EP 106 Lee Chambers, Co Founder and CEO of Male Allies UK: Why Being Compassionate Is Good For Our Mental Health and Why Men Are In A Challenging Place

Lee Chambers is the Founder and CEO of Male Allies UK. After a diverse career, from corporate finance to building and exiting tech company, he is now focused on supporting organisations to engage men in inclusion and promote effective allyship. He has been featured on the Startups 100 Index, has received a Great British Entrepreneur Award, and sits on the board of CMI Women, Regenerage UK and the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School. In 2024, he received the Freedom of the City of London for services to equality in business. 

He is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in the USA, the first Black British scientist to be awarded in its 33-year history, received for his work on health inequalities. He is the 2023 UN Women Changemaker of the Year, and is an ambassador for the UK Governments Lilac Review for Disabled Entrepreneurship. He speaks globally on allyship and intersectionality, having taken the stage at One Young World, ChangeNOW and the Bloomberg Global Equality Summit, and is the author of the upcoming book, Momentum: 13 Ways To Unlock Your Potential.

Personally, he shares his experiences as a Black autistic man, a stay-at-home dad, and his journey to learn to walk again after acquiring a chronic illness. He lives near Preston with his three children.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/leechambers-1/

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:06

If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a Fabry view. We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays.

Yoyo: 0:49

Hi. This is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast.

0:53

Happy New Year. How is 2024 for you? We are very excited about 2025. We have so many amazing guests coming up. Thank you for joining us.

Yoyo: 1:06

IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and well being. Now, we're delighted our listeners are global. They are the decision makers of tomorrow and today. And we want to thank you wherever you are for being a part of the Security Circle journey. If you love the podcast, we are on all podcast platforms. Don't forget to subscribe, or even better, just like, comment, and share this LinkedIn post. Now, I have been very excited to, Talk to this next guest. In fact, it's taken quite a few months, I think, to lock this in. He's a very busy man. Lee Chambers, some of you will have heard of him through LinkedIn or on Newsnight on the BBC. I couldn't believe it when I switched on my TV that late night and I thought, there you are, 50, 000 followers on LinkedIn. He is a tour de force for making allyship happen. He's been awarded the UN Women Changemaker Award for inclusive wellbeing. along with other awards. He's a keynote speaker on well being and inclusion and leadership and one of the UK's leading business psychologists. He has award winning allyship specialist and menopause approaches as a champion. He's highly respected black disabled entrepreneur. He's a media friendly expert, and he's also author of the Momentum Reboot Your Career, Unlock Your Potential and Millennials Guide to Wellness. Wow. Lee Chambers, welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. That

Lee: 2:43

is great to be with you, Yolanda.

Yoyo: 2:45

Well, listen,, it's thrilling to follow your posts. I'm going to say, first of all, from the top, we've just had an election, and you were the first person to highlight for me, because I follow your posts and I feel educated, to highlight that Keir Starmer had put a cabinet in place with the following. A housing minister who'd lived in social housing. Tick, tick. Female economist looking after the economy for the first time in history. An education secretary who received free school meals a prisons minister whose business leads the way on opportunities for those with justice system involvement and reform, I recall. And a cabinet with a level of gender parity. And, and I think this is more significant, with alignment with the needs of the country, a cabinet where only 10 percent went to private school. That was a great post, Lee.

Lee: 3:37

Yeah, I think it's just for me I'd had a discussion with some friends who again have different perspectives and one of my friends who kind of said it doesn't look very diverse on the picture. And I think we then had a discussion about obviously intersectionality and what can optically look like potential diversity might not be diversity of thought or diversity of perspective. I'm thinking about people's lived experiences in roles where. Fundamentally, they're expected to, you know, enact change or to create opportunity through those roles. It's always helpful if people Uh, you know the person making a decision fundamentally has some lived experience or at least a wider perspective Or has like touch points in their own life in those areas and that You know with the kind of wider team because no one makes decisions on their own Hopefully will actually lead to you know Decisions in the future that are more centric towards the general population And actually considering what people's need might be on a wider perspective Given their lived experience, but I think Again, we do live in a world where inclusion, equity, and diversity is being talked about a lot more, is becoming, you know, something that in some places is actually being challenged quite significantly. Uh, but it's really important that we quite often look beyond the surface and actually appreciate that, you know, diversity and inclusion itself. Firstly, diversity is everyone because we're all different, and inclusion itself needs to fundamentally look to include everyone too.

