Cheddar News Walk and Talk with Aliza Freud

   By SheSpeaksTeam  Mar 22, 2023

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As a SheSpeaks member you know that we often ask you for your opinions and to take a survey.

Well, we love sharing when the press decides to cover the findings from our SheSpeaks surveys.

If you were one of the over 1,100 SheSpeaks members who took our survey on Community and Work then your opinions were featured on Cheddar News last week! 

In the workplace:

• 76% say it’s easier for women to get ahead in their careers than it was 10 years ago
• 62% say that men are more open to having a female boss than they were 10 years ago
• 56% say that women are closer than ever to achieving equal pay for equal work

However, they cite significant room for improvement:

• 87% agree that women are not compensated as fairly as men
• 76% say there is still a lot of sexism in the workplace
• 79% say women are held to higher standards than men

Equal Pay Day was on March 14 this year (denoting how far into the year women must work to be paid what men were paid the previous year), the gender pay gap reinforces this reality.

Traditional stereotypes also persist as women in the workplace are perceived as “more emotional” (61%) vs. men and 78% say women are more empathetic than men.

Work/life balance:

Work-life balance and household division of labor are perceived to be improving:

•  48% of women say it’s easier to balance work and home than it was 10 years ago
•  53% feel that their current workplace gives them the work-life balance they need to succeed
• 13% say they have quit a job in the past year to seek or accept a job with better work-life balance
• 79% say men are more willing to help with household responsibilities than they were 10 years ago

However, household “division of labor” is still not a reality for women:

• 72% say they handle more caregiving responsibilities (for elders, friends in need) than men do
• 71% say they handle more of their household chores
• 64% say they handle more of the parenting responsibilities
• 34% say they handle more of the household budgeting/finances (only 7% say men do more of this work)

In politics:
In politics, 68% of women say their voices are considered less than men’s voices. Which may explain why:

• 35% say they are more likely to vote for a woman than they might have 10 years ago – while only 3% say they are less likely to do so
• 52% believe that having women in government definitely helps traditional women’s causes – down from 66% in 2015

“This decline may in fact be related to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade,” says Aliza Freud, CEO, SheSpeaks.  “According to a survey we fielded in June, 2022,  61% said Roe/abortion rights would be a key decision in their voting in midterms.” 

Women Supporting Other Women:

Women’s support for other women is tepid in key areas:

• 73% say other women are not supportive at the workplace
• 61% say other women are not supportive in the realm of personal life
• 73% say other women are not supportive in the realm of politics