Get to know Dr Matt Jacobs – Coach & Facilitator

Why do you do this work? 

I am asked this a lot, probably because it’s unusual to see someone like me working on, and advocating for, equity for marginalised people. I am, after all, one of those who benefits the most from the status quo. For me, my motivation has several roots.  

The first is a simple belief that for people to be discriminated against because of one or more aspects of their identity is morally wrong.  

The second is that, as a single parent who raised two daughters by myself, I witnessed, heard, and learnt an awful lot about what it means to be a young woman in Britain today. This was profoundly shocking and, believe me, motivating!  

The final aspect is my awareness – whether developed through my academic research or conversations with others about their lived experiences – of how I benefit from the inequity of today.  

This inequity is the result of the actions of people like me in the past. I feel that I need to take some responsibility for, and be accountable for these historic actions, by addressing their impact today. 

What’s your view on the current state of gender equity? 

The work to achieve gender equity is at a pivotal moment. We’re seeing backlash in the high-profile nexus of Trump, Tate, Musk, and Zuckerberg; in legislative attacks on women’s bodily autonomy; in efforts to erase trans people and their rights; and in a global rightward shift among young men.  

Together, these forces push us toward an intensified return to old patriarchal norms – threatening to set us back decades, if not centuries. 

In response, we need to look closely at how we ‘do’ gender equity work and how we talk about it. We need to strip away the oppositional ‘Them and Us’ aspect that has long infused the work. Instead, we need to make it about ‘All of Us’ to create a more collaborative approach to removing the Three Barriers.  

This must be an approach that, while supporting efforts to make companies more innovative, agile, resilient, and adaptable in today’s complex marketplaces, is firmly rooted in the moral and ethical imperative that all people are of equal value and possess an inalienable right to be treated as such – regardless of who they are. 

What have you read recently and do you have a top takeaway that our audiences might benefit from? 

I’m just coming to the end of Cordelia Fines’ new book, Patriarchy Inc, which I’d recommend anyone to read. Contrary to what some people might think because of the title, it isn’t a diatribe against men. Rather, she lays out a particularly interesting take on how society works in a gendered way, with both historical and contemporary context.  

Fines also addresses some of the arguments espoused by evolutionary psychologists on gender roles, as well as taking apart the illogic of the ‘equal but different’ arguments put forward by some who wish to maintain the status quo.  

As a way forward, she talks about how we need to de-gender both caring responsibilities in the home and ‘roles’ in the workplace. These require an active approach to address informal systems of meaning.  

For example, who are the lauded role models and heroes? And what about the unwritten assumptions and pre-established expectations embedded in the organisational language? 

Crucially, she also talks about how we need to ‘reforge’ gender identities away from oppositional binaries. And rather than encouraging men to be more like women, which is likely to meet resistance from men themselves, we need to look at alternative models of gender identity.  

This last part speaks loudly to my position that we need to redefine masculinity and femininity in a way that is devoid of comparative value judgements. This book is well worth a read!