By GEIGS DEJ Lead- Rabbey Raza
(Edited by Riya Sawhney, GEIGS 2024 Co-Chair )
“Caution is a very powerful force”, and I say that coming from one of the regions of the world where gender-based oppression is currently the highest. As a medical student in Pakistan, I have seen some serious systemic oppressions firsthand: from everyday injustices against the (few) female clinicians in our workplace to poorer health outcomes for female patients, even sexual violence out in society at large. It is these experiences that have prompted me to be an ally, and it’s only now, looking back, that I have realised why it was one of the most impactful things I could do.
It is only natural for an individual to act cautiously when someone from a group with the reputation of systemic oppression tries to act in favour of them. It’s natural to suspect the worst when you’ve seen it. As a male medical student, how could my actions favouring gender equity be trusted? This was a problem I saw many of my friends struggle with. Despite our genuine cause, our actions were still taken as performative, from the operating room with our colleagues all the way to the roads for campaigns and marches. How could we ensure that our actions were not perceived as superficial, but rooted rooted in genuine causes instead? Over the last year as the Diversity, Equity and Justice Lead for GEIGS, I have realised the importance of “critical” male allyship for gender equity, and in this blog post, I discuss some key learnings that have, helped me do that to a good extent.
Understanding privilege and allyship
What exactly is privilege? To put it in simple words, it’s an unearned advantage individuals possess simply due to their identity or social group manifesting in various forms such as gender, race, socioeconomic status, and more.
Recognizing your privilege is the first step to becoming an effective ally. This recognition involves understanding the current social biases and acknowledging how these privileges impact others.
Once you have identified your privileges, you can move from passive support to active encouragement, such as actively seeking opportunities to highlight the achievements and insights of your female colleagues and ensuring that their contributions are recognized and valued. Active encouragement also means actively discouraging injustice. When witnessing discriminatory behaviour, as a male ally, you must be prepared to challenge them. This includes calling out derogatory remarks, microaggressions, bullying and biased practices commonly seen in surgical specialties, and openly supporting initiatives that promote gender equity.
Finally, as a male ally, you should use your influence, and privileges, to push for institutional changes that help foster a more inclusive environment. To give equal opportunities to everyone irrespective of gender or identity. And to ensure that the voices of the minority groups are heard and properly responded to with sustainable actions.
Think of it as a ‘coin’
Stephanie A. Nixon put forth a very simplistic model to address health inequities due to discriminatory policies, norms, and actions that she called the ‘coin model’.
According to this model, an individual is represented as a coin. The top of the coin represents one’s unearned advantages, and the bottom is representative of one’s unearned oppressions. For example, I, as a male medical student in Pakistan, have both privileges (cis-gendered, male, educated) and oppressions (ethnicity, race, geographic location).
The coin itself represents the societal norms and structures that give advantages or disadvantages regardless of whether an individual is aware of it. The goal is to dismantle the structure (i.e., the coin) itself.
The question is, how can one dismantle a rigid structure like a coin (metaphorical pun intended)?
The answer is simple. It’s your mindset.
You see, when you view problems as challenges faced by a certain group, the solutions will focus on alleviating those challenges. But when the parent tumour remains, metastasis is always inevitable. If the problem persists despite the challenges being solved, new challenges will emerge eventually. Focus on the problem instead.
Look at the coin itself. For instance, solutions addressing disabled people tend to achieve the norm of able-bodied people, like medical care and rehabilitation. Conversely, if you view the problem as an unfair social structure, then the cause of disability shifts from being located in an individual's body to being understood as a result of social, attitudinal and political environments.
Solutions should be focused on social change to achieve true equity.
This is where you come in as a “critical” ally. Your job here is simple. Use your position of privilege to identify social norms that have become the root cause of inequity and injustice, and work towards mitigating those problems, instead of just focusing on the challenges that result from those problems. Speak up, advocate, and join hands with dedicated organizations and campaigns
The need to ‘Shut up and listen’
Dr. Simon Fleming, an orthopaedic surgeon by profession and culture change advocate, in his speech on ‘Empowering change through allyship’ during our 4th annual General Assembly this year, put forth an extremely simple principle for allyship that is likely going to resonate throughout the history of the gender equity movement.
According to him, the first step of being an ally is to “shut up and listen”. It’s as simple as that.
As people coming from a more privileged background, we have an innate, subconscious need to be listened to, because societal norms have programmed us that just because we come from privileged backgrounds, our opinions hold more weight and/or value. The privileged speak and the oppressed listen.
This is where Dr. Fleming’s principle comes into action. If you are privileged, then stop speaking. Transfer your privileges to those who have not historically had them. Let them speak, let their voices be heard. Let their words echo through history because at the end of the day, it is their voices we are trying to amplify in the first place, and it’s their words that will echo in the pages of history. As a male ally for gender equity in surgery, this means:
First and foremost, letting my female colleagues tell me what they need – I cannot assume! I need to be invited to be an ally.
Transferring my privilege when I receive it – if I have been invited to speak on gender equity, are there women on the panel? If I am co-authoring a paper on gender equity, are other women on the author list?
Listening to those in less-privileged positions around me
Championing this cause in my everyday actions and standing up for injustices, whatever the cost
Only when the favoured start to favour the unfavoured will the change start to catalyse. Only when you’ve stopped speaking will the minorities be able to speak and let their words be heard by the world.
Let this be your sign to join a movement, an organization, or an advocacy campaign. And if you take only one thing away from this, let it be your need to listen first, and transfer your privilege. That is the most basic principle and a renowned one for advancing allyship efforts for gender equity. The one that I have decided to truly stand by.
In Conclusion…
The path to effective male allyship in global health and surgery is both a personal journey and a societal commitment. It begins with a deep recognition of one’s privilege and an understanding of how systemic inequities shape the experiences of marginalized communities. In conclusion, the role of male allies in global health and surgery is crucial for advancing gender equity. It requires a commitment to humility, active engagement, and a focus on systemic change. By transferring their privileges, listening first, amplifying marginalized voices, and addressing the root causes of inequity, male allies can become catalysts for a more just and inclusive world.
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