Yoyo: 5:12

You know, when you learn more about this, and even as a woman, I have, been learning and I've been in a learning journey around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and I don't get it right all the time. It is a constant, like, awareness, but when you know things, you can't unknow them. And I remember seeing a photograph on LinkedIn once with a load of white guys, you know, sat around a table and I just kind of shook my head and I put my hand on my forehead and I'm like, no, did not one person look at the optics of this and think how some people will see that. And And that's the problem, isn't it? This blind kind of, you know, we have to acknowledge white privilege or male white privilege. It's blinding sometimes. So I think when you have those lenses, it's hard to unsee. And I always learn things certainly through following you. When businesses are doing a lot of PR and LinkedIn and how do you remind them to sort of check themselves before they wreck themselves really with a photograph like that?

Lee: 6:17

Yeah, I mean, it, it still happens today, still, you know, conferences where the panel are all men of a certain demographic. A certain industry body put out a photo recently, with a government minister, and every single individual in that photo was male, was white, and was over 45. Now we've got to look and realize that in this country, still to this day, organizational power sits significantly more in quite a small section of the population. That is going to influence who ends up on the C suite photo deck. and who's kind of in those positions and in those rooms. But the fact is, you know, like I said, optics don't tell a whole story. But they do at least become a point where people can identify that actually does this represent the nation around us? Does this represent the wider industry that we're in? And sometimes, from a position of being male, it's actually easier to challenge that. I will receive less pushback than, say, a woman of color would for challenging that. So it's actually that mindfulness that sometimes the most powerful challenge can be from someone who's within that in group to actually look around and say, yeah, we're missing something here. And we're not just missing something in terms of bringing one talking person to the table, so it looks better. We're actually missing diverse viewpoints that might be powerful. We're missing the different ideas outside of the cluster of knowledge around the table that actually might be the innovation that we're looking for. We're actually missing that ability to co design and co create decisions, solutions, products, that are looking at things from a different perspective. Because the majority of businesses don't just serve that small sliver of the population, they serve everyone. And especially if we think around security, There's lots of different perspectives trying to breach all the things around us and the human vulnerability is Usually bigger than the security vulnerability and if we don't have humans from different perspectives in the room, what's going to happen? We're actually going to end up in a place where we think we've got an awful lot of protection Over one side of the sphere and the other side is going to be completely vulnerable and completely open But we've not seen it and it works in a very similar way to thinking about how we actually protect and, create security around the systems processes and the ecosystems that we exist within. So yeah, there's a lot to be said.

Yoyo: 8:53

There's a lot being said on your posts. I think for anybody who's not following the chambers, you should definitely follow Lee. Your posts are always designed to build conversation and that's good. it's interesting because of your influencership, because of your reach, that there's a really good, broad, range of responses. It's inclusive in itself to see all of those different responses, isn't it? I remember somebody saying,, there was a really cool football post and somebody put up a post, it was Tony Hargis actually, somebody else that I follow, and she said something like, she was talking about emotions and men and football and why it's not the same for women and I recognize that. Because women have been designed out of soccer and football for several decades, and there's now a re emergence that's really alive and very energetic. I said, give us some time and we'll probably be matching that in relation to our tribal emotiveness, but it was interesting how there were some male responses where they said, yeah, I don't see women being as into it as men and like you'd been designed out of it maybe 50 years ago, maybe you'd have felt the same way. It's that inability, isn't it, to be able to. really relate and understand other people's needs. That's the quintessential part of wokeism. Wokeism is being alive to individuality,, and difference, I need to make sure that's very clearly said, and difference. But there's a lot of people who would consider themselves anti woke and kind of feel like they're on a journey that they haven't woken up to it yet. What do you think?

Lee: 10:28

Yeah, it's a really interesting conversation and I suppose around kind of Tawny's point, it is quite interesting how men can express emotion in an unallowed way. Uh, usually that's through anger, in a collective national mourning and crying on the pitch. And that's seen as a positive expression of emotion. Uh, well, I still see today. You know, and I've heard stories of managers who are quite proud about their ability to make women on the team cry. And that's not a positive thing. That's the emotion scene. It's negative, right? And while that sounds like it's, you know, from 50 years ago, we've still got that stuff happening today. A big thing for me is, and this is something I've been considering quite recently, is that men are emotionally neutered from quite a young age. We're told to suppress the majority of our emotions. We're overall not very emotionally literate. Because we're not given the space to practice and express the whole range of human emotions, we're told that that's not a very masculine thing to do. When I look at the men around me, men are actually potentially more emotional than women. We're more sensitive. We're actually very sensitive, we're all very sensitive souls as men, but that can be actually seen in society as we can be quite brittle, even though we're told to be strong. We can be very sensitive, even though we're told that we should be stoic. Actually, we can be very fragile at times. Even when we're told that we should all be put together and have all the power it's a really interesting conversation about what's allowable in terms of emotion. I suppose a big thing for me Is it's great to see a gradual increase in women being able to partake in sport at a professional level. That's been purposely curtailed for a whole range of societal reasons. There's still people who don't see that and there's a real reality that some people Are still playing the sports up against each other or use the argument of well commerciality exists And the men's game pulls in more figures and more money than the women's game And it's almost then sitting back and saying but yeah you're comparing a company that's been forced to be a startup because they weren't allowed And everything in the system blocked them Against a massive corporate that's been running for hundreds of years got significant national funding you can't compare them the speed of growth of the women's game says everything you need to know About what happens when you suppress something for so long It finally shoots through the cracks and now it's growing at a rapid rate and you know long long that continue because sport is such a powerful driver of skills You a powerful driver of awareness and creating dreams for young girls about what they can be. We need to embrace it's simply sits there because this isn't, it's got to be either men's football or women's football. Why doesn't it just be football for everyone?

