Engaging White Men in Allyship for Structural Change: A Systematic Review

Abstract

While most violent crime declined during COVID-19, domestic and gender-based violence either remained the same or increased in most jurisdictions. Some social movements have turned to engaging men in change for gender equity initiatives—confronting intersecting oppressions. In this systematic review, we examine peer-reviewed studies on White men’s allyship across five electronic databases which resulted in seven studies that met the inclusion criteria. White men’s allyship is an emerging research area that is primarily qualitative and exploratory with few high-quality studies. Antecedents of White men’s allyship were a sense of fairness, justice, and equality; compassion; personal experiences of oppression; and caring community membership along with leadership skills. The processes allies experienced as they developed were turning points, learning and knowledge acquisition, joining social movements and engaging in social action, and skill building and maturation. Learning from the critiques of allyship is an opportunity for White men to engage in relationally accountable allyship.