Women employed in male-dominated workplaces are more likely to say their gender has made it harder for them to get ahead at work, say they’re less likely to be treated fairly, and report gender discrimination at significantly higher rates, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. The survey was conducted last year before the allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein sparked a global movement.
“While about half of women who say their workplace is mostly male (49%) say sexual harassment is a problem where they work, a far smaller share of women who work in mostly female workplaces (32%) say the same,” wrote Kim Parker, director of social trends research at Pew, and lead author of the report. Women are about three times as likely as men (19% versus 7%) to say their gender has made it harder for them to succeed at their job.
About one-third of women who work in gender-balanced (34%) or female-dominated (32%) workplaces say sexual harassment is a problem in their workplace, compared to 49% of women who work in majority-male workplaces. “Women who work mainly with men are also less likely than other female workers to say their workplace pays the right amount of attention to increasing gender diversity,” Parker wrote.
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Recent research shows that men do change their attitudes about mixed-gender productivity, gender roles and identity, according to a study released this week by economists at University of California, San Diego, Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo and the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University. The researchers randomly assigned female recruits to some squads in the Norwegian military, but not others, during boot camp.
In the mixed gender squads, they found a 14 percentage-point increase in the fraction of men who think mixed-gender teams perform as well or better than same-gender teams, an 8 percentage-point increase in men who think household work should be shared equally and a 14 percentage-point increase in men who do not completely disavow feminine traits, according to the study, which was distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
On Sunday, Frances McDormand won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri” at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night and used her moment to champion #MeToo and #TimesUp. She finished her speech thus: “I have two words to leave with you tonight: Inclusion rider.” It’s a contract where, usually, an A-list star or director specifies a certain amount of gender and racial diversity among cast and crew.