Let’s not celebrate gender equality statistics but moan behind closed doors about ‘boys clubs’
Gender equality is not enough, writes Wavemaker’s Victoria Brennan. We need to talk more, especially about the things that are uncomfortable, and we need to change the way we relate to each other.
Gender equality. It’s a prickly one. We’re lucky to work in an industry that is leading the charge in many ways. The latest industry census figures from the Media Federation of Australia (MFA) show that women hold 37% of all management roles in media agencies – higher than the Australian average of 30.5%. What’s more, the MFA Census also found that we’ve already achieved pay parity in media agencies, with women earning on average 1% more than men.
That being said, I don’t think equality stops at statistics and, if we’re honest, there’s a lot more work to be done before we can say we have truly reached a state of gender equality.
Let me be specific. While I have no doubt that 99% of the men I encounter daily are in favour of equality, I do wonder if we’re prepared to put in the hard yards to create an environment of equality day to day.
when will women actually be happy? When you hold 60% of management jobs and earn 20% more than men? Beating down men is a competitive sport in this industry. Many agencies and marketing teams are beginning to resemble everything that equality was fighting against – skewed heavily to’ privileged white women’. When will the conversation about breaking up this bias start?
Good call my Indian friend. To answer your last question, it will start when enough of men and women in our society realise and gut up enough moral courage to call it for what it is: Part of a wider socialist/ totalitarian demoralisation strategy to weaken the west. It’s yet another “long march through the institutions”. The institutions that radical modern feminism as a tentacle of the totalitarian monster seeks to undermine are the traditional family, the natural role of men and women, even our ability to effectively wage war and defend ourselves.
That’s a start. At least we’ll then get to experience some of the privilege men have had for the past…forever. Personally I won’t be happy until women are as valued as men in the workplace, at home, in society and in traditional cultures where women are considered disposable or subject to control from men. You may be interested to know that India ranks 127 out of 160 on the gender inequality index, so maybe before you claim women have got it all you could check your privilege? There is a long way to go before we’re happy.
I guess we will never be equal until we have equal reproductive rights. Feminists are never gonna let that one go,
Perhaps we should measure equality by taxes paid, transfer of funds from partner to partner.
Perhaps we won’t be happy until women have suffered enough wartime casualties as men. Put em up front with Metoo flags with some poison gas. We could cheer them with soviet propaganda and complain about how hard done we are. We can stand by with white feathers, White privileged female ones. Picked from the largest, proudest turkey’s butt used for celebratory dinners while they freeze in the mud in their empowering stilletos.
Back to the article, almost a moment of self realisation in the author about the Metoo culture incidentally, she knows that it is the possibility of false accusations that is what is now awkward (honestly the comment made no sense any other way) but at the last minute she turned it around to make herself the victim. I didn’t see that coming… /s
I wonder how many die hard, patriarchy – smashing feminists we would have if we were at war and under real attack?
I wonder how many Gareths we would have if we [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
Mumbrella, you’re no fun.. Wario’s comment was shaping up to be straight fire…
Nobody is more sad about this than me, Policy.
I suspect, however, if I’d published it, I’d be responding to other comments telling me off for allowing it through.
Sorry to ruin your fun,
Vivienne – Mumbrella (aka Fun Police)
I would like to object to Mumbrella censoring Wario’s speech. Although I get a feeling I am not going to like what he says I relish his freedom to express his opinion.
Hi Gareth,
Thank you for your objection. I can confirm you would not have liked what Wario said.
I too support Wario’s right to free speech, however, as a small publisher with a professional audience, sometimes this just isn’t the place for it. With constant threats of defamation suits, as well as increasing calls from industry leaders to ban comments – or at least clean them up and hold people accountable for them – sometimes it’s necessary to water down the insults.
Wario is most welcome to insult you somewhere else, and I support his right to do so.
Feel free to e-mail me on: vivienne@mumbrella.com.au, if you’d like me to send you the insult directly.
Otherwise, just know it was quite the burn!
