This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Fair Share at Work: How Men and Women Create Gender Fairness Together with Dr. David Smith & Dr. Brad Johnson | 421

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

For years, conversations about gender equity at work have been framed as a women's issue. But what if that's the wrong conversation entirely? What if the real challenge isn't fixing women so they can survive outdated systems—but fixing the systems themselves? In this episode, Nicole sits down with Dr. David Smith and Dr. Brad Johnson, co-authors of Fair Share: How Men and Women Can Create a More Equitable Workplace Together, to unpack what true gender fairness looks like in today's workplace. Together, they explore why gender equity benefits everyone, how outdated workplace norms are hurting both women and men, and what leaders can do to create workplaces where people can thrive professionally and personally. This conversation challenges zero-sum thinking, dismantles harmful workplace myths, and offers practical strategies for building more equitable organizations—without pitting one gender against another. In This Episode We Discuss: What gender fairness actually means—and why it's not the same as treating everyone exactly the same Why gender equity benefits men, women, organizations, and families The myth that gender fairness requires men to lose in order for women to win Why workplace equity is a leadership responsibility, not a women's initiative How caregiving expectations impact career advancement for both women and men Why flexibility, caregiving support, and pay transparency matter The role leaders play in creating inclusive and equitable workplaces Gender fairness isn't about giving one group an advantage—it's about creating workplaces that reflect how people actually live, work, lead, and care today. When organizations stop trying to fix individuals and start fixing outdated systems, everyone benefits. Thank you to our sponsors! Elevate your summer wardrobe: Go to Quince.com/tiww for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns! Start your risk-free Greenlight trial today at Greenlight.com/TIWW. Don't wait to teach your kids real-world money skills! Go to https://CovePure.com/tiww to get $250 off. Thanks to CovePure for sponsoring this episode! Connect with David and Brad: Book: https://a.co/d/0gnzUCWN  Website: https://workplaceallies.com/  LI David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgsmithphd/  LI Brad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wbradjohnson/  Related Podcast Episodes: How To Navigate Parental Leave with Daphne Delvaux, Esq | 335 Women’s Role in Defining Masculinity with Moe Carrick | 252 177 / This Is A Man’s Job with Alison Armstrong Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you find it hard to sleep at night? Then the Sleepcove podcast can help you. Hi, I'm Christopher Fitten, the voice and clinical hypotherapist behind Sleep Cove. Sleep Cove features sleep hypnosis, meditations and bedtime stories, all designed to help those of you who struggle at night to achieve a restful and peaceful night's sleep. Search for Sleep Cove on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. and see why sleep cove helps millions of people sleep deeply all night long. David Gardner here.

For more than 30 years, I've been searching for the market's greatest rule breakers, the companies, ideas and leaders that change the world and reward investors playing the long game all the way through. On rule breaker investing, we go beyond the headlines and the hype to explore the mindset, the strategies and stories behind truly transformation. investing. If you're looking for hot tips, this may not be the show for you. But if you want to become a smarter, happier, richer, investor, and successful human being as well over time, join me every week on rule breaker investing. Full on. Quick pause. We expanded to YouTube because

we keep hearing, I needed this 20 years ago. And the next generation shouldn't have to wait. So tell the young women in your world who are scrolling and and watching to subscribe to This Is Woman's Work on YouTube. I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and what it feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today, which over 420 episodes has meant challenging outdated definitions, one size fits all solutions, all the shoulds and the supposed tos.

On this show, we acknowledge the paradox that there is no. no such thing as woman's work, and also that everyone can do it. Because woman's work is doing whatever feels true and real and right. It's being the decider for you. It's untangling yourself from expectations, opinions, and norms, which sounds simple, but it ain't easy. So we've filled these episodes with thought leadership, experiences, and expertise of women. But my intention has never been and will never be to advocate for women

at the expense of men. Equality that requires an entire gender to lose isn't equality. Women, of all people, should know that. If we actually want to change workplaces, leadership, caregiving, partnership, ambition, success, all of it, then everybody has to be part of the conversation, which is, of course, where it gets messy. Because conversations about gender fairness have become polarizing. Like if you acknowledge systemic barriers women face,

