’s Commission?