DALLAS, TX – October 2016: Women gather at a forum organized by The Brave Millennial. (Photo by Laura Youngkin)
In early 2016, I set out on a mission: to travel the United States and learn as much as I could about the professional experiences of millennial women in the American workforce. All around me I saw talented, intelligent, hard-working millennial women being held down by the chains of sexism, ageism, and racism at work – and I wanted to do something about it.
I began by scouring all the available data I could find about the millennial generation, both in the U.S. and globally. While the studies produced by Deloitte, PwC, McKinsey, and other large firms were immensely helpful, they were also impersonally “macro.” All lacked the texture of individual voices and stories. To understand the challenges millennial women face on a deeper level, I knew I needed to focus on the micro, textured stories of millennial women across the country that would give me both qualitative and quantitative data. I crafted a survey and interview questions and set up events in as many cities as I could, starting with Los Angeles and ending in New York City. Inspired by my peers, I decided to call this project The Brave Millennial.
My goal was to understand the pain points for millennial women at work, learn how those challenges impact other areas of their lives, and celebrate and capture insight on their successes. Then I would be equipped to build something that served their direct needs. Over ten months, I surveyed and hosted more than 300 women in 9 major cities at eleven different forums. The groups were comprised of 20 to 40 attendees in each city, all millennial women between the ages of 22 and 35. Before arriving, each attendee took a 70-question survey, and I used their selections and free responses to craft a roadmap for a three-hour conversation. No topic was off the table, and we actively discussed gender bias, age bias, racism, intersectionality, white privilege, and workplace harassment – a conversation I’m happy has entered into the mainstream since then.
At the end of the tour in December 2016, a professional strategy firm analyzed the nationwide data and helped me identify core trends, comparing them against the stories and qualitative data I had gathered in the sessions. Key data points – like the top five workplace challenges – stood out immediately and matched what I had heard in the forums. Although these varied from city to city, the top five challenges nationwide were expressed as: compensation, work/life balance, advancement and promotions, disengagement, and bias (gender, age, race, sexuality, other).
Bias, both conscious and unconscious, dominated the stories I heard in person and ranked highly across all nine cities. Discrimination and inequality emerged as the foundation for most of the stories shared. Compensation and personal finance were also another pain point, especially among the 50% of attendees who have student debt. Transparency around salaries and equal pay was a frustration in every single forum, confirming for me that compensation is a roadblock nationwide. Work/life balance and self-care was a common topic in many cities, but the data was inconsistent. It ranked as both one of the top five challenges and made it into the top five rewards in the nationwide set, with a few cities like Seattle, Dallas, and Orlando scoring access to work/life balance high, and other cities like L.A., Austin, and D.C. scoring it very low.
Artemis ConnectionThe Brave Millennial research was analyzed by strategists at Artemis Connection
Rounding out the top five challenges were advancement/promotions and disengagement at work. While I certainly heard a handful of inspiring success stories about women receiving the promotions they deserved, even those stories were laced with conflict. Most obtained advancement after carefully fought battles with their bosses, where often they had to take on the role and prove they could do the work before being “given” the title and raise to match. We all connected over stories of male colleagues underperforming yet breezing by us on the ladder of opportunity. While their male colleagues were promoted based on their potential, the women I met said they were still having to go above and beyond to prove their worth in order to merit consideration.
While the hard data points are helpful, to me the most important aspect of this research were the stories that were told in the room. It wasn’t always easy to get a group of strangers to build rapid trust and open to each other in such a short window of time. I learned as I went, adjusting my style, structure, and approach in every new venue. Some groups bonded through humor and humility, diving quickly into discussing complex and nuanced problems and experiences. Dallas, to my surprise, was arguably the most collaborative, open, and compassionate group I encountered. Other groups, like Silicon Valley, struggled to connect despite being comprised of articulate, friendly and intelligent individuals. I can’t stress enough, however, the importance of face-to-face connection and storytelling in this process. Collecting digital and anonymous data, even written stories, would not have been enough to paint a fuller picture of what’s going on with millennial women in our country. I needed to see them and hear them, and they needed to see and hear each other.
In our conversations we were able to dive beyond the data and share the rich and personal stories I longed to hear. This practice sparked lively debate, incited laughter and applause, and brought many of us to tears. Despite the challenges discussed, I was continually inspired by the insatiable optimism and passion expressed by the women who attended the forums. In every city I visited (L.A., Orlando, Seattle, Palo Alto, Washington D.C., Dallas, Austin, Houston, and New York) attention was always given to the role millennial women will play in solving some of the greatest hardships facing our world. These women are singularly committed to making a difference in their communities, many of them creating or working towards leadership opportunities with influence and impact. Many expressed a readiness to lead. Rooms filled with empathy, understanding and solidarity encouraged personal calls to action and I ended each forum with a single ask: that each attendee begin practicing bravery, whatever that means to them, inside their own circle of influence.
LOS ANGELES, CA – July 2016: Women share stories at Brave Millennial forum in Downtown LA. (Photo by Bree McCool)
When the #metoo movement, originated by Tarana Burke, took off in late 2017, it was both harrowing and empowering. My inspiration for starting this project was to shed light on the treatment of women in the American workforce; to show them that they are not alone, and that all of us have a story on the spectrum of inequality, and that together we can do something about it. Stories taking center stage in the national media continue to echo those that I heard on this journey. When it feels overwhelming or insurmountable, I remind myself of the courage, empathy, and optimism expressed by my peers in spite of their barriers. Millennial women are the most educated group of women in history, a valuable resource for the future of our world. They are ambitious, proactive, and value high work ethic. They desire opportunities to advance based on merit, balance in their personal and professional lives, and the ability to define their own success. We didn’t agree on everything, but we did agree on this quote by Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Laura Youngkin is a producer, writer, and the creator of The Brave Millennial, a platform and movement dedicated to the advancement of millennial women.
Article source: Forbes
Cover image source: Status of Women in the States
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