someone immediately assumes that you're anti-men. Or if men advocate for, listen to, or learn from women, they risk being seen as weak or soft. And often we worry that we'll say the wrong thing, so we say nothing. Which leaves us approaching gender fairness like it's a woman's initiative instead of a leadership responsibility. We keep trying to fix women so they can survive broken systems instead of fixing the systems themselves, which is why I've invited Dr. David Smith and Dr. Brad Johnson to the show, because their research, data, and experience point to something many organizations still

refuse to admit. The systems shaping work and home life are outdated for all of us. Women are still carrying disproportionate mental load and caregiving responsibilities while trying to advance professionally, while men are often discouraged from stepping fully into caregiving flexibility and partnership at home. And organizations are losing talent and trust by continuing to operate inside norms that no longer reflect how people actually want to live and work. They are the co-authors of the research-backed books, Good Guys, Athena Rising, and their newest release, Fair Share, how men and women can create a more equitable workplace together. David is a professor, researcher, and former Navy pilot whose work focuses on

allyship, inclusive leadership, gender bias, and dual career families. Brad is a clinical psychologist, former Navy officer, an award-winning mentor who has authored more than a dozen books and over 140 journal articles on mentorship, leadership, workplace relationships, and gender equity. Their work focuses on allyship and the interpersonal, public, and systemic ways men can collaborate with women to create workplaces that are genuinely fairer, healthier, and more effective for everyone. David, Brad, thank you so much for joining us. And let me start with this. How do you define gender fairness? Because that term alone probably means different things to

different people and probably get some different reactions. Yeah. So I'm just going to dive right in, Dave. I know you have thoughts about this. There are a lot of ways to think about gender fairness. some of the most obvious and some that may be most addressed in the research have to do with things like who represents in leadership in most organizations and companies. We know from all of the McKinsey data, including the most recent McKinsey survey, that we've got a long way to go in terms of getting to any kind of meaningful gender balance, anywhere from the director level all the way up to the, the C-suite, not to mention boards of directors. We have terrific gender imbalance when it comes to representation of women. How about retention? We can measure gender fairness in terms of who stays, who goes. We can look at the experiences of employees. We find significant gender discrepancies

there. And then let's talk about developmental relationships. All the research on who gets access, the things like sponsorship reveal that women have far less opportunity to have even informal interactions with people in meaningful leadership roles. So almost any way you slice it, we find gender disparities. And the heartbreaking piece here is that the World Bank estimates that we have maybe a century to go until we get to meaningful parity using all of those indices. I think one of the really interesting paradoxes of workplaces in our society today is really thinking about the idea that you mentioned was around gender roles and gender norms.

And I think that the idea that gender fair really has to do with the fact that we as human beings, however you identify from a gender perspective, we have a lot of different roles and responsibilities in our lives. And many times they overlap in a lot of different ways. certainly as being a parent, being a partner, being a provider, my work career is a part of who I am, part of my identity. And all of those are critically important to us in different ways at different times. And so to say that any one gender is just one of those, or it can only be in one of those domains and not the other, and it's just a reflection of outdated norms, right? That was the 20th century

or earlier centuries, right? That's not that's certainly the 21st century where today most of us live in dual career families. And certainly we all have roles and responsibilities that overlap in those ways. And so to be gender fair is looking at some of those typically gender-normed roles and responsibilities in a way that we can balance those.

We can begin to accept and allow us to thrive in all of those different places. And it doesn't really matter if it's around caregiving, domestic responsibilities, how you do that in the workplace, but allow us to thrive in all of those different ways and not confine us to any particular one or officially through some outdated norm. Okay. So in this sort of outdated norm bucket, I feel like I experience very often to big misconceptions. The first being that gender fairness is going to benefit women but negatively impact men, which isn't my hope nor my experience, but I would love to get your expertise,

research back, answer to that. Is this going to just benefit women or is there more to it than that? Yeah. Much in the way that Brad, you heard Brad and I talk about this, gender fairness really isn't about any specific one gender, right? This is, it should be, it should to be fair, it has to work for everyone. And that doesn't mean it works the same for everyone. It just works for everyone. And how, we do that in the same ways that I might want to combine, for example, work and family roles and responsibilities may be different than Brad's or different from yours. And so finding ways to be able to do that and to acknowledge that we have different needs and expectations and to shed some of those that are put upon us externally, right, by what we think of as pressures,

