A Businessman, Fireman, Policeman - Where Are the Women?

Anonymous, Men: Friends , United Kingdom

I was in a careers talk with a friend. There was a male speaker talking about different skills and talents which are useful in certain jobs. He used a wide variety of examples of different professions and lots of personal stories; it was an interesting and informative talk.

When we left the hall, I asked my friend how he found it. ‘It was good,’ he said, and was quiet for a moment. Then he said: ‘But did you notice that whenever he used an example – even if it was a hypothetical one – it was always about a man? A businessman, a fireman, an actor, a policeman. I mean, what does that say to the women in the audience about their career prospects? The speaker might not even have meant to, but he was basically reinforcing that male is the default and the women in the audience are not a priority.’

This is a friend who I’ve been talking to about sexism for a while and had never seemed so interested or concerned, so it was amazing to see how much he’d taken on board and that he noticed this when it had completely passed me by. He then went on to share this with our other friends and told them emphatically how wrong he found it, so that they were made aware of it too and looked out for it in other talks.

Island Rescue

Anonymous, Men: Friends , United Kingdom

My friend and his family had been going to this beautiful Greek island for sometime. Over the years, they had made friends with the local British woman who had organised the properties they rented over the years.

One year, on the morning they were due fly home, she turned up on the door step to say goodbye, but she was different. She did not look at them and appeared tired, downcast and tearful. The simple question 'What's up?' revealed that for sometime her local boyfriend had been beating her up, using work and financial pressures as an excuse. The night before she had been throttled and thrown against a wall. She had left while he was sleeping and spoken to a local friend, but she wanted to get out and go home. Within an hour my friend had talked through the options. He agreed to be a witness, documented and photographed her injuries, assisted with a safe house, created a confidential alternate mobile contact and helped sort flights home in three days time. He used the mobile to ensure she was safe when they got home, monitored that she got to Britain safely and spoke to her parents. Eight years later she was married to a new partner.

Violence against women is never acceptable. We can all help.

Young men can be trailblazers for gender equality

Anonymous, Men: Friends , United Kingdom

I have a friend who has a son - let's call him David. David is in his late teens, a Christian - and he is the most extraordinary champion of women's rights. He has hundreds of friends on social media, and often challenges the sexist behaviour of his peers, without fear, with calm and gracious logic, without losing his rag at the lads who push back at him.

He doesn't put women on a pedestal. He treats them as equals, plain and simple. It's not surprising that he has loads of female friends. He doesn't take advantage of his popularity with them.

Nor is he a geek or a wimp - David is eloquent, erudite and an elegant dresser to boot. He doesn't seem to struggle with self-image in an era when so many men do seem to.

Did I mention that David has Asberger's Syndrome? Perhaps that's a contributing factor to why he is so unfazed by any criticism he gets from his male peers and so untouched by lad culture - he carves his own way, as he has had to in part because of the condition he lives with. What an inspiration he is to me, and to many others.

Challenging the lack of female authors on our literature course

Anonymous, Men: Friends , United Kingdom

During my first year at university, our set literary texts for German were four plays, four novels and forty poems. Until one of my male friends pointed it out, it had completely escaped my notice that all of these works - bar two short poems - were written by men. I suppose I was used to the syllabus being dominated by male authors and hadn’t given it a second thought.

When my friend brought this up with our tutor, he was told that there had been one ‘token’ play written by a woman on the course, but it had been taken off because it was deemed not good enough and it had been impossible to find another prominent twentieth-century play by a woman. My friend responded that the university should not just accept the ‘famous’ texts (often made famous by male scholars and critics) but to find good female authors who have not had the attention they deserve. As he felt the university hadn’t done this, he has found some good female German authors himself and has been giving the rest of us recommendations, which has made our studies much more interesting and varied than in first year!

My inspiring work colleagues

Ebru Karatufek, Men: Friends , United Kingdom

My team works with vulnerable children and families and supports their engagement with education. Many of the families we support are single mothers, many of who have been victims of domestic violence. Through their lives they may have had contact with several professionals and services, not all that have been as responsive and caring as we would desire.

Jack and Joe are two men in my team who inspire and motivate me everyday. Though working with some of the hardest to reach and vulnerable women, Jack and Joe have a remarkable skill of gaining trust and forming relationships underpinned by authenticity and hope. Both Jack and Joe listen carefully and empathetically to the women and children they work with, they are welcomed into homes and told personal stories and secrets. They advocate for their families with both delicacy and unwavering commitment. Above all else, they offer their families friendship. I am incredibly proud to see the impact of their work and the mothers and children we work with have a relationship with a professional, particularly a man, which can be a model of all new relationships to come.