Why do adult educators need a specific approach to support women’s careers?
In the work related to career counseling and guidance, one meets with people's stories and with the complexity of society, there is the opportunity to face the impact of cultural aspects on the professional and personal choices of our clients.
Experts who work as consultants offer quality support if they keep themselves constantly up-to-date and aim to have an inclusive approach that develops awareness in the people they meet; it is an empowerment perspective that from many points of view represents a form of adult education.
For this reason, I follow with interest the initiatives that can contribute to this development, with particular attention to gender issues, and with this approach I took part in an event of the European Project “Restart Your Career” last November (Erasmus+ KA2, Adult Education).
It was a stimulating opportunity to share concepts and meanings with women presenting various profiles and backgrounds, all motivated to get insights about their careers and impact on society. On the basis of this experience, I am pleased to share the following article, written by the coordinator of the project, Giulia Mastropirro, who in recent years has been carrying out significant cultural work on these issues.
Why do adult educators need a specific approach to support women’s careers?
Despite significant progress in gender equality over the past decades, the gender gap in Europe remains a critical issue. The Global Gender Gap Report (2023) shows that Europe has closed only 76.3% of it’s overall gender gap, with one of the largest disparities being in economic participation. Women are still under-represented in leadership roles and entrepreneurial activities, a gap that widens with age, particularly for women over 45.
A key facet of this inequality is the gender pay gap, which reflects the difference in average hourly earnings between men and women. Across Europe, women earn approximately 14% less than men, on average, for the same work. This disparity is even larger in certain sectors like finance and technology, where systemic biases favour men for higher-paying roles. Furthermore, unpaid care work, often assumed by women, further reduces their potential income and career progression.
We could provide a long list of data showing how gender inequality is still very much present even in the Western world, but our focus, in the RESTART YOUR CAREER project, is on how we can help reduce this gap as adult educators, NGOs, coaches, counsellors, and social workers.
We specifically emphasise “in the Western world” because, on the surface and formally, equality seems to exist here. We often hear people—both men and women—ask, “What stops a woman in the Western world from reaching top positions?” The formal answer is “nothing.”
At this point, it’s helpful to flip the question: If there are no formal barriers to gender equality, how do we explain the overwhelming amount of data showing that gender inequality is a reality?
Either, it’s because someone has the courage to publicly admit that women are genetically unsuited for leadership positions, high salaries, and careers (good luck with that!), or—much more wisely—we acknowledge that the removal of cultural barriers happens far more slowly than the removal of legal and formal ones. We are still immersed in a deeply patriarchal culture, which has a range of consequences for women, including on their careers.
Culture refers to the shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artefacts that characterise a specific group or society. It encompasses the way people think, communicate, and interact within a particular community. Culture is not limited to ethnicity or nationality; it can also be associated with various social groups, organisations, or even subcultures, within a larger society. This complex and dynamic concept influences individuals' perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours, shaping their identity and providing a framework for understanding the world around them. Culture is transmitted from one generation to the next through socialisation and plays a crucial role in shaping human societies.
Even if each of us has grown up in different cultures, all women live in a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of property. Patriarchy is the term often used to describe a system of social organisation where power and authority are predominantly held by men, and women may face systemic disadvantages
This is why a project specifically focused on women’s careers is necessary. We cannot think about facilitating, promoting, or supporting women’s careers without considering the cultural aspects which, once internalised, become implicit obstacles to career development and self-fulfilment.
The career, also for women, is one of the key elements of self-fulfilment and self-actualisation. Through our careers, we express our abilities, talents, and skills. Our work allows us to leave our mark on the world. We spend the majority of our waking hours working, and there’s a huge difference between ending the day, after being in a flow where you’ve expressed yourself and felt fulfilled, versus ending the day feeling bored, useless and wasted.
Finally, but no less importantly, in a society driven by money, work is the means through which we obtain it. So, the type of job we have (and the resulting salary or income we earn) determines whether we have access to other non-work-related experiences: the choice of where we live, the kind of house we can afford, access to education and training, travel opportunities, the type of food we eat, and so on.
That’s why a career is so important: it plays a significant role in determining both our professional and personal self-fulfilment.
Thus, as adult educators, supporting women’s careers means concretely supporting women:
- To deal with gender expectations
- To overcome the “I’m not enough” belief and the impostor syndrome
- To start being immodest
- To be able to be visible
- To reconnect with internal and external power
To get to know more about how to support women’s careers, you can get the booklet produced by the project. It includes a theoretical introduction and a mini-training manual featuring exercises and techniques that educators can use with women or share with other professionals.
This booklet is available for download in English, Italian, Portuguese and Greek by clicking here:
