With the 8th of March being International Women’s Day people and organizations around the world take action for gender equality. The often perceived diverse and innovative creative industry is surprisingly an industry that really reflects a male-dominated population. So what can you do to change that? How can creative production studios and companies create some awareness and stand up against gender bias in the creative industries?
After doing a lot of research, I came across interesting statistics that made me aware that the issue of gender inequality is indeed very much present in the creative industry. The creative industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors, while still being so behind in gender equality. For example, only 25% of senior positions within the advertising sector are held by women, only 11% of creative directors are women and in general, and women generally fear entering the creative industries as there is an obvious lack of female role models. A study even showed that women’s work is 10% less likely to be entered into award shows.
After exchanging my findings with my organization, my supervisor suggested doing a company-wide diversity training with a focus on the c-suite. The idea behind it was to address the issue at the root. As we looked deeper into opportunities, we came across a really interesting woman who consults companies on diversity. While being on the call with her, it became pretty clear that this won’t work. She started by introducing herself to us and after we explained to her the issue we are encountering. She recommended us to look for other options. She said that to teach a group of white Dutchmen diversity, a white Dutchman must teach the principles of inclusion and diversity in an organization. We were surprised in the beginning, yet then she explained that this principle aligns with the Social Learning Theory by Bandura (1977), which states that people tend to copy the behavior of people they can identify with. So this thought indeed changed our way of approaching this topic. Yet the first thought is still why do we need Dutch white men to teach diversity? We were sure that this is not the way of how we want to teach inclusion and diversity in our work environment. Yet the question is if this is the only way to convey values of diversity to a male-dominated population of creatives? It’s scary how the world works. Below some statistics that really opened my eyes:
- Only 27 % of C-suite positions in media and entertainment are held by women
- Only 24.6% of those in creative design are women
- More women than men study creative arts subjects at university, but a smaller proportion of women go into creative jobs after graduation (30.3%), while 40.6% of male creative arts worked within six months after graduation
- Women fear entering creative industries as they feel a lack of female role models (80%) and have never worked with a female director/executive creative director (70%)
- Today, in Europe, only one film in five is directed by a woman (21%)