The women’s millennium

Melbourne Herald Sun, Friday December 3, 2010

"Are women are the new men?" asks world marketing and advertising giant Euro RSCG. There is certainly an intertwining of the gender roles these days, particularly if you are below 40.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about baby boomers. Well now take a look at their offspring, the Gen X and Ys - the agency calls them "The Millennium Generation". Especially the girls.

They are very different from their mums. So much that was once an obstacle is now a fact. They haven't had to fight the battle of the sexes to anything like the same degree.

They know they can do better than the boys at school. That they can be lawyers or doctors, go into trades, the army, the police.

In Australia, recent Morgan polling showed the number of men and women with degrees was almost equal.

In the US, women are primary or co-breadwinners in two-thirds of households. Where they owned five percent of small businesses in 1997, they own 30% today.

The Euro RSCG survey looked at the US, UK, and France. While Australia wasn't in the sample, I'm confident that the land of Germaine Greer and Helen Reddy will be up with the US and UK in the feminism stakes - in fact only six percent were worried about our Prime Minister being female.

Girls cannot conceive of a time when universities and jobs would be out of their reach. They have the education, the income, and the pill. So there is no way they will respond to a mere man's beck and call. Couples are no longer man and wife, they are partnerships.

Gone is the belief that the man should be main provider, hunter and gatherer. Both share the role and can slip in or out of it according to the need.

Women believe that they will lead global change - and a big slice of the men agree. It looks like a hard, individualistic, macho world out there - but wait a minute, there's more.

Because when they were asked what the big issue is today, their response was overwhelming: “happiness”. Defining it, winning it, keeping it.

What is happiness? Not money, power or children. In the US, UK and France the same answer came back: "Love". This from both women and men.

If you add the percentage who voted for "friendship", you have a landslide majority.

The survey then asked for their biggest fear. It was not sickness, poverty, homelessness or failure. It was "being alone".

These social attitudes come out when they are seeking a job. The most important factors for women - more even than the pay - are "work atmosphere" and "ability to balance work and life".

What does work mean to them? Obviously earning money. But also personal fulfilment, being part of society, making a contribution.

In a funny way they are rather old-fashioned compared to their feminist mothers. They see "ideal womanhood" as, yes, career. But equally as family and personal time.

And they still want romance. In a man they look for controlled masculine strength - but not aggression. A man who will initiate romance, who they can count on no matter what. "In other words," say the researchers, "they are looking for Edward or Jacob from Twilight."

They are looking for traditional gender roles - without the inequality. They like the distinction between the sexes - in a balanced kind of way.

Men, naturally, tend to be a bit more confused. Vive la difference!