Marie Claire UK - 09.2019

Womankind

WORDS BY MARIA COOLE, SOPHIE GODDARD, NIAMH MCCOLLUM,NICOLA MOYNE AND ANDREA THOMPSON

AND THE SURVEY SAYSÉ

Thissummer, we commissioned a nationwide survey to explore women’s hopes and fears for

the future. Here’s what you had to say on everything from crime and climate change to Brexit

Equality,houses prices, life-long learning: we asked women to reveal the issues that

matterto them most in a UK-wide poll conducted in partnership with global tech

company Salesforce. And what came back loud and clear is that post-Brexit Britain is

a nation defined by uncertainty. Here, we unpack the key findings.

Wefound working women today are more

likely to reject problematic behaviour than

previous generations, but women under 25

were less confident about calling it out than

those aged 25-40. It was disappointing

to hear that 20 per cent of working women

have experienced some form of unwanted

sexual attention in the office. There was

also some confusion about what sexual

harassment actually is: 50 per cent of

readers admitted to being unsure in the

past about whether someone was crossing

the line, while 55 per cent of young women

(18-24) worried reporting harassment at

work could damage their career prospects.

Workhas changed considerably over

the past 50 years, and yet it seems

working women are still picking up the

slack at home with one in fourMarie

Clairereaders admitting they do all

the household chores. Considering 61

per cent of you also claim to be the main

breadwinner in the home (which jumps

to more than two thirds for mums), this

is a worrying stat and builds a bleak

picture of women desperately trying to

juggle family and career. Our research

also reveals almost half of readers feel

their career has suffered since starting

a family, while just 35 per cent of women

admit to carving out any ‘me’ time at all.

Whenit came to pay, nine out of ten readers

agreed more should be done to make UK

companies treat all employees equally.

Women aged 18-24 were most likely to

have discovered they are paid less than

their male counterparts, but were least

likely to have asked for a pay rise compared

to women aged 25-40. Despite this,

younger women revealed a determination

to reach the very top of their chosen career.

Whenit came to fears for the future, Brexit

uncertainty loomed large, but climate-change

fear topped the list for women under 35.

In fact, 81 per cent think urgent action

is needed now to protect the planet for the

next generation. The number-one fear for

mums and older women, however, was crime.

Only 16 per cent feel safer today than five

years ago, and 70 per cent of all women view

knife crime as the biggest criminal problem in

the UK. A further 67 per cent of readers agree

there’s a real lack of affordable housing, while

63 per cent think it’s impossible for first-time

buyers to get on the ladder in their local area.■

Whenit came to work, the number-one

worry was how tech is transforming the

labour market, with many women anxious

about how to future-proof their careers

in a fast-moving digital age. Nearly nine in

ten women (89 per cent) believe the

government should be doing more to

help by promoting life-long learning and

supporting the current trend towards

multiple careers. This finding is hardly

surprising, says Annie Auerbach, author

ofFLEX: The Modern Woman’s Handbook

and co-founder of trends intelligence

agency Starling Strategy. ‘The glass

ceiling gets lots of airtime when we talk

about women’s progress in the workplace,

but we should also be looking at the sticky

floor,’ says Auerbach. ‘Even though they

might want to change [direction], many

women in the middle of their careers may

feel loath to risk sacrificing their existing

arrangement for a new unknown and

possibly inflexible environment that

compromises their personal needs.’ The

result? ‘A pool of talent woefully under-

stretched and stuck in existing roles that

are not equipping them for the future

labour market,’ she says. ‘As theMarie

Clairesurvey shows, over half of all

women claim to be the main breadwinner.

This puts an intense amount of pressure

on their shoulders and they may be

unwilling to take the risk of changing jobs

• we need to see learning as something
  that happens throughout our lifetime and
  not just front-loaded in our early years.’
  As futurist Alvin Toffler says, ‘Keep
  learning, reskill, pivot – and grow.’

THEWORLD

OFWORK

60%OF YOU WANT TO

RETRAIN OR CHANGE

CAREERDIRECTION, BUT

ONLY38% OF WOMEN

KNOWWHERE

TO START

SEXUAL

HARASSMENT

20%OFMARIE CLAIRE

READERSHAVE

EXPERIENCEDUNWANTED

SEXUAL ADVANCES

FROM A COLLEAGUE

EMOTIONAL

LABOUR

49%OF WOMEN BELIEVE

THEIRCAREER HAS

SUFFERED SINCE

BECOMING

A PARENT

GENDER

EQUALITY

92%OF WOMEN

AGREE MORE

NEEDS TO BE

DONE TO CLOSE

THE PAY GAP

FUTURE

FEARSAND

THE AGE DIVIDE

81%OF WOMEN THINK

URGENT ACTION IS

NEEDED NOW TO

PROTECT THE

PLANET

35