Yoyo: 13:39

We have seen a few faux PAs, uh, of late during the, um, the euros for the men's championships that, you know, they've said that, you know, it's about time football came home and well, we kind of did bring it home. Not

Lee: 13:53

that kind of football though.

Yoyo: 13:56

You know, if you need it brought home, just get the women to do it.

Lee: 14:00

Hmm. Gender equity starts at home.

Yoyo: 14:04

Isn't it? Isn't it? Right. We've got to have a little bit of fun with it. At the end of the day, I wonder if that's why they were under so much pressure to match. what, you know, what we'd set as a standard. You can't help but think, come on guys, we're getting a little bit fed up now with everyone saying the women brought it home after, in their infancy of their startup, so to speak. And we've been doing this for years and we still can't do it since 1966. I wondered, do you think there was a lot of extra pressure on Southgate?

Lee: 14:34

The biggest conversation is our framing in this of it's coming home, like just that whole term. Is it ours? Do we own it? In the original song, 30 years of Hurt, we're still talking about 58 years of Hurt. Like, how long is that counter gonna keep going up? Tournaments come round every two years,, generations of players come and go, there's millions, well there's hundreds of amazing players who never, have never won. There's a slight, just a slight urge of entitlement. The truth is it creates hope within a nation, but just the framing of it's coming home and, you know, all these years of her, yeah, I appreciate that we see football as originating here, but that was over a hundred years ago now. The world's changed significantly in that time I kind of feel that the sense of entitlement isn't great and the media just picks and picks and picks and picks everything managers players like, you're gonna come home and Instead of being celebrated for continuing to play at the highest level in the world, you're going to have someone saying, well, you didn't play very well. Well, you could have done better. What if you'd have taken that chance? That's not constructive. We need to really look at how much we've gained over the past few years rather than the gap to where we really want to be in my opinion.

Yoyo: 15:59

I see this consistent level with the men's team operating at a high level with a guarantee of getting into a quarter semi or finals. We're not getting knocked out in group. I think we're at the top of our group and the Southgate had lost, you know, the trust of the nation. It was really hard to see, but you mentioned the media and that's a really good segue into this next question. Really? There was a headline. I think you put this out. A teacher who had sex with two school boys. What's wrong with this headline? What's wrong with the media? Lee, what are the media doing?

Lee: 16:34

I talk a lot about gender equity and a lot of my kind of work as a man is thinking about how men can make a difference for women and the things that we don't see and the things that we don't notice until we kind of take a step out and look at things a bit more holistically. But the truth is gender equity works both ways and there are some real challenges for men and boys in society at the minute that we need to look at, especially from a systems perspective. An address and yeah, I call that this headline because what I've seen historically is This was a female teacher who groomed some boys who were at the school that she worked at So there's a clear power dynamic difference there. There's a clear kind of difference in age and ability to properly consent and the way the headline structured There's, there's the old kind of rhetoric around, Ooh, well, I'm sure these teenage boys absolutely loved this 30 odd year old teacher, showing them lots of attention and stuff like that. The boys were fundamentally, were victims, they were children. And the way the headline was constructed, says, when it says has sex with, that suggests there's consent there, that suggests that there's not a power dynamic there, that suggests that actually the boys can't be victims because they just had sex, they weren't groomed, they weren't sexually assaulted, They weren't at the face of a predator, they were at the face of a teacher, and they didn't even use female teacher, like, they tend to use male teacher, and if it's flipped the other way, words such as predator, pedophile, are used very easily, and it's very clearly sexual abuse. Whereas when female teachers or women in a place of power dynamic do that to young boys the media doesn't portray for what it actually is It sounds very light and consensual and it's clearly not But also Yolanda, there's then the comments online around that Still lots of the rhetoric around, Ooh, lucky young lads, isn't she a looker? And, just, Lots of people saying that,, When the story goes out, and, this is Happening, a lot more than we really Think, in wider society. It's just Glossed over, in a, you can't Have gender equity just one way, We need to look at equity on both sides And how things should fundamentally be Reported. equally for what they are.