social pressures or expectations that people look upon us and that I should be doing something or I must be doing something in a certain way or must not be doing something in a certain way. And so to be fair, we need to be able to push all of that aside and to be able to step into those roles in a way that works for us depending on, again, it doesn't matter if you're men, if you're women, but it allows us to thrive at all the different ways that we maybe currently aren't able to

because, again, these social expectations and norms that are really holding us back. And I would just add to that, Nicole, you're sort of getting to this conversation, about zero-sum thinking, right? You know, only one gender can possibly benefit. If we're doing things to elevate women and give them opportunities, then that just shows men are going to lose out. What we've really failed to do, frankly, is show men what Dave and I call the witham, right, the what's in it for me. And there's so much here. We find gender equitable men in leadership

roles getting more opportunities for promotion. They're more likely to get to to the C-suite. If they show up with EQ, with curiosity, humility, a bias for inclusion, those are the men who are getting advanced today. These men also develop better EQ, better communication skills as a result of their gender collaboration work. And those are things I get to take home with me, right, to be a better parent, better partner. And let's not even, you know, we could spend time talking about how men's brains get healthier and improve when they're more involved in caregiving. There's so much in this for men, we have simply not shared with them the whiffam, and we need to do that more effectively. Yeah, I love that you said it that way

with them because I do get the sense that many men feel like we're asking them to give up or to lose in order for us to gain as opposed to, you know, the research that supports that we do all benefit. The second myth that is out there, quite a bit is that this is a woman's problem to solve as opposed to a leadership opportunity or leadership skill, whether we're talking about corporations or in communities or politics or what have you. What are your thoughts there? How much is this on the shoulders of women? And do you agree that this is more of a leadership thing? Agree 100% that this is a leadership issue. And you're exactly right, Nicole. This has been

framed as a women's concern forever. And I can't tell you how often Dave and I enter an organization, maybe to speak or talk to leadership. And you'll find very quickly that gender fairness initiatives, if they exist, tend to be siloed in the women's ERG or maybe, you know, an unfunded sort of strand of human resources. And they'll do tea and cookies on International Women's Day and say, yay, women, but they're really, there's no teeth. There's no commitment. You don't see it the rest of the year. So women are carrying the lion's share of the responsibility for making any progress in pushing this forward. And I think our messaging is, this is not a women's issue. This is a leadership, fundamental inclusive leadership issue. And we have got to do a better job reframing that.

Yeah, and I think in the same way that Brad's talking about, it's, you know, we have to restructure work in a way that works for everyone. And that fundamentally is a leadership issue, right? That takes all of us together. I think, you know, the one piece that I just want to make sure that we don't lose in this is that we are not advocating, as Brad said, you know, that we need to be fixing women. But women need to be at the table, right? They need to have a voice, and again, a fair share voice in this conversation about how this happens and what is needed. So it's not okay for in the same way.

It's not okay for men to go in and to change things in isolation. We're not going to get together in the back room and the way things have been done for a long time and decide, oh, this is how we're going to do things and this is what we're going to do for women. And that's not the right answer either, right? So men and women need to both be involved in there to make sure that we're accounting for people's experiences, people's needs, and expectations in a way that, again, we hear it in their voice and they're part of the decision making as well. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025.

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Yeah, lots of different examples. And what's interesting, I think, that we found in the research we did with Fair Share, one of the things we wanted to do very explicitly was look at, what does that look like in different industries, for example? And what does it look like in different sizes of organizations? Because a small business of maybe 100 or fewer employees might look a lot different than somebody who has 10,000 or 100,000 employees. And the opportunities to shape that and what that looks like could be very different out there. And so I think looking at kind of different sizes of organizations and the purpose or mission of the organization itself can take on a variety of different flavors. I'm going to kind of go to the middle and find maybe a happy middle in there.

One of the ones that I appreciated, I think, when we were doing the research, stood out to me was a software development company and a very innovative and providing customized solutions to their customers. So, again, a little bit out there, a little bit different than maybe looking at some of the larger tech organizations we might think of, but been around for many decades, right? So it's not a new startup in that way. And one of the things that struck me with them was in the conversation we have with their CEO was really about how he involved all the key people within the organization in the conversation about how they were doing the process of doing business, right?

