This site lets you rate how women-friendly your workplace is
It’s hard out here for a woman—but one awesome new website is trying to make it just a little bit easier when it comes to finding a job that won’t treat you like garbage because of your gender.
Dubbed the “Yelp for maternity leave benefits,” Fairygodboss allows users to leave anonymous reviews of their employers, and rate how female-friendly the work environment is. It’s easy, convenient, and awesome—and we think it’s an amazing resource for working women of all ages.
Co-founded by Georgene Huang and Romy Newman early last year, the site has so far racked up over 19,000 reviews about over 7,000 companies. According to The Atlantic, most of the reviewers are American workers with a median age range of 25-34 and median salary of $80,000 to $100,000—which skews slightly above, say, your average struggling twenty-something. But nonetheless, the premise is solid, and we’re in full support of any website trying to shed light on the gender divide.
Hoping to get better insight into what makes a work environment more woman-friendly, Fairygodboss also recently delved into what women consider to be the most desirable traits in a job. Unsurprisingly, the top wishlist item was a job that works hard to promote gender equality; and the rest of the list consisted of jobs that value work/life balance and keep family planning in mind for all employees.
“Women often leave organizations because of negative work-climate issues like a lack of advancement opportunities or excessive hours,” Marianne Cooper, a member of the site’s advisory board and a sociologist at Stanford, told The Atlantic. “What Fairygodboss found is in line with research showing that women are drawn to and stay with companies that provide them with growth opportunities and family-friendly environments. Companies with gender-balanced management teams and cultures that support flexible work send a strong signal to women that they are welcome.”
If Fairygodboss doesn’t prove—once and for all—that we need gender equality in the workforce, we don’t know what will.