Yoyo: 19:15

The fundamental, issue was the position of power, teacher, pupil, it's like doctor, patient, it's utterly unacceptable. Did you notice a difference then in the responses in general between the genders when they were responding to that article?

Lee: 19:32

It was interesting because if I think about the people who, I interact with and who interact with me, I'm probably more outspoken towards the challenges that women face and the inequities that women face, because they face more overall as a, like a, as a kind of section of society and the barriers that they face. In the responses there was a mix Some people were a lot less aware and didn't really see it But generally most people both men and women When they took a step back actually realized that the headline wasn't saying exactly what had happened And there was an element of double standard there now again, sometimes we have to consider that, people who are taking the time to interact on any things that I put on social media are probably already on a level of awareness journey You I would say the majority of them are because they're taking time to interact and they're already searching similar things, which is probably a weak reason from an algorithmic perspective, why I appear on their feeds. That's not always the case. And sometimes there are people who are, how should we say, earlier on the journey are whole different belief sets. That's powerful as well, because what you don't want is a complete set of people saying, yeah, that's right. Because you then never get challenged. You never get a widened perspective. And actually those people who dissent or bring a different viewpoint are actually really valuable in those conversations. If it is done in a respectful and, open to communicate type of way. Sometimes it is occasionally it's not.

Yoyo: 21:14

Let's look at that in a little bit more depth. Okay. I remember once I attended one of these things you sit down here people speak, and it was a representative from the BBC she was a job in a security role was to protect online talent, and it could be anybody from a female news reporter or a journalist or an anchor. news presenter, for example, or, somebody sitting in the presenting chair. She did disclose some very alarming figures on how those women in particular were targeted from offenders who would really like to have inflicted some kind of violent or sexual harm or even death threats. She talked very specifically because she was In the weeds of the problem, she wanted to see a future where more men spoke out and said, we have to be more respectful. We need good male representation. But the problem at that time was. that men, including footballers, anybody who is a male social influencer, that was approached by the BBC to stand up and be an ally, they were becoming targets themselves of abuse and threats of violence. She talked about this. Really challenging time. Now we're starting to see the emergence. It's almost like watching a shoot grow from being in a load of rubble. You're seeing these beautiful opportunities come through where men can speak out. But let's be frank, when you're a footballer of color right now, it's still a very difficult place to be when you hear some of the chants, the audience. They don't really have a lot of power of influence to a degree. When you look at the issue the BBC are facing, and it's fairly global across media, what do you think about the emergence and why do we need male allyship?

Lee: 22:58

It's something I've looked at five years ago, and just seeing the difference. in kind of online communication between, females in prominent positions and males in prominent positions and just the feeling of individuals, even if they had personal information on their profile, felt a level of anonymity and a level of kind of group protection from other people who thought like them to happily attack people and make threats against their life. threats against their family. They were approached about this, they almost saw it as, well it's just something I typed in my computer. It's not something I'd actually do. Sports from a, from an allyship perspective, again, as soon as you stand in a place where you actively challenge that. You are going to be challenging yourself and that's why allyship can be quite challenging and it's all right because you need to go on a journey to feel you're in a strong foundational place to actually push back against the challenges that you will face because you've done some of that work on yourself because you've Expanded your own viewpoints and can sometimes understand where other individuals are coming from many of those people who are very outspoken online both for the positive or the negative Usually have had some experience of not being listened to themselves the beliefs come from somewhere And there's a little bit of curiosity from exploring, whether those actually originate from. If we fast forward to today, it's actually really important that we can have people who are not from the oppressed or marginalized group actually, you know, not just being vocal, but taking action to make the world a better place. A better place, a more inclusive place. We all have the ability to do that because we all sit in intersections of, higher privilege and lesser privilege. And it's even important that we don't, we look at privilege not as what you do have, but look at privilege as the things you don't have to face, the things you don't have to think, the considerations you don't have to make, the accommodations that you don't have to suddenly do because of who you are. I think it's really important from a wider allyship perspective that we actually think about, I reflect and I was allied to in education as a young black lad, and it made a big difference to my journey. Becoming a stay at home dad myself after stepping out of my tech role and seeing the world very differently, I realized that I could actually give back and be an ally to others. in a way that might make a difference to them in the way it made a difference to me. obviously allyship, it is uncomfortable. You should expect to be as uncomfortable as the people who you're partnering with and going on that journey with. And actually it's a realization that it makes you become fundamentally better in lots of aspects of your life. You become a more effective leader. You become more effective at collaborating and co creating things You become and find that it's easier to communicate with other people and understand where other people might be coming from And you're able to comprehend the world around you in a more kind of multifaceted way And suddenly things that didn't used to make sense start to make sense And actually what you find is it's a very much upskilling process Even if you don't necessarily see it like that and then it can be You And it can be something that it definitely did for me suddenly turned what I thought was quite a wide perspective Into something that was a lot wider and made me realize I actually saw things from quite a tunneled view But I didn't realize that until I actually stepped out and realized I could step back and my view became wider

