From the field
What had once felt like an issue that happened somewhere else suddenly became personal, immediate, and impossible to keep at a distance.
What Changed When I Finally Listened
After a BraidedWork session on sexism and gender bias at work, I decided to reach out to the women in my life and ask whether the kinds of experiences raised in the session had happened to them too. I was taken aback by what I learned. My sisters, cousins, and friends each had their own set of experiences. We had grown up in the same home, family, and community — and yet lived completely different daily realities.
I think that's the power of BraidedWork. It creates the conditions for people to truly listen, reflect, and change — both at the workplace and in their broader lives.
A learning experience that goes deeper than information
I have worked at many places that claim to care about inclusion, equity, and belonging, but only through BraidedWork have I actually collaborated with my colleagues to tackle those ideas in community. This process moved me beyond passive awareness: I realized that I had heard about sexism and gender-based harm before, but had not fully listened to what those realities meant for the people around me.
Through conversations and collective research around the topic of sexism and gender bias, I began noticing how gender norms and patriarchy manifested in my own life — in family dynamics, everyday privileges, and moments where I caught myself performing or acting in ways that reinforced the very systems I considered myself opposed to.
Masculinity and me
Before this BraidedWork experience, I had never questioned what masculinity meant to me, how my understanding of it had been shaped by my culture and family, or how I had never been invited to talk openly about it with other people, much less with other men. Workplaces often underestimate how powerful it can be to give people permission to talk about identity, power, and lived experience in ways they may never have done before.
Why this matters for organizations
Organizations like to use buzzwords like "diversity" and "inclusion" in their missions and values, but BraidedWork makes those commitments visible. It asks workers to dedicate real time, attention, and care to difficult topics — and puts workplace values into practice.
My favorite part of BraidedWork is that it prompted conversations that surfaced the full depth of my colleagues' knowledge. We came in with different lived experiences, different perspectives, and different ways of making meaning. When those differences are invited into the room, they can sharpen ideas, improve learning experiences, and lead to solutions one person can't come up with on their own.
BraidedWork is not designed to force everyone into the same viewpoint. People may still leave with different opinions. However, they leave having learned from one another, with a broader understanding of the issue and a stronger sense of how their own experience fits into a larger picture. And sometimes that starts with something as simple as listening closely enough to realize that the people closest to you have been carrying stories you've never fully listened to.
