Move over, lads – freelancing and contract work isn’t the boys’ club it used to be, based on new research figures revealed recently.
According to a Freedom of Information request, there are shedloads of new female sole traders in comparison to how many there were just a few years ago. Figures have increased by 21 per cent on average over the last five years, and in fact 2012 saw one out of every three newly registered sole traders as female.
Now, I know what you’re going to say – aren’t women roughly half the UK population? You would think that true parity would involve figures closer to one out of every two sole traders being women, but let’s be honest here for a moment: the employment market has traditionally been skewed more than a bit towards the male demographic until recently, and sole traders like freelancers and umbrella company contractors were no exception to this.
Of course this disparity between genders has gone on quite long enough if you ask me, which makes me especially happy to hear that things are getting much more equalised between male contractors and their female counterparts. Female freelancers have had to face much less of a so-called ‘glass ceiling’ when it comes to advancing their careers, but there is still too much residual sexism and discrimination in many employment markets for my taste.
Or at least their was – apparently things are slowly but surely getting better as far as it comes to gender equality amongst contract workers. There’s no valid reason why women can’t be just as successful – or even more successful – than men in entrepreneurial capacities, as the only thing holding women back has been patriarchal social pressures that would rather see women in a subservient role. For what it’s worth, this old, outdated philosophy is absolute bollocks; its time has absolutely come, and I’m absolutely chuffed to see many more women in the future join the ranks of the self-employed.
I mean come on – do you expect women to just adhere to their old, pre-industrial age gender roles? ‘Barefoot and pregnant’ is a thing of the past and we’re not going back there any time soon. Sorry, lads – looks like you’ll have to cook your own dinner a few nights a week while the missus goes out and brings home the bacon! Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. Why don’t you go and get the children ready for bed?
