I find myself in a weird situation and I’m hoping the community will come to my aid and help me find a way through this dilemma.

I work for a progressive technology organisation in the UK education sector. As a geographically diverse company with many remote staff we have a real focus on internal communities and support groups, LGBQT, women, menopause, neurodivergent, parents, international, etc. There was a support group for everyone except the 65% who were male, so I decided to step up and be the chair for the Mens group (although I couldn’t call it the mens group because the leadership team were worried it would be associated with mens rights, as such it had to be titled the mens health and wellbeing group).

I recently ran an internal event raising awareness for Movember bringing in a speaker to talk about mens mental health and cancer issues that was really well received. We had a 80 strong turn out with a 50/50 split of men and women, which I’m really happy about. BUT I can’t continue to do this by myself. I’ve had 4 other co-chairs pull out of the group because of work, personal commitments and ill health. This is a voluntary role and my employers are happy to give me 10% of my working time to make stuff happen, speakers etc.

So to the dilemma… I have been told by MD that I play a pivotal role in ensuring that men’s issues are heard in the organisation but I feel constrained on the subjects I can talk about, don’t feel I have the support of the organisation as a whole because of the anti- feminist connotations and I’m not sure this is doing my career any favours.

Do I call it quits knowing that I’m on a hiding to nothing, take solace that I’m potentially representing an under represented majority of the organisation and denting my career / prospects. Or is there something I should be saying to the leadership team about the support I need to make the community a success?