Yoyo: 26:47

And it's impossible to go back. Isn't it? Once it does get wider

Lee: 26:50

Yeah, cuz you know once you want I have quite often said once you start to see things you can't unsee them The thing is you start to see more Of those little things that are just not right or not fair or just don't seem to add up or make sense and then as a man you've got to just take a breath Because when you see things you do want to fix them. It's a proper like gender norm type thing Ever since we're young boys daddy's little engineer t shirts here. Here's a lego set smash it and build it again You know come and solve these problems so we are very solution oriented very kind of problem solving Very, you know break it build it fix it and as soon as you see those problems you want to do something But actually a big part of allyship is stepping back and thinking What can I do with the unique toolbox that I have to actually make a difference? Without suddenly getting in the way or becoming the saviour or the hero Because that's just reinforcing the stereotypes that exist of men taking up a lot of space Always being the ones at the front Always being the ones who default themselves to leader And actually, women have quite often lots of tools They've just not got access to the system So as a man, you just open the door and let the women crack on. You've got to be the person who's, you know we've all got keys to doors in our lives and other people either would struggle to get open or actually when we. Think about how we navigate those spaces. We can actually bring people with us and amplify those who very rarely get in the space and amplify the voices that don't get heard. Allyship is as much about stepping to the side and stepping back as it is stepping forward.

Yoyo: 28:40

Lee, why do some men find it hard to know good masculinity?

Lee: 28:45

Oh, that's a big question. A big question, Yolanda. I think firstly what's really important to consider is that masculinity for men will be different for everyone, because men are not just masculinity. Men and masculinity are not the same thing. Men are a mix of masculinity and femininity, just like women are a mix of masculinity and femininity. Sometimes, even that gets, convoluted into one thing. That's just not a valuable way to look at it. But, for many men, Your reference points come from the people around you, from your own father, or masculine role models in your own life. From the world and the people that you see, the people who are put into positions of influence. You know, those in the entertainment and sporting world. For a lot of, men of my age who are like early millennials, you know, 40, the first part of our lives was analog, before the digital world descended. A lot of our, versions of masculinity were the posters on our walls, the magazines that we bought, our fathers and our uncles and the sport that we saw on television. And the truth is that version of masculinity is very competitive, very strong and physical. We think about the comics and the cartoons,, I almost reflect and think most of the superheroes that we saw, which is, a reference frame again, they were, they're all men. More importantly, they always had, they pretty much always had a sidekick, right? The sidekick was the emotional, thoughtful strategic kind of individual. The superhero was always bold and brave, always saved the day, never said too much, never cried a tear. The truth is, lots of men would have wanted to have been that sidekick. The strategic, thoughtful, almost slightly nerdy, emotionally intelligent, culturally sensitive character. they're, the psychic always died, it's always the psychic who died. So as a man you look to, you thought, well, I'd like to be like that, but no, I'll try and be, I'll try and be the superhero. What we've got in many ways is a whole cohort of men in my kind of age group who, we grew up on that masculinity of being a bit like a superhero and a bit like a sports star and a bit like a kind of an entertainment idol. Mixed with our own influences in our own lives because we didn't have social media We couldn't follow millions of different men from across the world. We had three and then four tv channels so we had a smaller scope and the men around you were more powerful because You couldn't just fall online and start searching for all different influences ultimately, we've all built our masculinity from what we've been told and what we've seen You It's really important that as men, we actually take a step back and think, who, who are we? How do we embrace both our masculine and feminine energy? And actually think about,, are we the man who we've been told to be? Or are we actually the man who we truly are? The biggest part of allyship, really, isn't the stepping out and making a difference. It's actually the work to find out about the man that you are. And being able to start to embrace those masculine and feminine energies that you have in a world where, yeah, it's hard to step outside of that box of manhood, if you step outside and do things that are not expected of men. You will feel a little bit fragile and also some men will judge you for not being man enough or not being You know who you should be that's difficult we are all in our own little prison of masculinity that we're all trying to get out of in many ways because when you're told you are something and society reinforces that I could talk about this for hours, but one thing that always sits with me is how the rhetoric around the school playground made you feel like boys and girls were opposites. And actually, we're not opposites at all. We're just massively complementary. We're actually very, very similar. We have a few differences. to be told that you're throwing like a girl, to be told that you're doing anything like a girl was like the ultimate insult to a boy on the playground. That just shows the attitudes that exist and how that stops us from realising that actually, men and women both have masculine and feminine energy. The diversity of that across each gender is absolutely massive as well.

