The new Wonder Woman film reminds me what superheroes women have had to be this year

Wonder Woman 1984 has become one of the few blockbusters this year to have made it to big screens in the UK, well at least those that have managed to stay open.

The second instalment in the comic book franchise may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but its release certainly generated excitement among cinema-lovers much in need of some escapism.

The timing of this movie also felt very apt, as we near the end of a year in which women around the world have needed superpowers just to carry on with their daily lives.

Covid-19 has had an immeasurable impact on most of us, but what’s become very clear after nine months of home working, lockdowns, business closures and tiers is that women, particularly working mothers, have borne the brunt of the pandemic.

Now with tighter restrictions coming into force in the UK and elsewhere, and the prospect of schools being closed in January, they face several hard months ahead and should have support from the government and from employers to ease the burden.

Last week the United Nations’ gender equality group, UN Women, published a paper, “Whose Time to Care?”, which found that far more women than men have reported an increase in their workload in almost every aspect of domestic life during the pandemic. Nearly a third of women reported spending more time cooking and serving meals, compared to just under a fifth of men. A similar picture emerged when looking at childcare, with the research finding that the average woman now spends 31 hours a week looking after kids: a full working day a week more than the average man.

After years of gradual improvement in gender equality, the pandemic has seen society fall back on antiquated gender roles to get by – and the longer we cling to these old behaviours, the further we turn back the clock on equality. One knock-on effect of the sizeable and disproportionate increase in a woman’s domestic workload is that careers are being stifled.

Never mind the fact that the hardest-hit industries in the pandemic – retail and hospitality – are dominated by young women, but many of those fortunate enough to be working in sectors sheltered from coronavirus are seeing their development stagnate as they cope with this juggling act.

In the US, recent studies have shown that one in four women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce entirely due to burnout, and there is ample reason to think the same trend is present in the UK.

Thankfully this isn’t going unnoticed – with the Women and Work All-Party Parliamentary Group recently publishing a list of recommendations for the government to protect and support women in the workplace. This includes doing more to fund the childcare sector, being stricter with employers when it comes to work flexibility in job adverts, and reinstating gender pay gap reporting, which fell by the wayside this year, as a matter of urgency.

This year I have had the pleasure of meeting lots of working women through our Women at Work programme, which helps companies to create working environments where women can thrive and male allyship is fostered. Through this I have seen first-hand the sexist organisational obstacles that can thwart career progression for women, and the conditions presented by Covid-19, such as the increased domestic burden for mothers, undoubtedly making these obstacles more difficult to overcome.

We know that so many women are facing this challenge, and employers, as much as the government, have a responsibility to act.

With home-working clearly here to stay for the foreseeable future, companies need to review “the new normal” and critically examine whether it serves both female and male workers equally.  

We need to act on this issue soon or we risk undoing years of progress towards gender equality and sinking into gendered practices that limit the potential of our workforce.

Let’s hope that by the time the next instalment in the Wonder Woman franchise reaches us, women are no longer under pressure to be superheroes in real life.

Remi Baker is managing director of Wondrous People