‘It’s not about diversity it’s about humanity’: Cindy Gallop fires warning to ‘all-white male’ exec teams
Businesses that embrace diversity are set to make a “goddam shit-tonne of money” but “if you start any business today with an all-white male leadership team you will never own the future”, equality campaigner Cindy Gallop has warned the industry.
Opening the Mumbrella360 conference in Sydney today, Gallop, a former senior executive with ad agency BBH, counselled agency bosses: “Working with women and people of colour is uncomfortable because we are ‘other’. But out of that will come extraordinary insights and perspectives.”
https://youtu.be/yQbmVWpcUWw
Pointing to US stats around the spending power of women she added: “The new creativity is female informed, it allows the fact that new forms of creative product produces new insights.”
Gallop, who founded the Make Love Not Porn project, told the room the “hackneyed” idea that “sex sells” is not true in the way it is currently used, but said “there’s a huge opportunity for sex to sell through the female lens”.
In the session entitled ‘How Advertising Can Change the World’ Gallop admitted she does not “like the word ‘diversity'” saying she prefers to think of it as being about “humanity”, warning if the industry continues to perpetuate gender stereotypes it will continue to have a negative impact on society more widely.
“If women do not see the industry showcasing people like them, we do not feel welcome, we do not feel valued and wonder whether it’s even worth trying,” she said.
Gallop said “we have to change the numbers fast,” saying businesses need to “bulk buy” more diverse people into their organisations to change the ratio.
https://youtu.be/uhUyS3LxItE
“Tokenism is useless, because the alien organism has to adapt to the culture around it,” she said.
“Two women is not enough. The optimum number of women on a board, leadership team, etc, is three or more. When you have three women and people of colour they feel more able to say how they feel because they feel like they are being supported.”
She added: “If you work as quickly as possible to get to a gender equal environment, you instantly manage out negative dynamics. You instantly manage out sexual harassment.”
Addressing the reasons women struggle to get a foothold, particularly in the creative industry, Gallop pointed to the “white guys” at the top of organisations who struggle to see themselves in female candidates, but find it easier to see the potential in men like them.
And taking aim at the argument that by employing people other than white men you are putting standards at risk, she said: “When you say ‘it’s all about the work’ what you’re implying is the only people capable of great creativity are white men, and women and people of colour are inferior.”
She added:
Men immediately go for the ‘oh my god, standards will fall’ argument. No they won’t. Diversity raises the bar, it doesn’t lower the bar.”
Gallop also said that by having more females working in creative roles male stereotypes would also start to be busted.
“I’m tired of seeing young male morons in beer ads, and men portrayed as hapless fathers. That’s what happens when our industry defaults to stereotypes. Men: you’re not being done justice by advertising,” she said.
“When it comes to the construct of advertising there are many things that need to change. When we actually change the ratio in our creative departments we will have more sympathetic descriptions.”
Gallop also took aim at the notion of a ‘talent drain’ from the creative industries with people moving to tech companies and start-ups.
“There is no war on talent, no ‘talent drain’, as when you go and look out there we’ve not even begun to tap into that talent,” she said.
Ultimately by employing more women Gallop claimed businesses would be more successful.
She said: “Women make shit happen, women get shit done. Want to do less work and make more money? That’s the answer.
“There’s a huge amount of money to be made out of taking women seriously.”
The white male cops it again.
How sadly predictable.
Snore.
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Congrats Mumbrella on a quality keynote.
Which I totally agree with and confess we have been guilty from time to time of Aus male cliche humour in our work, usually when we are talking to young aussie males. It’s an easy trap to fall into.
We are on the look out for talented female creative candidates who have a passion for content and those from multi cultural backgrounds. Some of the best content work in the world is coming from non english speaking counties, so anyone interested drop me an email.
About 75% of what Cindy says is just about correct, however, she blocks/kills off reasonable debate with the 25% that is false-dilemma, fallacious or flat-earth feminism.
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Do you wonder why this topic is predicable?
Because nothing has changed. Which is why it is still discussed in these forums and hopefully will continue to be discussed until something does change.
Sorry it’s boring for you.
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Do you wonder why this topic is predicable?
Because nothing has changed. Which is why it is still discussed in these forums and hopefully will continue to be discussed until something does change.
Sorry it’s boring for you.
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Bloke named ‘Robbo’ turned off by diversity discussion. How sadly predictable.
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One of the best keynotes I have seen in years. I do hope Mumbrella will post the full keynote after the conference as the article, while comprehensive, doesn’t do Cindy or the topic justice.
So much of the message is best expressed by Cindy’s delivery. It should be required viewing for all staff in agency, technology or business fields that are either all male, all female dominated or lack the perspective of ethnic diversity. Her message is about equality or humanity as she states. It’s not about male bashing or ball breaking feminism. It’s about respect and equality for both genders.
If you are bored or find it predictable, congratulations on identifying yourself as the problem she articulately defines in her keynote. Prepare to be made obsolete in the near future because the world is changing. Men and women who embrace the change will be the beneficiaries and as Cindy says, “Make a shit ton of money”.
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In a warped and ever increasingly crazy word, where it is all too often considered racist to mention any other person’s ethnicity or gender, when posing an argument, it leaves only white males, at which to safely aim your warning shots. Imagine an argument boldly headed “X fires a warning shot at all – black male executive teams.” or all-white female executive teams.”
It simply reflects the level of grandstanding with which people will allow themselves to become involved. Many men think they have an automatic right to denigrate, or to set their personal ideas forward as fact, but I haven’t noticed women shying away from the practice either.
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I agree broadly with all this, and yes the industry needs to fix it. But can some one talk to me a bout the fact that many of the most visible and powerful female figures out there that young girls look up to – say Beyonce – completely encourage the idea that ‘sex sells’. The message is pretty clear its, at least in part, how they got where they are. Magazines with largely female editorial staff also encourage the idea that it’s all about how you look – and how you look to men – that matters. Movies and TV shows written by women encourage the idea that it’s funny when women are materialistic insufferable people that only care about expensive handbags and sex. I could go on….
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Yes, but then Sex does sell; not because it is of interest only (or even primarily) to men, as so many would like to pretend, but that it is part of a great driving force which is greater and far more powerful than politics, or capitalism, or come to think of it, almost anything.
The Male V Female schlock has been going on in a massive range of kaleidoscopic frameworks for millennia,
I don’t know where we should be without politics, but without sex we would be non existent.
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Here here!
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This is all based on an ideology in which society is viewed through the lens of a privilege hierarchy and the constant, mostly imagined, oppression that is exercised from above. If one looked at actual evidence, middle-class white women would arguably be at the top, but there’s surprisingly little interest in this view.
I’d encourage you to check out The Fiamengo Files and The Factual Feminist on YouTube (two old-school feminists who uses evidence to argue against the current third wave instalment) for a more balanced perspective on these issues.
But I know you won’t because you’ve made up your minds. Men bad. Women good. Urghh.
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