Western society has come a long way in recent decades regarding women’s rights and freedoms. Starting with giving women the right to vote, there has been a cultural shift in terms of putting women in positions of power and prominence. There’s even a female vice president (Kamala Harris) in the White House.
Just because some viewpoints have changed doesn’t mean there aren’t still unfair stereotypes surrounding women. Men still often think that women are unable to maintain their vehicles or homes. Single-parent car insurance helps make things like this easier for mothers who don’t have a spouse.
We’ll talk about topics such as how women dress, whether they’re more interested in playing video games than in the past, and whether women are starting to get into auto maintenance. We’ll also talk about why some of these assumptions still run rampant at times in our society and what everyone can do to try and combat these generalizations.
#1 – Women Don’t Play Video Games
One of the largest entertainment industries in the world right now is the gaming industry. Playing video games has become so much more than a simple distraction to kill some time. Parents used to think that games would rot their children’s brains, but that assessment has passed, and women have come along for the fun.
Some reports suggest that the ratio of men to women playing video games has swayed by 7-10% in the last 15 years. In 2006, it was estimated that 38% of gamers were women, but it’s now 45%. This is because the gaming industry has exploded in a variety of directions, catering to different interests no matter what gender you are.
Smartphone games that are accessible for mothers on the go were a great starting point for women to start thinking about playing video games. Now you can find all kinds of evidence that women are enjoying games at nearly the same rate as men, from Reddit communities to female gaming journalists.
It is important that men encourage women to enjoy video games and don’t try to lock them out of the hobby. Sometimes societal expectations have placed women into particular jobs in the past, such as cooking or gardening.
#2 – Women Can’t Be the Boss
This is gradually changing, but it needs to happen a lot faster. In the last 20 years, it is estimated that the percentage of Fortune 500 CEOs has gone from about 1.5% female to 15% female. While this is good progress for women in business, women should be put into positions of power much more often than this even.
It takes decades and sometimes centuries to overcome the stigma that men are in charge of a workplace. This is rooted in the old stereotype that women are homemakers and men are breadwinners. As the number of college graduates has started to sway in favor of women, this stigma should continue to evolve and go away.
Women should not only continue to go to college in record droves, but they should also get degrees in prominent subjects. Business, computer science, and other STEM fields should continue to see increases in women in the coming years. This will trickle down to the workforce, where women will put these skills to great use and act on their business ideas.
#3 – Women Should Dress Differently to Prevent Harassment
Sexual harassment is still one of the worst parts of being a woman in the workplace in the U.S. 78% of people who say they’re sexually harassed at work are women according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. How a woman dresses at work is sometimes thought to affect the amount of inappropriate behavior directed at them.
The brand Univia conducted a study that found about 33% of women in the workplace believe they are judged and treated unfairly on the job depending on what they wear everyday. This might encourage women to dress differently to prevent these harassments or judgements, but this shouldn’t be something anybody has to consider when preparing for work.
As more women get into positions of power as we talked about before, this might have a chance of changing. Women might understand the plight of their fellow workers more in these scenarios.
Women should always report all harassment to human resources immediately. Putting women in HR positions should also help to create more diversity in the workplace and stop harassment from men, and this is already happening. 70% of HR positions are now filled by women. Women often are more likely to act on reports of harassment from others than men.
#4 – Women Can’t Maintain a Vehicle
It is very important for women to learn how to take care of their cars in 2022, no matter what society may dictate otherwise. Parents sometimes might ignore teaching their daughters things like how to change a tire. Both men and women stereotype that women are not good drivers, but the statistics prove this opinion pretty false in most circumstances.
Women actually get better car insurance prices than men because they tend to have cleaner driving records. This will help women who are trying to juggle being single mothers and paying for vehicle maintenance.
Auto Insurance Discounts
There are many discounts for women who are raising families on their own. Women should use their careers to their advantage. If they have a graduate degree they should think about telling their auto insurance company. Many insurers will give discounts for those who have high levels of education.
Insurance companies don’t have the same stereotypes about women’s driving skills as most people do, and therefore the stigma against women drivers should continue to disappear.
Women are treated differently because of centuries of damaging stereotypes about gender roles. As women go to college, get higher-paying jobs, and juggle motherhood with business aspirations, the tide should shift. Men will hopefully start respecting women more for all of the things they are capable of doing.
Shawn Laib writes and researches for the auto insurance comparison site, AutoInsuranceEZ.com. He wants to help people understand how things like gender affect auto insurance prices.