Yoyo: 33:38

What do you think the critical age is in school for the negative influences to start taking place? Because I'm, as you were talking, I was envisaging these kids in school and they're all playing together. They're encouraged to collaborate. At what age do they start to separate?

Lee: 33:57

Oh, geez. Okay. so I think there's the importance of this work from a young person's perspective actually starts at like a year old. Okay.

Yoyo: 34:06

Wow.

Lee: 34:07

The gender stereotypes start then in the toys, in the clothes, in the messaging within cartoons. it's, in some ways it's a bit subtle, in some ways it's like a hammer, in some ways it's really not subtle, but it starts then and it's the narratives, it's the things that we actually say as parents, the way that we word things, the, you know, our own conditioning from our own childhoods. Still plays a part and then they're going to school and I remember having you know One of my best friends at school when I kind of started in the young days with Gemma good friend You know a really good friend and I was still friends with girls until I left primary school in fact probably due to the nature of who I am I've always had friends who were girls, but it was always seen as a bit strange and it's just that kind of that factor of What are the expectations? It's slightly different now for my daughter because she will go and play football with the lads at school because, that's what she does. I remember, you know, if girls did that when I was at school, it was seen as a bit unusual. You would see, you were definitely going to be labelled as tomboy and, you know, a bit different. There's different age groups from that initial one year old to that toddler phase where everything gets solidified And everything's like pink or blue and here's your kind of gender toys, and here's you know, who your friends should be even though parents don't realize that At that age, other little humans are just interesting Does it really matter if they're a boy or a girl or not? Then through to those primary years where There's very few male primary teachers, so a lot of boys don't see male role models at primary school. Most primary schools usually have one or two, maybe, male teachers for every single year. Usually they're the PE teacher as well, and that's another thing, because men, young boys don't see men in those kind of caregiving, growth, growing human type roles very often. It also makes men think, is that a potential career path? If they're starting to feel that as young boys. Not being able to see it is an issue, but that you know, you're at five and six and then that's when you become more vocal Suddenly you're in different peer groups And you start to get the pull and influence of those so it starts really young yolanda You know, there's work to be done at every stage and that it's It's so much of it is about helping people to helping young people to explore who they are And helping them find a way to express it, because if you know who you are, then it's easier to step outside of what society always expects of you. Actually start to be a bit truer and more authentic to who you are as a person because that's when we can bring our uniqueness to the table and it doesn't become about, boys and girls or men and women, it becomes about you. There's definitely a power within that.

Yoyo: 37:02

I remember when I was watching Friends, I mean, most of my generation completely lean on it for everything, funny. There was a bit where Ross, you know, used to like making tea when he was a kid and, everyone mocked him, he grew up into being a really sound, male character that was in no way toxic. Think it's interesting how at the time everyone they kind of took the piss a little bit. I see the message. The message was even then trying to come through that you can still like, you know, and like Ross didn't like it did he when his gay ex wife was letting Ben play with dolls. There was this kind of would you like an action man, all American action man like this. I get the subliminal message behind the very sugary, funny humor. It's important, isn't it, to allow children to explore, cause I used to be very jealous when my brother was playing with tanks and cars and he'd make all these sound effects and make them crash into each other and I used to be so jealous of that. Like why can't I have that fun?

Lee: 38:09

You don't want to land it because it's because you want it to, you've always wanted to blush it up, that's why.

Yoyo: 38:16

Yeah.

Lee: 38:19

One thing that does sit with me though, is that the kind of the Norwegian study that they did a few years ago, with young children, and we're talking, eight, nine, 10, um where they got them to do the same task and then they give them a different visual reward in terms of, sweets and it's really powerful because the young boys and it's based on like the gender pay gap. The young boys look across at the girls and see that they've done the same thing and noticed they've been re enumerated less and rewarded less and actually they just step in and think let's make this fair and they do that without being prompted. There becomes a point where we suddenly lose that bravery to step in and just think how we do that in a wider situation. We all have that within us. I'd say very few people have an inner sense of fairness. And that again, the Arctic conversation, most people, when they take a step back and look, can see that the world, isn't fair. It's not particularly equitable and it's not always inclusive. But there is something that you can do and moving from that knowledge and seeing that to actually taking some action it takes a bit of courage takes a bit of curiosity Takes a bit of consistency But it's something that everyone can do and like I said earlier when you go on that journey, you just become Fundamentally a bit wiser, but also probably the most important thing That i've seen from men who stepped in you actually become more compassionate to yourself And more compassionate towards other men and we need a bit more compassion right now because men also, you know have Some challenges in society that are often based around a lack of connection, and a lack of, actually being a bit kinder to themselves and being a bit more vulnerable with the challenges that they're having and being a bit more proactive with looking after their own health, both mentally and physically too. So yeah, it's very much a win win. It's about baking a bigger pie together, not losing a bit of your pie by actually thinking how you can make the world better for other people.

