Fostering Inclusion: Allyship and its Impact on Workplace Culture

Project RISE is a data-driven initiative promoting inclusive cultural change for engineers. In this presentation, we first define allyship as a multi-dimensional set of actions in support of women and other marginalized groups. Our findings demonstrate the positive impacts of allies in engineering workplace cultures (e.g., women's increased identity safety and feelings of inclusion). You will receive research-based suggestions of how to promote allyship, discussing the role of social norms in both encouraging and inhibiting allies. This research has been featured in Project RISE workshops throughout Canada, as well as in WinSETT Centre programs.

Lucy De Souza
University of British Columbia

Learning Objectives

By the end of this presentation, learners will be able to:

• Consider implicit gender bias and how these biases may disproportionately impact women in engineering and geoscience fields.
• Define allyship and discuss what behaviours (both broadly and specific) constitute allyship.
• Gain insight into positive outcomes of allyship, specifically reactive and proactive behaviours that counter gender-based bias.
• Come away from this presentation with suggestions and tools for discussing implicit gender bias, promoting allyship, and fostering gender-based inclusion within their own organizations.

Speaker

Lucy De Souza

Graduate Student, University of British Columbia

Lucy De Souza is obtaining her doctorate degree in social psychology at the University of British Columbia. Her research revolves around understanding allyship, mainly investigating the social-psychological factors that may inhibit people from confronting sexism and the benefits of cross-gender dialogue in the workplace. Lucy is also interested in how race/ethnicity may distinctively shape women’s experiences and perceptions of women in male-dominated spaces such as STEM fields. She is team member of Project RISE, a part of the Canada-wide Engendering Success in STEM Consortium.