Inclusify by Stefanie K. Johnson

Author:Stefanie K. Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

THE FOLLY OF THE WHITE KNIGHT

The folly of the White Knight is not rooted in his support of women, POC, WOC, or LGBTQ; all of the Inclusifyers I met also supported and championed these minority groups. The problem is that White Knights’ behavior can inadvertently send the message that those individuals are incompetent while also alienating other men in the organization.

Sandi Mays, the chief customer experience and information officer at Zayo, a fiber and bandwidth provider, is not the kind of woman who is willing to stand on anyone’s pedestal. But she did find herself in the company of many White Knights throughout her career, especially as one of the very few women in the tech field. As she is one of the few Latinas I have met in Boulder, I instantly gravitated toward her when I gave a talk for Zayo. As I mingled with the crowd afterward, I could not help but notice the woman who dominated the room.

I asked her to coffee, seeking some mentorship from one of Boulder’s most powerful women. We sat in a café in Boulder’s Twenty-Ninth Street mall, me in my heels and Sandi in her trademark Ugg boots. She gave me great advice about navigating the labyrinth of career, family, and friendship. What stuck with me was how imperative it was that she had respectfully declined the chivalrous offers from White Knights along her career path. She said that they had just needed a little upward mentoring to see that she was not a fawn in need of help. She is a lion. And she let them know it before their fawn expectations could bite her in the ass.

“They always had the best of intentions—that was clear to me. I remember a time when the whole team was working on a project that was going to take all night. This was an important project. I knew that I wanted to be there, not only to help it succeed but also because I knew that everyone who worked on this was going to get some major rewards. It was just after six and we were all giving our dinner orders when my boss says, ‘Sandi, where are your kids?’ I looked around the room as if joking that I did not know where they were. ‘They’re fine,’ I said. ‘They’re home with my husband.’ My boss responded, ‘I want you to go home. I know you have kids and we should not be burdening you or your husband with this right now. It’s not his job.’ I was dumbfounded and said, ‘It is his job, though—my husband is a stay-at-home dad. I think I’ll stay and finish out the project.’”

Like many White Knights, Sandi’s boss was trying to be supportive and respect the importance of her work-life balance. But his belief that Sandi needed to go home to her kids, while the fathers in the room (there were no other women) did not, shows a clear gender bias.

Sandi also noted that the other men in the room rolled their eyes at her boss’s words.

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