“Here’s what men don’t get about the #MeToo movement: It is not about women, it’s about us,” Wade Davis, a former N.F.L. player turned educator and activist, said at the New Rules Summit. By “us” he meant men.

Women “are laying themselves bare to awaken us, so we can do better,” he said to a crowd attending the panel “How to Be a Male Ally.” The two-day conference, held in Brooklyn, focused on gender and the workplace.

Michael Ian Black, a comedian who is outspoken on social justice issues and politics, joined Mr. Davis on stage. Mr. Black — who earlier this year wrote about “the brokenness of the country’s boys” in a New York Times Op-Ed called “The Boys Are Not All Right”— spoke in personal terms about advising his teenage son about boundaries, consent and ego.

“There will be girls in your life who you like, who don’t like you back,” Mr. Black said he had told his son. “And that’s O.K. You’re enough. Let it go.”