Yoyo: 40:32

What a lovely way of putting it. You've always had, Lee, this beautifully articulate way of talking. What do men need then? Because, you do hear quite a lot, men, for example, saying, some men, again, some men just saying, why should what we need take second place to what women need? And also,, these kinds of quotes, like women are taking our jobs. We don't want men to feel like they're having to take second place. what do men need?

Lee: 40:59

Yeah, I think there's numerous things, Yolanda. I think firstly, the way, the way inclusion has been communicated historically, it's very much around, you've got privilege, you go and help marginalised groups, and inclusion isn't really for you. Terms like stale male and pale, stuff like that. It's massively unhelpful, because fundamentally, everyone needs some help and support at some point, and everyone needs a bit of compassion. That has drained away compassion for wider populace of men in general, which is a problem. The other challenge is when it's when inclusion is marketed as just for marginalized groups Men don't really see what's in it for them They don't really understand how it's going to benefit them and actually it's going to feel like they're going to lose something we've worked and researched to find out What men feel and in our research what we found is 40 percent of men said that gender equity was pretty much sorted Or actually had gone too far and that's a big chunk of people. That's a big chunk of men who feel that way And we're happy enough on an anonymized survey to say that. When we actually looked qualitatively at why they'd said that, the reasons were, from their perspective, valid. They were saying that things like, 20 years ago, we had one female partner. Now, we have 72. The world's changed massively in the past 20 years. It's so different than it was, and surely it's going to sort itself out. You know, men saying, I feel less valued in the workplace now, because, there's a much bigger focus on diversity than there ever was before, and I feel like I'm not being heard. We've got men saying that, they feel like it's going to reduce their opportunities of promotion and secondments and new projects in the future. And a lot of the kind of the term, the things that they brought to the table were either feeling an element of loss or seeing so much progress in comparison to what it was before. That actually, I don't understand why we're trying to amp it up. And obviously at that point you could throw down the data in front of them and say, but if you actually look at it, especially from a leadership perspective, it's nowhere near where it should be if it was going to be representative. But actually the most important thing is to actually meet these men. It's to meet men where they're at. To actually acknowledge that's how they feel at this moment in time. Because, if we acknowledge where they are at, that's how you can help them take some steps forward on the journey. Because, those feelings of loss, they will stop you from taking action. No human being wants to feel like they're losing something. Mmm. But the bigger thing is, very few men have really dug deep into exploring why you would fight for something that doesn't directly impact you. It's something I've had experience of from, a racial perspective. Most men have not really had to fight for their rights. There's a kind of a protest and a activist skillset there that most men don't really have or haven't really ignited because they might not have ever had to. I think it's tapping into that and thinking, those men are feeling at the minute, they've got a slice of pie and if I do this work, I'm dividing that slice of pie up and giving it to someone else. That means I will lose pie. I don't want to lose. What they don't appreciate is that the way society is, the way the capitalistic kind of patriarchal nature of the world that we live in, is actually nibbling away at that pie, whether they're aware of it or not. Men's wages, from a comparative term, they've not gone up. Men are actually getting poorer. All the economic growth over the past 40 years has actually been women coming into the workplace and becoming two wage households. Men are actually earning less now the media man's earning less now than he did in 1980 Which is crazy, but it's like it's how it is and that means that we're in a we're in a challenging place as men because All the things we've been told about being a provider And being a kind of a protector and being you know, the one who you know Creates opportunities for families to come together a lot of the things that we've been told the advance Of women and the evolution of women has actually been in some ways quite powerful there are so many more women now who are able to be financially independent and secure who are able to actually You know pursue career paths that work for them that align with their skill sets there's a whole group of men who actually are like, I've been told I need to be this, but actually in this modern world today, that's actually not, that's not what is needed. It's not actually possible to be the man I'm told I should be. That's going to create a bit of a level of resentment, because you've been told that you should be this. How do you evolve to be what you need to be for the future? And there's a bridge there and I believe allyship is a big part of that bridge But ultimately meeting men where they're at instead of whacking them around the head with a stick Because there's been enough of whacking people around the head with a stick In this work, because it just becomes a point where that it just doesn't get people to take sustainable action to changing and if people are doing this work from a place of being ashamed. They're going to actually try and say the right thing rather than having those challenging conversations or actually taking action and it's not going to be sustainable. They won't bring other people on the journey with them. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot to be pieced apart from that, Yolanda, but fundamentally, we do actually need a bit more compassion for men. We need to meet men where they're at, but then once they've started on that journey, It's about accountability it's really important that it's men who are driving other men, not women using even more emotional labor to inspire men and to educate men and set men along because women have done that for the past 50 years and actually all the heavy lifting of change has been done by women and that's a big part of why I do the work that I do because I've benefited from being a stay at home father, benefited from flexible working but who advocated for those policies as they are today. When you actually look who advocated. All the legwork is done by women. So I've benefited from the work of women before me as a man, knowing that as a male collective, we didn't do any of the legwork to make that happen. We're all in a little bit of debt to women for the flexibility that we have in our lives now. But we also need to work together to redefine masculinity can be in the future. That's why we do the work that we do with boys in schools, because we need to understand where they're at, meet them where they're at, and show them the pathways and bridges that they can take to actually start to find the men that they can become. In a world full of misinformation and disinformation, and how to critically consider why have they said it like that? Why has it been phrased like that? Why have they cherry picked those studies? What are they actually trying to get you to do?

