The future of media is not Group Men
Opinion
Return-to-office mandates, relentless bias, a widening pay gap… why are we looking the other way while a steady stream of female talent exits the industry?
Such is the intensity of the stream of senior female talent out of the industry that the latest joke is that “Group Men” is the future of media agencies. The casual punchline in a sector struggling to transform itself is “women’s careers”.
Hollow jokes aside, the truth remains that barely a week goes by without another high-profile female departure. Another headline reminding women that our best will never be enough.
Women in media are overcoming barriers, boundaries and relentless bias — only to find themselves pushed to the sidelines by return-to-office policies.
These are policies that simply don’t reflect or respect the realities of balancing work with caring responsibilities. They are one-size-fits-the-privileged-few solutions that are actively reversing the gains made towards gender equality in the workplace.
As an industry, we are judging women for failing to thrive in systems that are built to suffocate them.
The talent exodus
We cannot continue to put our heads in the sand.
Gendered ageism is media’s last taboo. Last week’s All In Census revealed that 15% of 55- to 64-year-olds in advertising have experienced age-related discrimination. And it’s an industry that does not reflect society: just 0.4% of respondents to the census were aged over 65 and 5% were aged between 55 and 64.
While the data deep dive into how this impacts women and other intersectionalities has yet to be published, we know that ageism exacerbates existing bias.
Make no mistake, we are going backwards. According to Major Players’ annual salary survey, over the past two years, there has been a 5% decline in the number of women and non-binary individuals working across the digital, marketing and creative sectors, equating to approximately 120,000 professionals leaving the industry.
Yet this seemingly endless stream of departures has been met with silence.
Turning the tide on transphobia
One of the standout statistics from this year’s All In Census was that just 40% of people working in advertising believe it is a trustworthy industry. This isn’t just about a lack of trust in the work we create; it is about the culture we create for the people who make that work in the first place.
So the question for leaders and talent is a simple yet existential one: what kind of industry do we want to work in?
The kind that protects and elevates the most persecuted women in our society: trans women? Or one that is content to use their very right to exist as a topic for “debate” and dirty attention?
Trans people continue to show us what courage means by committing to be their full selves in a media ecosystem that continues to tell them they should not exist. The All In Census revealed that 60% of trans people have been made to feel uncomfortable in the workplace, while 42% have experienced sexual discrimination.
We have so far to go as an industry.
Increasing gender pay gap
As a London-centric industry, it is simply shocking how disconnected many leaders are from how crushingly expensive many of their employees find the capital.
The industry may focus on the headline that AI is coming for our jobs, but for many employees the real pressure is elsewhere.
Whether nursery fees, rent or the increased cost of commuting, financial anxiety is on the rise. It’s a tension underlined by Major Players data showing that over half (53%) of permanent employees believe their pay does not reflect their skills and experience.
For women, this sense of being underpaid is exacerbated by the gender pay gap. While there were previous signs of progress with the gap narrowing to 10.1%, the trend has since reversed.
In the past 12 months, the gender pay gap has widened to 12.5%, with women in permanent roles earning an average of £8,099 less than their male counterparts. Black women, who have often driven change and innovation, continue to be the most underpaid.
According to Major Players, just 14% of women earn above £85,000, compared with 25% of men. Despite this disparity, men are marginally more likely to report feeling underpaid, relative to their skills or experience, and more likely to leave their current roles.
We expect women to be endlessly grateful for the crumbs.
Crushing intensity of misogyny
At a time when it’s possible to do things differently, the media industry continues to perpetuate bias. We treat women as if they have a use-by date.
Motherhood and ambition are assumed to be mutually exclusive pursuits. The fundamental truth that return-to-office mandates disproportionately impact women is ignored.
When media and creativity drive culture, if we fail to address this great exodus, women’s experiences are destined to remain wordless, their voices silent.
We continue to contribute to misogynistic and judgemental media narratives that berate women for simply existing and limit the scope of their ambition.
The industry urgently needs a new approach to careers for women in their forties and beyond. We have to actively lighten the burden women carry in our workplaces. Now is the time to listen.
As author and life coach Tamu Thomas writes: “Too many men in leadership are confused by burnout, disengagement and quiet quitting because they’ve never had to carry the weight women are expected to shoulder without complaint.”
So start complaining. If we don’t take stock of where we are and recognise the disproportionate impact of certain policies on women, we will never build an industry that employees really believe in.
Trust matters. People matter. When women succeed, we all win. Our collective complacency must end now.
Nicola Kemp has spent over two decades writing about diversity, equality and inclusion in the media. She is now editorial director of Creativebrief. She writes for The Media Leader each month.