How women in energy are helping men to help them

During a panel on empowering women in the energy industry, Lynne Hackedorn delivered a truth that likely struck a chord with many of her peers at oil and gas companies.

“All my opportunities came from men,” said Ms. Hackedorn, vice president of government and public affairs with Texas-based Cobalt International Energy Inc.

She started out as a landman — a profession that still goes by the male suffix. And at that time, there simply weren’t many women around to advance her career.

“I strongly support women helping women,” she said during the Marcellus Shale Insight conference in Pittsburgh in September. But “It’s time to talk to the guys in the room.

“I really ask men to be more intentional about paying attention to the women that are working around you or your company,” she said.

Sitting next to Ms. Hackedorn was an impressive panel of women who had made it to the top of their organizations, including Stacey Olson, president of Chevron Appalachia.

Chevron Appalachia was a week away from launching a new program-called MARC — Men Advocating Real Change — which aims to recruit men as advocates for gender equality. It was developed by Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit working to advance women in the workplace. The Chevron program is intended to be “a space for men to grapple with sticky subjects directly and honestly in a judgment-free atmosphere.”

A glossary in one of the program’s reports about getting men engaged includes definitions of “male privilege,” “masculine norms” and “non-zero-sum-game.”

On its website, the organization currently has stories titled, “Gender equality: What women are really asking of men” and “My white male epiphany.”

The Chevron launch event, held in October, drew 80 people. It was actually pioneered by the company’s Women’s Network, an affinity group that includes 6,300 members companywide — 12 percent of whom are men, according

to Nate Calvert, a Chevron spokesperson.

“This is about men listening, becoming more aware, and becoming change agents and partners for promoting gender equality,” Mr. Calvert said last week.

Explaining the MARC initiative in September, Ms. Olson said, simply: “Sometimes men want to have conversations by themselves.”

Sometimes, it’s just a matter of bonding with those “who are most like you,” Ms. Hackedorn said.

It’s not uncommon for men exiting the same meeting as Ms. Hackerdorn to say to each other, “Hey, let’s grab lunch” without extending an invite. It’s not an intentional snub, just a function of familiarity, she said.

Making the business case for female advancement is helpful, if not essential, the women on the panel said.

“After I had my first child, I didn’t want to work full time,” said Mary Lou Fry, manager of legal affairs for Statoil in the U.S. The company where she was working couldn’t afford to pay her for full-time work, anyway, which worked out perfectly.

“I also had a few older men allies who, as their daughters came up, started realizing what was going on,” she said. “They wanted their daughters to be fulfilled.” They looked at Ms. Fry through the same lens, they told her.

Statoil, a Norwegian firm, isn’t like “working in a typical good old boy company,” Ms. Fry said. “I’ve never been on a team where men outnumberwomen” — an astonishing experience for many industries, let alone oil and gas.

In the U.S., too, the industry is changing, albeit gradually, Ms. Olsen said. “Numbers are trending up, but very slowly,” she said. “The reputation of the industry is an issue.”

Emily Thomas, an attorney with BakerHostetler who moderated the panel in September, gave the final word on getting men to notice women enough to champion them.

“Take advantage of being the only [female] voice on the call. They’ll know who you are.”