Fast Fact: Attitudes Towards Sex Roles

By Kyla Bender-Baird

While catching up on my e-mail last night, this subject line jumped right out at me: "Online, Men Say Are Willing to Split Housework."  This issue has been on the forefront of my mind since reading about the awesome work being done at Stanford by the Clayman Institute for Research on Gender on housework, GDP, and women's economic contributions.  The Women's eNews article with the catchy title covers an intriguing online survey, querying men and women on their attitudes on sex roles.  So far nearly 200 men and over 300 women have logged in their  thoughts. Among the interesting facts shared were:

• More women than men (55 percent versus 40 percent) considered women in the workplace intimidating.
• Both sexes agreed that men and women should make decisions together. Jerabek [president of the company that developed and conducted the online survey] said men and women see each other as equally capable of managing finances.
• Women tend to have more modern attitudes than men about gender roles at work as they pursue traditionally-male positions, hire women for traditional male positions and turn to male colleagues for emotional support and encouragement at work.