What is allyship?
Allyship is an active and consistent effort to use your privilege to support and advocate for people with less privilege, by understanding the struggles that they face. (We discuss what privilege means in more depth in the next section.) An ally is someone who is not a member of the particular marginalised group who they are supporting. You may be part of a particular marginalised group yourself, but you could also be an ally for another group. Allies recognise the privileges that they have and want to support and take action to help that group. Actions are particularly important for long term, sustained change. An important part of taking actions to be an ally is that your actions are not reactive, one-off periods of support, which is called performance allyship. Actions need to be consistent and maintained.
Being an ally is about helping and supporting a group or community but is never about receiving thanks. You should stay focussed on the people you are supporting and the impact you want to have, rather than how you wish to feel. Being an ally is not about you or your feelings – it is about recognising your privilege and advantages, educating yourself and supporting others.
One of the key principles of allyship is not to ask people from marginalised backgrounds to take on the burden of having to educate people from non-marginalised backgrounds in what it means to be a good ally. The burden of increasing knowledge, understanding and skills must fall on the person looking to become an effective ally.
This guide contains some steps and resources you can use to be an ally.
What are the types of allyship?
There are two types of allyship: effective allyship and performative allyship. Effective allies are those that take action and initiative to lead the change they want to see – they don’t just talk about wanting to make change. Performative allies are allies only in name. Their “support” of a marginalised group is often only when it is convenient for them and can be harmful to a group.
Can you think of a time where you might have been an ally? What did you do? What would you do differently?
Why is allyship important?
By better understanding the struggle and oppression that others face, you are learning and actively attempting to make a change, to try and prevent this from happening. By supporting people in the workplace through allyship, you can work towards creating a safer space.
Allyship is important because it helps to dismantle the systems that are disadvantaging marginalised groups. This is especially true when those in advantaged or privileged positions recognise how their role can and should be more active in accelerating that change.