And what mattered to them and what made them most effective in getting their job done. And so ultimately, this comes back to kind of that basic leadership tenant of, I just need to understand my people's needs and help to meet them where they are. And if I truly value who they are and what they do and the talents that they bring and how I can, you know, how that helps to accomplish what our job and our mission is in this company, then I'm going to, right, they're going to perform better if I help them to meet those needs. And so listening to them. And so like you said, having the curiosity to understand and also the humility, to recognize that I may not understand or know everything I need to know. And so I need to have that humility to really to seek out and have that curiosity to understand people's experiences because they may be experiencing things differently.

And so if I'm a man, for example, and I'm the CEO of the company, in this case it was, you know, reaching out to the women in his organization and really beginning to understand what the challenges they were facing and what he could do or what the company could do to help meet them where they were. in the same way, finding overlap between some of the men in the organization as well. And what worked well, you know, and where we found the common ground, as we think about finding gender fair policies or process or practices that work for everybody out there. One of the ones, for example, that they talked about was really around pay equity.

And again, as we think about fairness, pay is one of those places that I think it hits everybody in a very important place and something that's critical to all. of us and that we want to be valued for the work that we do. I want to know that I'm being valued in the same way that Brad's being valued or you're being valued, Nicole. And so he found it very important, the CEO in this case, found it very important to really demonstrate transparency around pay and benefits in the company. And it went to extremes, I think, to really demonstrate that. And he showed me, he's like, well, you know, I can't really tell you about it, but let me show you what it looks like. And he walked me to a board that was within the open spaces within the company

and could show me on this grid where just every employee worked on was in it had basically kind of like you think about it like a sticky note in one of those little grids. And it was divided up into a grid where I could look at levels of experience of years of experience and seniority and levels and functionality. So you could kind of look at people who look like you and what you do and see how much they were making and see that, okay, well, yeah, there's, there's something very close to, or maybe even exactly what I'm making, but understanding and, and recognizing that, oh, okay, I can see all of this. So I feel valued. And in the work that I'm doing, I'm motivated to it. I'm committed to the organization because the organization is committed to me. And again,

by creating this fairness through transparency around something that's important to all of us around pay, really helping people to thrive in all the different aspects of their work. What a great example, by the way, because maybe a touch too far, as you said, but I would appreciate a little bit too much transparency at this point as opposed to not enough, which is what I think most of us feel. Brad, did you have anything to add? No, that was the example. I was coming to mind for me.

I thought that was a terrific illustration of somebody who was walking the talk. We did have other organizations around. care, doing a really terrific job, actually doing what maybe we can call a care census, actually asking their employees, how many of you identify as caregivers? And if you're willing to self-identify, we would love to know that. And then, if you'd like us to share that information with your manager, we want to be an organization that is forward-thinking in terms of how to support our caregivers. And one way to do that is to degender care, not assume who caregivers are, actually ask people, and then tailor benefits, tailor schedules, tailor flexibility so that it fits

your individual needs. What would you say to the person who thinks fair means the same and they're listening and going, well, if somebody gets more flexibility or different support or whatever, that's not fair? Yeah, well, there's so many things to say about that. I mean, number one, if we're talking about things like flexible work benefits, you know, one of the big problems with those programs is that they have either only been available to women or when they're available to everybody, men don't take them or they are discouraged by their managers again, right? So for her, the manager may say, okay, I guess you're going to be gone for your, you know, three months of maternity leave.

For him, even though the company allows three weeks for men, the manager is going to go to him and say, hey, buddy, how much do you actually need? So from the very beginning, we're setting up gender discrepancy in who caregivers are. And, you know, that's a system that we've got to fix. So number one, men need to take part. They need to have access to those programs and benefits, including paid leave. And then we need to encourage equal uptake, equal use. I think that's how we begin to level the playing field around things like caregiving and flex work policies. One of the kind of nuances to that conversation that I always like to have is,

and Brad was kind of alluding to this, is that, you know, by providing same actions, or equal access, for example, to flex work or to caregiving policies that have often been looked at as women's policies. But by providing equal access to men to those and encouraging them, and almost to some extent, some companies even demanding that they use these policies appropriately, there's the ability then to for leaders to have to step up and think about how do I, role model. How do I lean in and find ways to do this and set the example, especially the more senior ones, for the junior men in the organization? Because again, if I'm not doing it, even though maybe I don't need flex work, right? It's okay. I mean, because of my circumstances, I don't necessarily need it. I have access to it. But if I at least use it and show other men that I'm, hey, it's okay to use it. Not as only is it okay, it's normal to use it. And I have good reasons to, and you should

