Can being too sensitive to men’s perspectives hurt us?

Last week I spoke with a retired Fortune 500 COO and current consultant. She is passionate about finding and creating networking opportunities for executive women.

When she recently moved to Atlanta she was surprised at the lack of networks for executive women. She took action.

• She created a sub group for women within one of the more successful executive networking groups.
• She volunteered to serve as a mentor to women leaders in one of the largest women’s leadership development programs
• She got active in Women in Technology at the board level

Then she told me of the reaction from her male colleagues.

“Don’t you do anything with men?”

“Maybe we should form our own men’s networking group” (when she suggested that this would be the regular Friday meetings, they were not amused)

“What do we need to do to join in on the events?”

Her take-away is that we need to be very sensitive to how we are perceived by the men we work with and not focus exclusively on networking/helping other women.

While rationally I understand this advise… I know that we need to be seen as team players and we can’t be playing favorites… but really a part of me wants to pull my hair out.

We are being so careful to portray ourselves as “non-gender” so we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings or egos.

But…

• When the guys go golfing every week, do they worry about us?
• When they look around the room and find a sea of male faces, do they wonder why we aren’t around?
• When they plan events that women aren’t attending, do they think about changing the venue or forum?
• When they host superbowl parties, sponsor golfing events, take clients to strip clubs… well you get the idea.

It seems like we are supposed to go along and get along without saying anything…

Go to the events that men enjoy, not notice that we are excluded or unwanted, and accept the standard “you are welcome to join us” without ever saying anything.

But when we try to form our own “girls network” or do things together that we enjoy, guys get nervous and make us feel bad about it. And we start to believe there is something wrong with what we are doing.

Why are they so nervous when we get together without them? Why is this so threatening that they can’t support us?