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Thank you Vivienne for your polite, intelligent and considered response. You are the owner of this property and i believe it is your right to act in anyway you see fit as long as that action of course doesn’t result in a transgression of someone else’s property. I do sympathise with your situation that you described as a business owner facing the wrath of the overly – litigious, perpetually offended here in Australia. Regrettably we don’t have a First Amendment like our American cousins do either.
Permit me to say, shame on the “industry leaders” you speak of that exert pressure on you to ban comments. That’s the other face of the “totalitarian monster” i spoke of in my post. Corporations and businesses can be just as dangerous to individual liberty as governments.
God I HATE being invited to nail salon catchups. Though I suspect I’m in a minority of women here.
I was enjoying this article up until I saw the word ‘Patriarchy’, then you completely lost me.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a secret patriarchy meeting that me and my ‘boys club’ need to attend so that we can continue to ensure the complete and total oppression of the women in our industry.
On a serious note, if a bunch of males who work together hanging out is considered a ‘boys club’ to you then you are the problem and you need to work on the way you look at society, since you see gender biases in everything you look at. Men hang out with men more often than women, women hang out with women more often than men, that is human nature (we tend to congregate with the similar sex), not a societal system of oppression.
There is definitely sexism in both the industry and society at large, but the notion of ‘boys clubs’ is not part of that, it’s just stupid.
Fully agree! Group of women hang out/have an event – nothing to see here….. Group of men hang out – its a ‘boys club’ this is disgusting in this day and age, yadda yadda yadda. Double standards are rife when it comes to gender
Yes. Everything is changing, it has always been this way, and it continues.
Watch out for the tide. Where is it? It’s at your heels, and about to sweep you off your feet. What is gender equality? Yes, we all have a notion of it, but what does it look like, how does it feel and how does it work?
Any fool who imagines that women are less important in the scheme of things than are men is a fool indeed. Anyone who sees any degree of inequality between human beings based upon gender or race is either in denial or in serious intellectual confusion.
Equality can never be justified or defined by numbers or ability or wealth, all things that also equate to power. Gender equality can only be understood and observed by acceptance of its vital existence and purpose.
Gender equality is often most easily observed in simple and primitive family existence.
As usual the argument is not about merit . As the IQ tests in all recent history disclose women are few points below men Especially important in creative and data based skills where men excel. if you are going to invest in a gender balanced business versus a merit based business, your returns will likely always be higher in the later.
Here is the data from – Wiki
…… the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS III and WAIS-R), that finds general intelligence in favor of males indicates a very small difference.[3] This is consistent across countries.[3] In the United States and Canada, the IQ points range from two to three points in favor of males, while the points rise to four points in favor of males in China and Japan.[3] By contrast, some research finds greater advantage for adult females.[5] For children in the United States and the Netherlands, there are one to two IQ point differences in favor of boys.[3] Other research has found a slight advantage for girls on the residual verbal factor.[3]…….
A 2004 meta-analysis by Richard Lynn and Paul Irwing published in 2005 found that the mean IQ of men exceeded that of women by up to 5 points on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices test……
So are we promoting dumber people?
“The methodology and purpose of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale is sound, but it needs to be administered correctly and consistently in order for the results to be reliable” (https://geniustests.com/about-wechsler-intelligence-test/how-reliable-wechsler-iq-test)
The tests you speak of are only as reliable as the person giving them.
Try again Rog.
Kind regards,
(brace youself Rog ’cause you’re not going to like this)
A dumb person who just got promoted, by a woman, based on merit
If you think that a) people in media and marketing are currently hired based on their IQ or that
b) IQ is the only measure of a good employee then perhaps you are grasping at straws for some reason to believe men should hold more senior positions than women.
While perhaps trying to prove the opposite, the comments on this thread go well to show that gender bias and sexism is alive, well and thriving within our industry. I hope these people don’t hold management positions.
Just read about a Women only Hotel opening in Europe with the note that states it’s probably the start of many. Ah well, go back two spaces.
Women-only spaces like this hotel usually exist so women can go about their business / workout / dinner or whatever, without being harassed by men. If you don’t want women to create their own spaces where men are excluded there is a solution.
