The Mad Men industry: Where are all the women?
With new figures showing women make up just a quarter of the creatives in agencies Miranda Ward speaks to some present and past female leaders about whether it is a problem, and what can be done.
At the AWARD Awards in March chairman Mark Harricks acknowledged the shocking statistic that women represent less than 10 per cent of the advertising industry, sensing the need to implement genuine change to rectify the problem. While many attendees clapped his sentiment, a small pocket of men enjoying the open bar and having a good time decided it was a good time for a laugh with cheering when Harricks mentioned the statistic.
As Harricks himself said, it is a problem that seems to occur within and outside of the industry when too many men are together.
“Blokes can be like pack wolves, get a bunch of them together and they get jokey jokey and blokey blokey,” he said.
“Blokes can be like pack wolves, get a bunch of them together and they get jokey jokey and blokey blokey.”
Enough said, really. Glad I’m not a bloke.
“Drapers” in our industry use the guise of women not being ‘as available’ when they start a family to try to extend their time as masters of universe.
It’s only a matter of time, mates… My daughter will send your son for coffee.
As a female creative that started as a graphic designer and has worked across advertising, design and comms I actually think it has more to do with the fact that women may be far more inclined towards the design industry.
There seems to be a very equal spread of male and female designers and I’ve never heard of graphic design having issues with male domination.
Design provides a range of transferable skills and, these days, is well catered for within higher education.
As women know that they will probably need to leave work for a period of time for family etc, could it be that they just feel safer studying something concrete (such as a bachelor of design) that provides freelance and flexibility?
I think the advertising industry gives the impression that you need to be ‘lucky’ to make it rather than providing a clear and attainable career path.
When I first started in this industry my CD (ECD’s didn’t exist) said ‘The secret to running a great agency is to hire hot suits and ugly creatives. So when changes come through the blokes will do whatever the girls ask them.’
We’ve come a long way since then (thank christ).
Gender aside, the real thing lacking in this industry is people who didn’t go to private schools.
Give me a list of creatives who’ve been to public schools, who have struggled to pay their own rent, pay for their tertiary schooling, who have lived the lives our target market have lived and I’ll hire them any day, whether they’re male or female.
They’ll be different to 99% of creatives in this market and probably smarter. With a bit of luck, they’ll be Aussie too.