Following the creation of their Fempowerment Generator, www.StudentBeans.com, a free online student discount platform, wanted to look into how many female students have felt discriminated against because of their gender. They polled more than 2,000 female students aged 18 and over to garner their experiences.
Despite the feminist movement, some women still feel judged for taking part in certain 'male' activities. Photo: PA
Initially, all respondents were asked if they had ever been told that they shouldn’t, or couldn’t, do something because of their gender, with 1 in 5 saying that this was the case.
When asked to elaborate on what exactly it was they were told they couldn’t or shouldn’t do, and asked to select all that applied from a list, the top answers were as follows:
1. Build flat-pack furniture – 73%
2. Play video games – 61%
3. Watch sport – 52%
4. Earn the same as their male counterparts – 40%
5. Drink pints of beer – 39%
6. Make the first move – 34%
7. Study a certain subject – 21%
8. Play sport – 19%
9. General car maintenance e.g. tyre pressure, oil etc. – 18%
10. Lift weights in the gym – 10%
When asked what people had told them they couldn’t or shouldn’t do certain things because of their female status, 36% actually said they’d been told by a fellow woman, 53% had been told by a male, and the remaining 11% had been told by both men and women.
More than half said that they argued back in reaction to being told they shouldn’t or couldn’t do something just because they were female, however, 27% said that they ignored the person. The remaining 21% said they ‘laughed it off’.
Finally, when asked if they had ever been made to feel inferior by a man, almost two thirds said that this was the case, with 24% revealing this had happened within the ‘last year’.
Following this research, Student Beans wanted to highlight the importance of every student lifting each other up, no matter their gender.
Michael Eder, Founder of Student Beans, said: “Young women make up a majority of our customer base and, in a bid to empower and celebrate them, we created the Fempowerment Generator, hoping that it could be used as an inspirational tool to lift up and motivate users by drawing upon the experiences and words of strong women throughout history.
“The statistics from the survey are discouraging and nothing short of shocking; there are many people out there with a perception that equality has been achieved, but it would seem that we still have a long way to go.”
Tagged in feminism