too. And this is what it looks like when you use it. Then I'm role modeling it in a way that normalizes it and destigmatizes it in places where there is stigma associated with that. And that's just for the men. And certainly it's also beginning to destigmatize it and show women that, oh, yeah, so men are doing it. So in some cases, some women have tried to avoid it because, again, the stigma associated, with using some of these policies and programs, it's okay for me to use it too. So we begin to normalize that across the company when we can find ways,

even though we can provide equal access, that sameness to it, but even though I don't need it, I can use it in ways that shows that, hey, it's okay to do this. And Nicole, one key ally behavior here is pushing back on presenteism narratives. We got to interview Bridges Schulte for this.

book. And when she was at Washington Post as a reporter, she said there was an editor who would walk around the newsroom floor at close to midnight. And then he would later say, I know who all the good reporters are because they're here. She would, she, her comment about that was you should know who all the good reporters are by the quality of their work. So if men in particular are not willing to push back on the presenteism stuff and ask the question, does it really, matter where she's sitting today? Let's look at her work. Let's look at her results. I think then we begin to see progress. We've got to disrupt and push back. Hey there, I'm Travis Hoyum, one of the hosts of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Each weekday on Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, we talk through

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Each day, I talk with best-selling authors, entrepreneurs, doctors, educators, and educators, and thought leaders about the real challenges of modern life, raising kids, building meaningful work, navigating screens and AI, and creating a life that actually feels good to live. Join in the fun by searching for 1,000 hours outside wherever you listen to your podcasts. So couldn't agree more. And that perfectly leads to my next question around kind of role modeling, but more about where and from whom we learn leadership from. I think historically, we are seeing leadership represented predominantly from the masculine lens. And so we learn a lot about leadership under the hard work, grit, grind first,

and last out all these sort of mantras, if you will. And I know I've personally experienced this and I've talked to some other women where I'll speak at an event, a leadership event or a women's event. And somebody will come up to me, typically a man and be like, you know, this was so great. I'm going to get your book for my daughter, or I wish my wife would have heard this. And I think, and I'm totally open to you telling me I'm flat out wrong, but I think as women, we've been accustomed to learning about work and leadership from men.

We're used to doing it. I don't know how accustomed men are about learning about work and leadership from women, and does that need to change, and how do we do it? Yeah, I think there's a couple pieces to that. So one, the accustomed part for men has been challenging in some ways because we've long had workplaces and professions and industries out there that have long been majority men, right? So there haven't been a lot of women role models in there for them to have worked with, for them to have had as mentors or as sponsors in their organization.

That's changing today. And we're finding there are more of those out there. And I think what we find at least anecdotally is that, and talking to men who've had, in some cases, some of them have told us that, you know, I've only had women as bosses. So really, that is my, that's my, that's my, that's my structure. That's my way and my example around what leadership looks like. And so that's the way that they focus on it.

And they do. They lead a little bit differently because that's how they've looked at it. So again, I think we, we tend to look toward the people that we value and we really appreciate and look up to in our organizations. and that doesn't have to be at work only, right? Sometimes, again, we know that we do some of this, too, as parents, as caregivers and a lot of our roles out in the community and leadership, and sometimes it's very informal leadership and how we do that in working with different organizations and young people today. And in many ways, Brad and I have talked to lots of people about how, you know, the fact that, you know, getting to gender equity is often, we're told that it's going to take 100, 150 years to get there. But there's actually a way to do this where if we think about if we're all being good role models and socializing the next generation, that, you know, whether that's you as a parent or you influencing out through society and other organizations out there, we could actually have this occur, you know, have this shift and change occur within the next generation. So in the next 20, 30 years, things could happen really fast if we did this really well. And that's why I think the whole role modeling towards who we are as leaders, who in the aspect of who I am as a leader includes me as a caregiver. And it includes me in all of my different

roles that I have. And you should be able to see that to some extent. And I should be willing to share some aspects of that as appropriate with the people that I work with. And I think that's how we're going to move this faster. So I think there's a lot of value in thinking about who are the different role models, who are the variety of different mentors that I have that I can learn from. and develop these really important skills around vulnerability and transparency and empathy that are critical in today's workforce. Just a few extra things there, Nicole. I love your illustration about when you go to speak

and maybe you're not seen as a leader that a male would emulate. And a few things come to mind. There's a stream of research in psychology called the women are wonderful effect. So you ask men, hey, what do you think of women? And guys say notionally positive things. Like, oh, women are great. They're kind. They're gentle.

