Contributed by Angel Kwiatkowski of the Cohere Coworking Community in Fort Collins, CO.
Since Cohere opened in 2010 we’ve maintained about a 1:1 female/male ratio. We didn’t think this was odd until people started asking us, “how can you possibly attract that many women?!” Our short answer is: women beget women via word of mouth. The long answer is below…
Men might fit into the popular ideal of what a freelance digital professional looks like. But in the coworking world, women are giving this stereotype a run for its money.
The Global Coworking Survey found that “most coworkers are in their mid twenties to late thirties, with an average age of 34. Two-thirds are men, one third are women.”
But some communities exist in complete opposition to these statistics. And those spaces that are predominantly male are very interested in reaching out to connect with what some consider the untapped freelancing audience: women.
Attracting talented, motivated women to coworking must be done delicately, however. Coworking space owners must not perpetuate damaging perceptions by thinking that a few women-only events and some girly decor will do the trick…read the full post on Cohere’s blog.
Excellent post! Great information about women.
Women often have negotiated to have
flexible jobs, and they really enjoyed having Shared Workspace
not only as their
work-base, but as their social-base as well.
Hi there, my name is Victoria and I focus on setting up coworking office spaces in the UK. I just wanted to say how happy I was to see this post on coworking and women. I’m based in a coworking office in Edinburgh city centre, Scotland and we are full of start up companies and entrepreneurs. Thankfully their is a really good mix of women to men – I would say 50:50 and I love the fact we have such a good mix. Great post!
Victoria