Honestly, I found the best way round this was to use IM or now Slack to pre-game my male colleagues one-on-one to create a "cloud of agreement". Typing helps!

Honestly, I found the best way round this was to use IM or now Slack to pre-game my male colleagues one-on-one to create a "cloud of agreement". Typing helps! It really is the most neutral way to present. That way, one of them usually presents my ideas himself, or all I have to do is provide the seed and the whole idea crystallizes. If you have any experience with the Socratic method, it's highly useful for convincing your less woke male colleagues they thought of it themselves while allowing them the pleasurable coup of answering your questions in front of others. Think of it as being a midwife to thought: a grubby job but try to think of the lovely babies... The downside of this is it takes your managers a lot longer to figure out that you are an original thinker. The upside to me is that it's more important to see my ideas executed than to wring my hands over the details of how they gained consensus.