Empowering Allies
This committee is focused on empowering appropriate allyship from people outside of IWB as well as promoting allyship within our membership
Key Objectives
Provide Resources for Allies
Provide resources to help our allies learn about what makes a good ally and what it means to be a woman in biomechanics. Specifically, we are translating our members' experiences to actionable information to make the field more equitable for everyone involved.
Making Women Allies
We recognize that our members should be allies too. We will hold space to discuss how we can better serve ourselves and communities that we may not be part of, to encourage every member to grow in their own personal and professional allyship.
Building Bridges
We aim to build strong connections to inclusive groups like Black Biomechanists Association and Latinx in Biomechanix, to celebrate the diversity within IWB.
What is 'allyship'?
We believe that allyship is a two-pronged approach. External allyship is about integrity - it is about looking to research spaces, academia, and industry and publicly labelling inequity when you see it. Creating space for women is vitally important. A few examples of inequity that you can start to look for today includes: noticing all male panels (manels), listening at meetings to see if women are interrupted more than men, and noticing if the women around you feel safe expressing their views. You can also amplify the voices and research of women via social media. (Check out our Twitter @IntWomenBiomech for some great women in biomechanics to follow!)
There is also an internal journey to allyship. Internal allyship is about ‘leaning in’. All of us (men, women, and non-binary folx) have been taught gender biases from a young age. These biases stay with us unless we choose to fight them. You can start this journey now! You can begin by identifying and fighting internal biases that you have. This could be as simple as asking yourself if you expect the women in the office to act as matriarchs or considering the adjectives you use for men or women (e.g., kind and caring, or assertive and independent). It’s also important to ask yourself why you may choose to describe male colleagues differently than women colleagues. These biases negatively affect all of us. (Test your biases here.)