This article is written by Casey Ryan, contract and performance manager at Highways England

You’ve probably discussed gender bias at some point. These discussions often involve anger, disappointment and confusion. The topic arises when someone has been hurt or something legal needs to be resolved, rather than being acknowledged for what it is: a constant.

As a trans guy who transitioned in my 30s, I was socialised as female and lived under that negative bias for some time. For example, people expected me to be indirect, and I had to show constant vigilance when alone outside in case of being targeted.

Now, I live between privilege and oppression. Unless I told you, you would probably assume I’m a cisgender man. I therefore benefit from the privileges of a person with those characteristics.

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This is known as perception bias. It enables me to make use of privilege ‘on loan’. I say on loan, because I also experience the oppression that comes from being socialised as female, and from not being seen fully as who you are. The minute the safety that comes from being seen as a cisgender man is lifted, I experience oppression, or abuse from certain anti-trans people and groups.

Few people have seen gender bias from the perspective I have. Often in the past, when I would speak about gender bias, I couldn’t pinpoint the specific problematic thing that had happened. Now, these things are often obvious to me. Here’s some of what I’ve learned:

Women are routinely minimised

After I transitioned, there was a change in language used to describe my behaviours. I hadn’t changed internally, but suddenly I was ‘commanding’ instead of ‘aggressive’, and ‘level-headed’ instead of ‘dispassionate’. The change was so dramatic that I sometimes didn’t quite believe it was happening.

I no longer had to force my way into conversations. During discussions, it was like Moses parting the sea. People would immediately make way for my voice, and give the things I said an unusual level of importance. I found this quite confusing. What I was saying wasn’t always particularly impressive, yet the men were patting me on the back and the women were smiling and nodding.

Sometimes this is why men only listen to other men, because the language they are speaking seems more real to them.

I felt very important. Confusingly important. It made me suspicious of every interaction I had – was I actually doing something useful, or was the person just handing me male privilege? It became impossible to tell. I wondered what experiencing this day in day out for a lifetime would do to a person’s ability to remain objective and value different perspectives. I wondered what it would do to me.

A friend often laments the perceived brotherhood of men. To her, men always seem friendly with one another, even as strangers. What she can’t see is the underlying threat that behaviour is concealing. I’ve noticed a level of competitiveness from men that hadn’t been there before. Friendliness seems to come edged with the recognition that every man is in competition with you, and so it’s best to try to keep everyone on side – or at least sense check that they aren’t a problem for you. Women, on the other hand, seem to be considered an unthreatening peripheral presence, no matter how skilled they are at what they do.

More is expected of women, for less reward

There’s an old stereotype that men fixate on a single task, while women multi-task, performing many at once. This goes along with a value judgement: the single task is considered important, the many not so much.

Think of how the events of the Second World War are talked about in the UK. The cliché goes like this: men went to war to save us, women stayed home and twiddled dials in factories. Now, I don’t in any way underestimate the seriousness of men risking their lives at war. What I’m urging you to consider is that in order to leave and protect the country, men needed women to continue looking after families whilst also taking on their factory jobs. Upon return, the ‘dial twiddling’ was suddenly important again, as men took back those positions in industry.

This trope continues today. Women will often get a handle on the fundamental things that need to be done for a project to succeed, just like they did when the whole nation went to war. They then go about ensuring these activities are done. But this diligence isn’t rewarded.

In my experience, men tend to focus on high-profile activities that will enable them to step up – and men encourage other men to do this. The problem is that, men forgive other men for letting low-profile but necessary tasks fall by the wayside in a way they don’t for women. Tasks I thought were standard and needed to be complete before I transitioned I could now neglect and other men wouldn’t care.

The way we evaluate performance at work enables this behaviour by giving us a finite set of specific targets and goals. I have known men to say “that work you’re asking for help with isn’t on my objectives, so no, I won’t do it”. When we become frustrated with business silos, lack of collaboration and a general sense of conflict, we rarely consider it comes not from individuals being difficult, but from the systems and processes that drive what is considered success.

Being dominant comes with being oblivious to others’ experiences

Being the dominant power comes with being oblivious. Many cisgender men have no clue about the level of ‘not knowing what they don’t know’ they experience. Their world is so inexplicably different to ours, that understanding or empathising with what women and minorities are saying is hard, because it sounds like nonsense. That’s a difficult pill for us to swallow, and many scoff when I say it, but it is nonetheless what I have witnessed.

Everyone has blind spots. But most of the time we can find a way to step into another’s shoes. For men, that step is more difficult. The world we live in was designed with men in mind. Our infrastructure was designed around men. Navigating the world as a man feels different. It feels easier. There is less stress, less mental load, and more comfort.

Men are socialised to believe that their validity as men is dependent on a particular type of masculinity – where power and status are paramount. This idea of masculinity demands that men take up space and fight anyone who challenges them even by the tiniest fraction. These behaviours have, at their core, an element of violence.

The belief that this is the best way to act can make men confused when someone doesn’t act that way. It seems to men like those are the rules…so why wouldn’t someone, of any gender, do those things? Why wouldn’t a woman speak up or pressure-test a man?

The idea that women are socialised differently, and that men contribute directly to asking them not to display these behaviours, doesn’t even cross their minds. Sometimes this is why men only listen to other men, because the language they are speaking seems more real to them.

My experience is that, like it or not, getting men to deeply recognise other lived experiences requires a powerful level of empathy for their position. This is something many women and minorities find abhorrent when I mention it. That’s ok, I’m just one person giving an opinion after all. But I find that gently acknowledging men’s blindness to their dominant position, and the difficulty that causes, enables men to open up to a shared struggle. It makes them see themselves as part of the solution to a problem that is systemic, rather than personally targeted. Once a man sees it, he will be your ally for life – but until that point, he probably just won’t believe you. — Casey Ryan

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