They're caring. I love women. What you're not hearing is the competence language, right? She's a rock star leader. She is super competent. I want to learn from her. You don't hear that language, which is partly why men don't naturally sponsor women quite as often. Second, men have got to be aware if they want to be advocates and allies in the workplace of research

like the tallest poppy study. So women who are ambitious, women who do make it to senior leadership, are quite likely to get undercut. They're likely to get sabotaged by both men and women, interestingly, I've got to be aware of that. So if I'm a male who wants to not only learn from women in leadership, but also support women who have finally made it,

I need to look for that kind of sabotaging behavior, pushback. One way I can do it is just share with other men, hey, she is really good at her job. Here's what I've learned from her. I think she's terrific. If more men would be raving fans of women who have made it to significant leadership roles, I think that would really help mitigate some of the bias you're referring to.

Yeah, and I would just reiterate. And then when you talk about those women to other people leaning on those competence, leadership, not just defaulting to this. She's wonderful. She's amazing. She does it all. A lot of the sort of default language that I think we use. This is a very simple tactic.

I'm just curious your opinions on it. One of the things my husband and I challenge each other on is, like, if I read a book on leadership written by a man, then I try to then read a book on leadership written by a woman. Or if I listen to a podcast about being a woman at work, then I'm going to listen to a podcast that's hosted by a man. Just forcing myself to get different perspectives. And I've just found that that makes my leadership and skill journey better and faster, but curious your thoughts on that.

I think that's a great tactic. I love that idea. You know, this is kind of coming down to exposure and who my models are kind of by choice. So I love that. Maybe a corollary to that. Dave and I often encourage men in leadership to really think deliberately about what we call their inner core, meaning, Who are those people close to you that you really engage with, that you learn from, and do they all look like you? And if that's the case, it's a fail, right? You've got to have a diverse inner core. You've got to be deliberate about it. Maybe there are some women in there. There are women of color.

There are people who show up differently around identity. And then you let them know, Ham, I'm learning a lot from you. I'm curious. I want to ask about your experience, and would you be willing to let me know if I am missing it? If I'm making mistakes, if I'm making assumptions, I'm kind of counting on you as part of my inner core to give me the hard feedback. Love it. What are some of the workplace norms that we keep pretending work that we're just holding on to

for old time's sake at this point that clearly don't work anymore that we should be aware of? So certainly, Brad mentioned the presenteism, right, FaceTime, all the different ways that we talk about that, that is not, if it ever was valid or true. It certainly isn't today. I think we've all learned that. And part of that is there's a myth out there that if I can't see you, then you're, how do I know you're being productive or you're not being productive? Right. And so there's this trust piece that we, I think we, we're missing with our employees and employers in that gap out there. And we have to figure out how to, how do we close that gap around trust? And certainly, accountability is the key, right? And so how do we create accountability when it comes to work? Well, we can have performance measures. We can have, you know, KPIs available and make sure that managers are equipped with those to be able to do this. And so they can manage the people in the work in a way that makes the most sense. out there. But certainly this idea that only women are innately or are the only ones who are good at

caregiving. And I think this is one that, you know, in many ways, I think women push back on, men don't push back enough on. There are more men who are becoming more vocal about this that, no, I'm a parent also. And I want you to treat me like a parent. And I am qualified and I am competent to do those things. And so that I am not only a provider, right, the same, in the flip side of that coin, that women, you know, can't do the work that men do in their employment and their provider roles. And so I think we have to dispel some of those rumors and this out there. There's a lot of things related to women, you mentioned the mental load before. And certainly women looked at as like, well, women are good at multitasking. So they should be the one.

who manage the family and manage the home. It's like, well, the research shows us that nobody is good at multitasking. Women just happen to do more of it because they have to. And certainly that's what creates a lot more in mental load, creates that stress and creates the burnout that is negatively associated right with the impact that it has on people. So there's so many of these out there that we could pick apart all these little different myths, but they really are, these outdated norms and assumptions about who people are that have no merit. Yeah, and just I'll give you an illustration of somebody we interviewed who on this presenteism issue, she was trying to establish flex work policies and promote them in her organization. A couple of the guys said, hey, we're not doing that.

