On Thursday 17th October we launched an Inspiring Women campaign.
We aim to find 15,000 women to volunteer, reaching 250,000 girls in state schools across England.
Inspiring the Future is a free, online, secure service that links up volunteers with state schools across the country. Volunteers simply sign up to volunteer in their local area (where they live and/or where they work) and then teachers invite them in to talk to pupils about their careers: www.inspiringthefuture.org
We are running a women’s campaign to help young women from all backgrounds broaden their horizons and raise aspiration.
For girls and young women, it’s ‘who you know’ that influences career aspirations and choice. They rely on female role models from a range of sectors, positions of responsibility and stages of their life to broaden their horizons and help to combat stereotypes about occupations.
- By the age of 6, children classify jobs as male and female – by the age of 8, they are limiting aspirations and then by 13 many of them have already ruled out career options that don’t fit with gender stereotypes.
- Knowing adults in certain professions significantly influences desires to work in those areas; 68% of pupils knew someone who did either their first and/or second choice of jobs.
- 60% of girls aged 16-17 aspire to stereotypically ‘female’ jobs; this has, in fact, increased from the proportion at age 11-12, where the figure is less than 50%
- 76% of young people agree they would like to know more about jobs traditionally done by the opposite sex. 66% of girls and 54% of boys said they would be tempted to train for a job normally done by the other sex if there was more information about the kind of work they could do.
- Role models are cited by girls, young women, and employers as vital in helping to overcome gender divides in occupation choice but 55% of girls aged 11 to 21 agree that there aren’t enough female role models.
- 75% of women still end up in the five Cs of employment – cleaning, catering, caring, cashiering and clerical
Through our Inspiring Women campaign, we aim to link up women in a range of professions at a range of levels with girls throughout England. By giving women the opportunity to sign up, for free, to a simple online portal, where teachers can invite them to come in and talk to young women about their careers, we hope to be part of a culture change where young women and girls, regardless of socioeconomic background, can have access to the career insights they need.
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Inspiring Women 