How we fail women at work

I have spent years watching women fight battles that most men never even see. I have seen colleagues, friends, and sisters give everything to their careers; dedication, long nights, missed family moments, sacrifices most of us would never dare to make, only to be told that their success could not possibly belong to them. This […]

I have spent years watching women fight battles that most men never even see. I have seen colleagues, friends, and sisters give everything to their careers; dedication, long nights, missed family moments, sacrifices most of us would never dare to make, only to be told that their success could not possibly belong to them.

This is the quiet cruelty of our workplaces: when a woman rises, instead of applauding her effort, too many men reduce her achievement to a rumour. They whisper that she must have slept her way up. They insist she could not have earned it. They strip her of dignity and ownership, not with evidence, but with poisonous suspicion.

We, as men, need to confront this ugly truth. We are often the ones creating this toxic environment. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with silence.

Think about it: when a man succeeds, we celebrate his intelligence, his leadership, his hard work. When a woman achieves the same or more, we search for a shortcut in her story. We cannot imagine that she might simply be better. And instead of facing our own insecurities, we choose the coward’s route: we discredit her.

But what do we gain from this? Nothing but a workplace built on mistrust, a society that wastes talent, and a culture where ambition becomes a punishment for women.

The tragedy is that women are not failing because they lack ability; they are walking away because the air is too heavy with judgment. Brilliant, capable women are resigning, not from their jobs, but from the constant battle to defend their integrity. And we, as men, pretend not to notice, because acknowledging it would mean admitting we are part of the problem.

We must do better.

If you truly care about your wife, your daughter, your sister, your friend, then you must recognise how unfair this system is. Imagine her working hard, only to have every victory dismissed as borrowed. Imagine her silence when she cannot speak up, because to defend herself is to fuel the gossip. Imagine her smile hiding exhaustion, because she knows she has to work twice as hard to be seen half as worthy.

This is not just a woman’s issue. It is a man’s issue too. We built the system that suffocates them, and it is on us to dismantle it. We cannot keep standing in circles, laughing at rumours, or nodding at falsehoods. We cannot keep allowing women’s names to be dragged while we fold our arms and call it “harmless talk.” It is not harmless. It is destructive.

Every time we spread that lie, that a woman’s success must have been bought with her body, we erase years of her sacrifice. Every time we stay silent when others say it, we strengthen the chains that hold her back.

We owe women more than this. We owe ourselves more than this. Because a society that clips the wings of half its people can never truly fly.

It is time we learn to respect merit when we see it. To honour effort regardless of gender. To raise daughters who know their work will be valued, and sons who know that success does not make a woman suspect.

The change begins with us, the men in the room, the ones with the louder voices, the ones who benefit from this imbalance. We must be the ones to break the silence. To say: enough.

Because until we do, we are not just bystanders. We are the problem.

 

Kiru sent this piece from Kano