Reports examine needs of women in Fairfield County
“This research was undertaken to better understand areas of need in the county. By analyzing the data, advocating for the issues affecting our community and sharing the information with friends and colleagues, we can select and commit to following one or more of the recommendations presented.”
Juanita James, president and CEO of Fairfield County’s Community Foundation
DARIEN — How can the community better meet the needs of Fairfield County’s women and girls and how can it support some of the most vulnerable?
That was the focus of two reports released Tuesday by Fairfield County’s Community Foundation’s Fund for Women and Girls. The reports, “Count Her In: A Status Report on Women and Girls in Fairfield County” and “Count Them In: A Landscape Analysis of Fairfield County Organizations Supporting Women and Girls” aimed to assess the opportunities and challenges facing women and girls across the county.
Juanita James, president and CEO of the community foundation, said the reports will help the fund and the public “better understand the unmet and undermet needs of our ever increasing diverse county as well as barriers to accessing services.”
In Fairfield County, 51 percent of the population is female, which is 485,948 women, of which 22 percent are girls under 18, according to the data collected.
Statewide, the female immigrant population was 14 percent in 2017, the data showed. However in Fairfield County, pockets of cities had much higher numbers of diversity. About 35 percent of females in Stamford are immigrant, with 29 percent in Danbury, 28 percent in Bridgeport and 27 percent in Norwalk. More than 54,000 women and girls reported that they spoke English “less than well” or “not at all.”
About half the female population in Danbury, Norwalk and Stamford are nonwhite, while about four out of every five women in Bridgeport are women of color.
Almost 27,000 girls under 18 live in lowincome households in Fairfield County, the reports showed. While across Fairfield County, a higher share of women have advanced degrees compared to the national average, pockets of cities fell much lower.
For example, in Bridgeport, about one in four women lack a high school diploma, which is twice the national rate of 12 percent. Those numbers also show that across the country minority women were more likely to lack a high school diploma, compared to white women. Just five percent of white women lacked a high school diploma, according to the study, while 29 percent of Latinas and 14 percent of Black women did not have high school diplomas.
“This research was undertaken to better understand areas of need in the county,” James said in a statement. “By analyzing the data, advocating for the issues affecting our community and sharing the information with friends and colleagues, we can select and commit to following one or more of the recommendations presented.”
Some of the areas the studies focused on included equality for women and a desire to end violence against them. That was the focus of keynote speaker Ted Bunch, who serves as the chief development officer of “A Call to Men,” which aims to advance gender equality.
“If we’re going to make a difference with women and girls, we have to address men and boys,” Bunch said.
He emphasized that it’s not about attacking men, but inviting them to listen to women and hear their concerns. Bunch said most men are not violent toward women and don’t do the harm, whether physically, mentally or emotionally, themselves, but can sometimes stay silent.
He spoke about trying to get to the root of domestic violence in particular before it started — working with prevention methods instead of always having to intervene.
“We don't really deal with things until it’s time to intervene,” he said.
For more information on the reports, visit fccfoundation.org.