No magazine cover should have 1 woman and 9 men – Pitch

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Guest Column: But then again, writes Mithila Saraf, Business Head, Famous Innovations, no industry should have such few women leaders

Advertising is overwhelmingly, unapologetically, unabashedly a boys club. All-male panels, all-male juries, all-male boardrooms werent unheard of until recently when having all-male anything became politically incorrect. You can count the number of women CCOs in our country on one hand (and you wouldnt even need the whole hand). The situation is no less grim at the bottom, take a look at any creative team in any agency. So much so that I have seen even the few creative women who are at the top, often turn themselves into pseudo-guys, laughing, joking and spitting like men (metaphorically, of course) to fit into this gang. Its no surprise then, that when a publication starts hunting for the people behind some of the years best work, they run into a wall full of men.

So yes, lets get mad at IMPACT, but lets also realize that this cover is a symptom of the issue and not the issue itself. The covers will change when our creative leadership and creative teams change. Otherwise, wed only be fixing advertisings PR problem, not its diversity problem. Otherwise, wed only be signaling to journalists that the next time you have a cover like this, go far and beyond to find women to put on the cover. This will then worsen the oft-repeated narrative, shes only there because shes a woman or shes only there for the diversity count. The point is, they shouldnt have to look far and beyond. And they wont. If all of us decide to look a little harder in our everyday hiring, nurturing and promoting decisions.

The secondary cause for concern here is also whose idea makes it to covers like these. Barring a few, you will mostly see Agency Heads on this cover. Do only Agency Heads at these agencies come up with ideas that make headlines? Do younger people in their teams not come up with good ideas? And if so, what are they doing in that agency? No, its just that it is the senior-most people whose ideas finally go through and see the light of day. Talk to any creative at any network agency and you will hear this story every day. At a time when advertising is already losing its sheen, this tells younger people, youre better off in content or just freelancing. This makes things worse for the representation of women because the number of women at the top is scanty anyway.

So what can be done about all of this? Start by looking around the floor at your team. Go back and review the last few multi-crore films you released. Do you see enough young people and women represented there? Its easy to say, we dont get talent / good ideas from these groups. Its harder to ensure that you sit down with them, help them with their ideas and give them the time they need to do what you could do in a matter of minutes in your sleep. Further, when you are invited to a jury, a panel or a cover, ask what is the ratio of men to women there. And the next time you hear a colleague or a friend undermine the success of a woman (even jokingly), remember that she was 9 times less likely to make it up there.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of pitchonnet.com.

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No magazine cover should have 1 woman and 9 men - Pitch