Yoyo: 48:50

Very powerful. Lee, lastly, now, lastly, lastly, let's talk about the subject of individualization and, belongingness. The belongingness, I should say. Thank you. came about really, because in a podcast recently with a good pal who describes himself as a typical white English guy, he said he felt the need for everyone to be in a named group rather counterproductive. This is my interpretation. He felt that it, and this is his words, segregates them. when they individualize themselves. How do we tackle that? Because this is somebody who's still curious, who's still learning and on a journey. Individualization is important, isn't it?

Lee: 49:32

So what I would say, Yolands, is this is the, one of the most important skills in this work is the ability to understand that two things that seem quite paradoxical can be true at the same time. From my perspective, we do need to understand marginalized groups. Now those marginalized groups, they're not homogenous, not homogenous in the slightest. There's massive diversity within those groups, but those groups often share some common challenges and there's a commonality of experience across that group. That's what we're looking at, not the individuals themselves, not the group itself, but the commonality of challenge and experience in that group. If you look at intersections that can add extra bits that are maybe not as common across the whole group, but what we are looking at is what are the commonalities of challenge within that group while appreciating and respecting that every single person in that group is bio individual and unique. It's two things being true at the same time because we need to work on what are those common challenges in that group how can we actually reduce some of those barriers that are common? How can we create opportunities that are often missing? How can we work on those common challenges? It's really important that we look at those common challenges and think what we can do Especially if we don't face those common challenges because we're often quite often in a position where we can actually tackle challenges We don't face ourselves But we might actually have a unique aspects of privilege to tackle those challenges in a different way And we'll be simply be less tired we haven't faced those barriers, obstacles and challenges ourselves. It's not about chucking everyone into a label and saying these people here. It's about respecting everyone's individuality and not stereotyping whole group to think they're the same and falling into your own assumptions. It's about respecting the fact that groups of individuals and demographics usually have a set of common challenges that not every other group has. It's those common challenges that we need to look at and think how can we be part of making a change for those so the world becomes better for everyone in that group. And quite often that is systems work alongside our everyday personal interactions and the learning we can do ourselves as individuals.,

Yoyo: 52:04

I think I gave you a huge challenge to tackle that subject in the remaining time that we had left and you did it brilliantly. Well done, Lee. What does 2025 have for you,

Lee: 52:15

Continuing the work with Male Allies UK, the work with Boys in Schools. And that's funded by the work with corporates where we do a lot around allyship training we bring sessions and workshops and consultancy for gender networks and male allies networks 2025 is looking exciting. There's the release of momentum the book in january it's an interesting look at my own career journey the 13 lessons that I've learned that at the start of my career, I thought, no, that's not important. It's a reflection of 20 years, and a real look at how you can redefine success on your own terms. Just continuing to advance the conversation, continuing to challenge the status quo and continuing to, yeah, see things that are generally not seen and say the things that are rarely said. So yeah, always, always in a place of challenge, always learning and always curious.

Yoyo: 53:06

You are so confident with your content that even when you were on Newsnight, you delivered there on TV. I don't know, is it live? I don't know, but you were so good, Lee. Have you done an awful lot of television work?

Lee: 53:20

Not really. Only bits and pieces. And it is live as well. So you're kind of sat there in the studio, like, just waiting for the camera to just Pop on you. but luckily it's not that long. It's quite short.

Yoyo: 53:31

Lee's worth following if not only just to see the awesome suit jackets that you wear which certainly speak to your individuality as well Lee, thank you so much for joining us on the security circle podcast.

Lee: 53:43

Yeah, thank you everyone. It's been a pleasure.