Fair enough Rick, women can (and should) have female-only spaces if they want. The trouble is men wanting men-only spaces is now seen as excluding and harming women’s networking and potential achievement; i.e. not part of the so-called “boy’s club”. So women can retreat to their safe spaces when they want and return to mixed spaces when they want. Men cannot gather together to the exclusion of women and must always be welcoming to women otherwise it’s “misogyny” and “why are so you threatened by women??”. And people with a straight face will call this equality.
Men aren’t going to these “safe spaces” as they fear they will be attacked, verbally or physically. They are going to them to discuss business, have fun and progress decision making.
Women have these spaces to literally just live their lives without the fear of being attacked.
Business should stay in business, boys club fun should remain out of the workplace.
No surprises there Pete. Read “The Strange Death of Europe” by Douglas Murray, it is an account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide.
We work in the lucky industry within the lucky country – where there are no barriers in front of anyone to succeed…at least legally. If you want to achieve CEO status, you can. If you want to be an part time manager, you can. If you want to be a media assistant for your career – good for you.
Numbers, percentages, statistics reflect the outcome of our fight for equality but do not resemble the roads travelled to obtained it – many Liberal or “right wing” (depending on which political spectrum you associate with) modern age philosophers or intellectuals throw the phrase “equality of opportunity” around which makes people think not about the end result of equality, but rather the opportunities available for people to achieve equality no matter their sex, age etc…
Do we believe that at least legally – men/women, people of different sexual orientation, age, ethnicity etc….have the same opportunity in our industry to be a manager? a director? head of trading? CEO? – legally the answer should by ‘yes’ because we have strict laws against being discriminated for employment based on any of the above (and more)….Whether an individual wants to take those opportunities and understands their value – thats not up to the law, thats their choice. In our industry, at least by women now earning 1% more than the men by what Vic has said, its showing that women are taking those opportunities more than their male counterparts now.
I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments of the article, but should it be taken further?
It is high time that more women take on roles in the industry that were once dominated by men. But this should not be seen as an opportunity to replicate the same bad behaviour that men have exhibited for so long.
Unfortunately I have watched both male and female colleagues lured into the lifestyle that we all embrace and seen behaviour that I would consider unacceptable by any gender exhibited under the pretence of letting off steam.
Maybe we should all be catching up with a coffee rather than a beer.
Unfortunately our industry is rife with these unintentionally ironic statements about gender with scant evidence to support them which I fear does more harm than good (boy’s clubs, where? Corridor conversations, when, who?)
And if you dare question doublespeak it is part of your unconscious bias and more proof ‘we have so much more work to do’ which can be terribly self serving
I say leave the media topics to the media experts and gender topics to the gender experts.
Women have babies in (usually) some of their prime years of their career. Then mainly come back part time 2 or 3 days per week. Then work up to 4 and eventually 5 days but this may take several years depending on the situation of the person. In the meantime the company has moved on and appointed someone else to take a senior promotion that that woman probably could’ve had had she not had a baby. Have seen this play out many many times
I know there are exceptions and there are some amazing women who manage to work 5 days in senior roles as well as juggling children, but these are rare, not the norm
Because women have babies, and senior roles require a 5 day per week commitment (actually more, sadly) this is one simple reason that women are under represented in senior management roles.
Yawn…
Privileged white women complaining (rightfully) about bias and discrimination that still exists from privileged white men.
Whilst all the brown people (male and female) look on this discussion, thinking… what about us ?
Wall to wall whiteness is a feature of the marketing industry leadership in Australia
I wish we could reframe this discussion about gender diversity and gender equality, to just be about diversity and equality for all.
Amen!
Why do more men than women play golf? A very common scenario is guys asking who’s up for a round of golf and being so pleased when some women join in. However, then comes the rumblings I’d
the girls ‘left behind.’ Seen this so many times. It’s not a ‘boys club.’ It’s golf.
Challenging topic met with honest words, a perfect example of “being the change you wish to see” great work Miss Brennan. Great work.