THE OLD WORLD “We’ll never allow a woman on the executive floor.” “When they played the video back, you saw that the camera guy was more interested in focusing on my legs than my head.” “Despite being the most profitable unit, when the promotions were announced, we were overlooked in favour of two underperforming men.” “I’m regularly the most senior member of my team but men still often still assume I’m there to pour the coffee.” “When I came back…
I read about Britain’s baby shortage in The Times this week. It seems that Britain is running out of babies which could lead to economic decline, so sooner or later we’ll have to talk about what to do about it. The birth-rate in England and Wales peaked in 1964 when the number of children per woman averaged 2.93. Last year it was 1.58, well below the 2.1 replacement level needed to keep the population rate stable, and in Scotland it…
The publication of Wonder Women has given Giles Lury and me a platform to highlight the brilliant success stories of women in marketing as well as to provoke discussion and debate around equal opportunity, recognition, and rewards for women, not just in marketing, but in much wider areas of business. What we have learnt is that to create gender equality, WOMEN NEED MEN AS ALLIES. Whilst many men have been hugely supportive, only a minority have really engaged. So this…
Giles and I are privileged to know the wonder woman Hilarie Viener who is the CEO of the Genius 100 Foundation. Today Genius 100 sent us a brilliant quote from Sima Samar, Human Rights Activist, which we thought worthy of sharing with you all: “You educate a man you educate a person, you educate a woman you educate a society.” Sima Samar, Human Rights Activist This isn’t a completely new quote – there are many similar ones that talk about…
Writing Wonder Women has been a journey of discovery for me personally. I have learnt so much from listening to so many inspiring women and then from researching stories of other women discovering their successes and how they overcame the challenges they too often faced. I have also learnt a lot during the actual co-authoring of the book. Part of that process was the regular discussions and debates, Katy Mousinho and I would have, exploring ideas and testing out our…
There’s been much in the news this week about Unconscious Bias – you probably saw the headline KPMG UK boss quits after telling staff unconscious bias is ‘complete crap’, so this prompted us to look up the definition, share with you what we heard from the Wonder Women in Marketing we interviewed, and Katy’s little hacks for addressing it. Definition: Unconscious biases are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Everyone…
When writing the Wonder Women book, the stories and interviews revealed some interesting female archetypes which we’d like to share with you. We identified these primarily in the Old World of marketing, but we’d love your comments on whether or not these are still prevalent today’s New World, together with any other new archetypes our readers may have identified. BEING MORE LIKE A MAN There is a famous line (and song title) from the 1964 movie “My Fair Lady”, where…
We think we’re at an exciting tipping point. Feminism is all too often a contentious word, but when you ask people how they feel about women and men being equal, most claim to be in favour. After winning the right to vote in the first wave, feminists have been fighting for liberation, individualism, and equal opportunities for themselves and others ever since. We’re now in the fourth wave of feminism, where the internet and social media have enabled diverse voices…
Throughout history women have often adopted an attitude of ‘just ignore and carry on’ and don’t make a fuss. However, in recent times there has been a release of all that stored anger, channelling it to good effect. In many ways this isn’t seen as a feminine trait but can serve women well, as the suffragettes proved. Nowadays you have role models like Cindy Gallop Niño, who gave the following advice at the Creative Equals’ Future Leaders conference in London…
The business rewards of greater gender diversity are potentially huge, with benefits that accrue not only to women but to men and wider society. But progress cannot come without an open debate. We know quite a lot about what junior and senior women think about gender issues at work but do we have much insight into the male perspective? The problem is that women mostly talk to other women about gender and men mostly stay silent or are excluded –…