Being Peggy Olsen
Disclosure: In the agency I work for men dominate the kitchen. It’s not a gender thing, they’re just better cooks. I’m not and never have been employed by a sexist creative director, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t met them.
Sorry to bring this up and make a whole bunch of you go to all the effort of finding the unsubcribe button in your RSS readers, but the gender issue needs to be raised. And yes, in advertising “gender” is still an issue.
They say for every woman in a leadership role there are five men. (Fair enough many women, if given the option, choose to look after their children full time.) But in advertising only 3% of creative directors are female!
There are a few theories on why this is. Women aren’t funny enough. Their egos aren’t big enough. They don’t work hard enough. They don’t ask for promotions. They don’t fit in with the culture. They complain too much about the lack of women in the industry…
I recently heard the worst excuse ever.
“It’s hard for me to accept that gender still matters today. Our limitations is [sic] the problem.”
That tweet synopsized a “women in the industry” discussion on Twitter. I’m disappointed we haven’t grown out of victim blame. However she does raise the question, is it belittling to talk about woman in advertising as a minority? Do we need female only… stuff?
I wouldn’t want to work in any segregated environment, even one that empowers a cause I believe in (tampon ads should be written by woman FULL STOP). And I hope I never make any career decision because of my gender, but it is useful for me to know which Creative Directors won’t give me the time of day because they see a vagina as an infliction. Perhaps rather than having girl only agencies, events and awards we should just have a social network calling out chauvinists in the industry.