I don't want her at home because she's doing laundry, right? She's doing laundry. And later in the day, She sees these same two guys at the water cooler talking about Monday night football, just going on and on. She walked up to them and said, laundry, you guys are doing laundry. For me, it kind of illustrates men miss it. They don't get it. They don't understand. They're making assumptions about, you know, presenteism. And I got to see her all the time to know that she's productive.

We've got to help them learn this. And part of that might be confronting. Yeah. Well, and I appreciate so much that you both. in talking about gender fairness, talked about the opportunity home. I think we tend to look at work and try to fix that as opposed to understanding that we can't fix one without fixing the other. And I was thinking like you were talking about the language we use and describing women at work.

I think we have to be careful about the language we use when describing men at home. And I just will challenge all the women listening. We have to let them. the amount of times, you know, women, I think they're not doing it right or they're not doing it the way that I would do it. And it's like, fuck it. Just let them do it. You know, like that it's so necessary for all of us to have gender fairness. My last question, and I know it's kind of a big one, but you talk about interpersonal public and systemic allyship. What's the difference and why do all three matter? Yeah, I'll give you a quick synopsis of this. So interpersonal, we began this research, and that was our first book, Athena Rising. Interpersonal is really about how I hold myself accountable in relationships with women every day. Boy, it includes everything from spacious listening to avoiding assumptions to passing the friend test with women, being consistent in your personal and public behavior with women. It involves, It involves mentoring. It involves all of those interpersonal dynamics. The public, which we really touched on and did a deep dive in with good guys, is all about the more difficult part of allyship, which is holding other men accountable. And this is hard for a lot of men. It makes them nervous. I got to put more skin in the game. But it involves two big things, just if we're looking for categories. Number one, disrupting bias and sexism in real time. And second, loudly advocating for women. These are not easy, and there are things that men need to practice because perhaps they don't come naturally. But they're crucial to getting to a gender fair workplace.

And then finally, the structural, the systemic, which we're doing a deep dive into in the new book Fair Share, this is moving beyond the one-off solutions, the individual acts of allyship, to really getting to how do we embed this in who we are as an organization? So our policies, our practices, our procedures, our culture, how do we do this in a way that sort of gets us there more quickly because we're doing it in a systemic way? Don't fix women. Fix the workplace. Amen. All right, David, Brad, thank you so much. I first want to remind the listener, go order the book. It's called Fair Share, wherever it is, you buy books, but let's keep our local bookstores in business.

and tell them to order you five, one for you and a woman in your life, a man in your life, a couple leaders. I mean, just pass them out. So again, the book is called Fair Share. You can also find more about their work on the website, workplaceallies.com. We're going to put those links as well as LinkedIn and places where you can find and follow Dave and Brad in show notes. To the two of you, thank you for being here today, for doing this work, for making it so clear

that it matters for all of us, for all the things. Thank you. Yeah, a delight to be with you today, Nicole. Thanks for including us. The pleasure was all mine. Okay, friends, everywhere we look, we can find opinions and expectations about femininity, masculinity, masculinity, leadership, ambition, caregiving, partnership, and success that were written for a world that no longer exists and might not have ever worked in the first place. And maybe that's the real work now, not trying to prove that one gender is better or stronger or matters more than the other, not fighting for a bigger piece of a broken system. But having the courage to question the rules we inherited, the roles we were assigned and the expectations were being asked to perform. Because when fairness stops being political

and starts being practical, we don't just create better workplaces. We create better lives. And that, that is woman's work because it's everyone's work. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if, like what if it doesn't hold up. That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust.

Visit Wayfair.cair, every style, every home. Every Sunday, we cover the week's tech news on this week in tech. Hi, this is Leo Lipport from the Twit Podcast Network, inviting you to join me, Christina Warren, Richard Campbell, and Harry McCracken, as we talk about one of the biggest weeks in tech ever. There was the SpaceX IPO. there was the amazing fable tabling and of course way back Monday Apple announced a new Siri we talk about it all this week on this week in tech you'll find it at twit.tv or wherever you get your podcasts