theSkimm co-founders talk women, mental health, and financial stability

theSkimm co-founders Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg join Yahoo Finance Live to discuss women pivoting in their careers, how women are battling with mental health in the workplace and attaining financial stability.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And here to discuss how women are rewriting the rules to live their lives from finances to mental health we have theSkimm cofounders Carly Zakim and Danielle Weisberg. Thank you, both of you, for joining me this morning.

So, Carly, I'll start with you. How did we get to this inflection point in the first place? Was it COVID or was it something else?

CARLY ZAKIN: You know, first of all, Rachelle, thank you so much for having us.

It's interesting. We know that things have not been good for a long time. Certainly this is a generation that's gone through not just a pandemic but now two recessions. I don't think that we realized just how bad it was. I think that, you know, we looked at really an action-oriented report that really actually validated what we were hearing from our audience, what we were seeing. And really overwhelmingly, 83% of our audience is saying this isn't working. I can't let society continue to dictate how my role should look like because what's happening right now is not sustainable. The state of women is not good.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And Danielle, I mean, to that point, I mean, we see mental health the number-one well-being issue on women's minds. How are you seeing that reflected in the sort of decisions that they're making about their life, about their careers?

DANIELLE WEISBERG: Well, I think it's really interesting with that. We heard from the women that participated that one in five of them have had a mental health concern, whether that's depression or anxiety. And that's alarming yet not surprising when you think about the mental load that this generation has carried.

We see it show up in a few ways. This is, you know, really notably true amongst our audience but especially true amongst Black women is that 87% of women have or want to create more financial stability. They are thinking about this in terms of what can I do to take control of my situation?

There is no longer kind of this myth in waiting for the government or a system or a company or a person to come help. We are making it happen for ourselves. That includes adding passive income streams. It includes investing in their education. And I think that a lot of this in return comes with an acknowledgment and a concern around the fact that there is so much unpaid labor, and we are carrying so much of the mental load.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And so, Carly, to that point then, as people try to balance their mental health while also trying to make up for the wealth gap that women already have, what does this mean in terms of the opportunities and perhaps the support the women need if they do want to venture out and go and start a business or get more raises? How do they turn that into action?

CARLY ZAKIN: It's a great point, and I think that's really the takeaway of the report is how do we turn this into action? And I think first is to actually understand the stats.

So we look at how do you get informed? Which is we recommend going to our website, theskimm.com/stateofwomen, where we have all of these stats listed, and you can easily articulate them in both your home and your workplace.

The second is really to get loud, and that's not just getting loud to one another. That's getting men to be loud as well. We need everybody to understand that what is happening isn't working, and we need to actually understand it as an economic argument. If we don't help women be supported, both at work and at home, we're talking about leaving over $3 trillion on the line. This is an economic moment, and this is an economic danger if we don't address this.

And then finally it's around taking action, and we've seen so many women in our community, through small changes, be able to share small ways that they are actually making changes at home. We have one woman in our audience. Her name is Cathy. She's from Queens, New York, and she actually used product-management software from her office to split up the chores at home so that she actually was looking at it in the same way she would look at as a project at work. And so these are just small examples, and we're also encouraging our audience to share their own examples using #StateOfWomen on social media.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And Danielle, obviously we're still at the forefront of a lot of, you know, things like generative AI, new technologies in a hybrid work environment, things that give women a lot more opportunities to really expand here. Talk about some of the actionable steps, Danielle, that women can take to really get to the forefront of this and really advocate for themselves and position themselves for the jobs and the careers of the future.

DANIELLE WEISBERG: So I think that there are two really important things, and the first part is about speaking up, and the second part is in not speaking up alone. So we've seen-- there was a Skimmer from-- Laura from New Hampshire who decided that she was just going to stop saying yes to every request. And I think not only did that shock her family, but I think it also shocked those in her support system around her, and it worked. It really helped giving her time and also having others learn to be more self-sufficient.

We see in the workplace that there is obviously a huge and continued trend since the pandemic for more remote and flexible hybrid environments. And at theSkimm, we've definitely heard it and adapted accordingly.

So I think the more that you can advocate for those policies that work for you, the better, and that includes things like paid family leave-- that is hugely important-- and more sources of childcare. There's no way that we can do that, continue to make the gains that we want to see without that.

But I would also say-- and this is the most important part-- this is not a women's issue. This is an economic issue. If we want to make sure that we have people in the workforce, if we want to make sure that we can have a birthrate that increases, if we want to make sure that we can have Social Security to rely on, we need to make sure that women are participants in this workforce, and the biggest way to do that is not to leave out half the population. So make sure to have men call in and call on to get in this with us to make sure that they too are advocating for these changes and policies because it's something that's going to help all of us.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: It certainly does require a holistic approach. I'm so glad you were able to join us today. Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg from theSkimm, thank you for your time this morning.