The Better Man Conference is a one-day event that provides resources, support, and community for engaging men as allies in creating inclusive culture. Participants gain perspectives on best practices for allyship, exclusion behaviors, and a roadmap for building more balanced dynamics in organizations.
The conference’s Founder, Ray Arata, is a leadership coach, inclusion consultant, and cultural facilitator.
I caught up with Ray here to talk about healthy masculinity, redemption, and the ally’s journey.
JV: Can you tell us how The Better Man Conference got started?
RA: Four years ago I was two years into my focus and intention around engaging men as allies — exploring things like gender partnership and advancing healthy masculinity forward. I felt like the activist in me wasn’t being fed, so I had this idea of a conference in the back of my mind. I reached out to several different corporate folks and a variety of inclusion and diversity experts and said ‘I’ve got this idea to bring healthy masculinity — as opposed to toxic masculinity — as a cornerstone to inclusionary leadership. I want to do a conference that focuses on men, but is open to everybody, because as long as men are the main folks in charge let’s figure out how to get them engaged. We had 150 people show up to the first Better Man Conference, and the next year we doubled in size. A big surprise was that companies sent delegations; this all happened before Me Too.
JV: How would you define healthy masculinity?
RA: What I offer is a reframe around healthy masculinity and I’ll give you a little bit of context around what’s behind it. I have about ten thousand hours working with men on how to live and lead from the heart in a non-corporate context. I’ve been a leader on 48+ weekends, men’s circles, and I’ve brought this work into prisons: I was just in a maximum security prison last weekend. For me, healthy masculinity is about emotional literacy. I, as a man, have the ability to have a conscious relationship with my emotions. I can feel fear. I can feel sadness. I can feel shame. I can feel anger…all in a healthy way. I also have a level of awareness in my mind that I’m going to be aware of my emotions, I’m going to be aware of my impact on other people, I’m going to speak my truth and honor the truth of other people. All of these attributes are available to us as men. I really want to get these concepts in the mainstream. I’ve got a daughter, I’ve got two sons, and there’s no shortage of toxic masculinity on the planet.
JV: I think in the wake of Me Too, a lot of us are trying to figure out a balance between making sure that victims and survivors have justice, but also asking…how do we help men find redemption?
RA: I’m glad you’re asking that. I’m speaking with Morgan Spurlock shortly, the documentary filmmaker. He outed himself voluntarily about some behaviors he wasn’t proud of, and was introduced to me on his road to redemption. I’m going to have a conversation about where he’s at and what he’s learned, and if he is asking himself the hard questions.
Further, I know Michael Kimmel, a professor of sociology and “gender expert” who has recently been accused of sexual harassment. He’s a friend of mine, so when that stuff hit the news about seven weeks ago…talk about unrest inside my head. I’m a feminist, so what am I supposed to do as a feminist? I’m a leader of a movement, I’m a men’s work guy, I’m an attorney by degree which means innocent until proven guilty…there was all this stuff inside my head. How do I support the victims? How do I support Michael if he’s innocent…or if he’s guilty? There are all these questions, and I came back with one answer: we all have to come from the heart. We have to have empathy, we have to have compassion, and we have to have forgiveness. So I really want to acknowledge your raising of the word redemption.
At some of my most recent talks people have been asking “is all of this necessary” in regards to Me Too, and I believe: yes it is. We are in the call-out phase and eventually I want us to all shift to the call-in phase: men calling men in, women calling men in. President Trump said this was a very difficult time to be a man and I don’t believe in that horse-pucky statement: I’m of the belief that it’s a historic opportunity to be a man right now.
JV: A lot of men don’t consciously condone rape culture but they remain silent in the face of it. What are some good starting points for men who want to be better allies but don’t know where to begin?
RA: Once injustice is visible we as men have to make a conscious choice, and here is where we get into silence as complicity: if we remain silent then we will be painted with the brush that we are like those men who are perpetrators. I’m not one for silence: my conference “Stand up, Speak up, It’s time” speaks to that.
There are steps we have created for the ally’s journey and I’ll share them with you and your readers:
First: Acknowledge that I have privilege.
Two: Acknowledge that there is impact to my bias and privilege, and if I make a mistake take accountability for it, resolve it, clean it up.
Three: Listen with empathy and compassion. One of the things we do when we work with men is we encourage them to ask women what it’s like to work in their workplace, and to be quiet and listen. Listen listen listen. I have yet to meet a man who doesn’t want to be a better man when he hears what it’s like for women in their workplace environments, or in society. It starts them on a journey out of their head and into their heart. Listening from empathy and compassion is very important.
Four: Commit to new practices and behavioral change.
Five: Use your voice, stand up and speak up. Resolve to speak out against unacceptable behaviors.
Remember how I talked about emotional literacy earlier? When you look at Time’s Up and Me Too, fear is pervasive, and men are hesitant to say or do the wrong thing. I offer them a reframe and that reframe is to reconsider the relationship you want to have with fear. Do you want to be the man that stands silent, that isn’t aware of his emotions, so that the only emotion you show is anger, or do you want to be the man who puts himself on the ally’s journey, learns about his emotions, and has a conscious partnership of the head and the heart? What kind of man do you want to be?
The Better Man Conference is Tuesday November 6th at Hearst Tower in NYC. For more information visit bettermanconference.com.
