I read Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” in my last year of school. It was the only female autobiography in my house and, at the age of 18, it made me feel an overwhelmingly naïve sense of optimism for my future. Sandberg told me to not be a “maternal gatekeeper”, to not let “internal obstacles” (read: imposter syndrome) hold me back and to “negotiate like a man”. Her message is staunchly problematic; it represents the epitome of white feminism and is the antithesis of true equality. Sandberg’s “Lean In” needs to be reframed and recontextualised.

Before arriving at Cambridge, I can’t say the establishment’s track record with gender equality enthralled me. My own college, St Catharine’s, was celebrating a mere 40 years of co-education when I matriculated in October 2019. As my college’s MCR Women’s Officer, I apprehensively set up weekly equality discussion groups. Mainly, I suppose, out of curiosity. Organizing these discussion groups each week made me nervous, and I know not everyone will agree with my mission. But to me at least, the future of feminist dialogue is incomprehensible and largely irrelevant if men do not lean in and listen.

"My vision for these equality discussion groups was to create a safe space within which values, ideas and perspectives are listened to"

Ok guilty, the focus of many discussion groups was centred on women’s rights. But I couldn’t call them “feminist discussion groups” or else no men would have turned up. My vision for these equality discussion groups was to create a safe space within which values, ideas and perspectives are listened to ,even if not agreed with, to discuss female, male and non-binary individuals’ issues, to look into real world case studies, data, experiences of equality issues and discuss how they can be progressed in Cambridge and beyond. The idea being that any individual of any gender, sexuality or ethnicity could walk through the door and feel heard.

I was curious to hear what men have to say when someone makes a rape joke. I wanted to hear what men had to say about career women, and #metoo, and female leaders, and boys falling behind in education, and abortion rights, and toxic masculinity, and how we navigate equality in dating apps. Dr Dan Guinness, Director of the Good Lad Initiative, provided me with some of his own experiences. He found that a pertinent issue of some men being reluctant to engage with discussions on gender equality is due to ignorance and fear. “The problem is that so many conversations [about sex] are taboo, which means that people are actually afraid of talking, learning and discussing. So, they don’t educate themselves”.

Another barrier is that some men feel it’s unnecessary. “When we discuss perpetrators of sexual violence, many will naturally jump on the defensive and think – I don’t need to have that conversation, that’s not me – but just initiating a conversation on consent, for example, is a step in the right direction”. In Michaelmas, I put together discussion topics on misconceptions of feminism, deconstructing myths about masculinity and how equal dating really is today. In Lent, postgrads at Catz put together talks of their own. One student on her work with a rape crisis center and another on Judith Butler. A highlight was getting four women from China, Syria, Malaysia and the USA to give a present on gender equality in their respective homelands.

“Keen to get a better hold of the pale, stale, male rhetoric that holds up the foundations of this patriarchy, I felt uplifted by the talks I went to during my time at Cambridge. ”

Of course, getting those who would benefit most from leaning into gender equality seems an impossible feat. Keen to get a better hold of the pale, stale, male rhetoric that holds up the foundations of this patriarchy, I felt uplifted by the talks I went to during my time at Cambridge. Listening to Tarana Burke, the Senior Director at Gender Equity in Brooklyn and the founder of the #MeToo movement was a highlight of my time in Cambridge. This short essay on why #MeToo is not just a movement for famous, white cisgendered woman is particularly enlightening.

At a Rising Tide talk on “What about men? Engaging boys and men in gender equality”, Dr Jill Armstrong, Bye Fellow and Researcher for the Collaborating with Men project declared it “necessary and powerful” to involve men in discussions on equality. It was at this talk that I met Bill Thompson, BBC Tech Columnist, whom I invited to give the last equality discussion group of the year. He said; “when I started at Catz forty years ago. I lived through the tensions of those times with some senior members regretting the [co-educational] change and showing it. It was fascinating to talk at the equality discussion group and see how much had changed. While the attitudes of forty years ago haven’t disappeared, they are no longer the norm, so discussions start from a very different place.”

Equality discussion groups should manifest subtly in your home when talking to your dad, uncle or grandpa. Or with the guy in the corner shop, with an old schoolteacher, with your little brother or even (especially) with that guy sitting across from you at a formal who makes a rape joke – no matter how satirical or ambiguous. Dr Guinness lamented the gains for men leaning into gender equality, “coming from a position of understanding and empathy, if we can get men past their defensiveness so that they feel like an active part of addressing and challenging the problem, then we can build a more positive future”.

I am frustrated and ashamed that I didn’t cover more pressing topics in these equality discussion groups, and I admit that I almost gave up after the first equality discussion group. I posed the quote “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them” by Margaret Atwood to the group. The women in the room nodded in unison. The men were unsure how to react; one argued the sentiment “seems a little extreme”. This is the reason we fundamentally need equality discussion groups.