Perhaps you’ve noticed. It’s not a new issue. According to Kami, 87 percent of top marketing bloggers on the Ad Age 150 are men (prompting last summer’s W list meme). And 90-95 percent of the top twenty bloggers on Brendan Cooper’s Friendly PR Index are men. This overwhelming statistic reflects recent social media speaking trends, too (image credit: dunechaser).
There are some reasons for this:
- PR agency and consulting life can be grueling, and many folks opt for corporate jobs by the time they hit their 30s.
- Men often migrate to sales in general (a very male dominated profession), and power in business is often granted to bread-winners.
- Balancing career and family, a choice thrust on women more than men (though their are plenty of great professional Dads in the same situation, too).
- If a mom chooses both a full-time career and motherhood, time management becomes essential. Consistently blogging 3-5 times a week is probably not the top priority.
Yet, these — and many other possible reasons — do not account for such an imbalance. In fact, a majority of women are still not found in the upper echelons of PR agency management either. And we are talking about an industry that has an overwhelming female majority within its workforce.
Examinations of the actual ranks of PR firms shows change may be in the works. We are seeing some movement with Marcia Silverman’s chief executive leadership at Ogilvy. Only twenty-five percent of Edelman’s leadership is female. But about forty percent of Fleishman’s leadership is female.
It’s the same thing in smaller agencies, too. CEOs and the very top leaders are men. But some agencies are seeing significant minorities and even majorities of women in their leadership. How about Todd Defren’s SHIFT’? Better than most with the ladies taking 40 percent of the senior leadership.
One of the more well known boutiques — SpeakerBox — in DC is run by Elizabeth Shea. But then you have Strategic, Merritt, Levick, etc. all run by men. The percentage is the same. O’Keeffe & Company run by local government PR guru Steve O’Keeffe has more than 50% women in his senior leadership, coming close to matching industry workforce levels.
Obviously, my little company is the same. We are about to hire our first senior manager, all of the candidates are women. Given the actual industry’s workforce this seems right to me.
Hopefully, progress will continue in agency ranks, and spread to the PR blogosphere, too. Because approximately 90 percent male leadership seems just wrong.
Geoff,
I wonder if entrepreneurism accounts for some of the disparities at larger firms. Except one, every PR firm that I know locally is headed by a woman who started the firm. Being an entrepreneur is a great alternative for those women who also want to be moms whose husbands are willing to deal with the daily grind of a corporate job in exchange for a steady income.
There’s another component here that I think deserves a mention. While blogging has been around for a while now, its early adopters were predominantly tech-savvy types–and overwhelmingly male. The initial “barrier to entry” was a knowledge and understanding of HTML, coding, setting up a site, etc. It’s not just that most PR bloggers were men, most bloggers were men, period.
With the ease of use of many blogging platforms, and the realization that blogging is here to stay, more female PR pros will enter the blogging space. And, hopefully, the emphasis on tech platforms as a key component of PR and communications campaigns will help balance the other end of the equation too: getting more men into the profession at the entry and mid-levels.
I do wonder about the assertion that there aren’t many women in leadership due to the grueling nature of agency life. I would think that in that case, the numbers would bear out earlier and that there would be fewer women even at the middle ranks; that did not hold true at the agency I worked for…but, then again, I was at FH, one of the ones you mention as having a strong female leadership presence.
Interesting post, thanks!
I would agree on that. Women are taking up at many places and seems to be a better choice. Generally they don’t get chance but if somebody gets and she is pretty much serious its all good.
In tech PR, it seems that most of the important companies were started by women — Simone Otus, Sabrina Horn, Lois Paul, and at least one of Waggener/Edstrom come to mind. That’s good support for the “Screw it — I’m going entrepreneurial” theory. Come to think of it, I doubt Lois ever worked for an agency other than her own, and I don’t know one way or the other for the other ladies.
CAM
Geoff,
Kudos to you on an excellent post and raising an important topic — the underrepresentation of women at the management level of public relations consultancies.
At Strategic Communications Group (Strategic), we made the decision to hire, retain and promote using performance as the evaluation criteria. My view is that when you follow that path the make-up of your professional team ends up being diverse in terms of gender and cultural background.
I look forward to reviewing the thoughts and comments from your readers on this issue.
Lewis: You are spot on. I know may women who start their own entrepreneurial firms so they can achieve the balance that they’d like to.
Jen: Interesting points. Does that mean women are less tech savvy, or less risk adverse? Or both or neither? I think that conversation could go in many directions, of which I am not qualified to determine, yet can see.
Ashish: More opportunities need to be created so progress can accelerate.
Curt: And many of those women sold their firms and no longer run them… Perhaps they are venture capitalists now ;)
Marc: A big issue locally in more ways than one (Clinton’s ascendancy in the Democratic party), as you know. Good to see you here.
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc. The lack of female PR bloggers does not necessarily correlate or relate to a glass ceiling for female PR practitioners. There may be a glass ceiling, but I don’t think the two variables necessarily mesh.
And I could be wrong, but I think we are talking about two different things, public relations practitioners and public relations bloggers. For example, if men bloggers outnumber the amount of women bloggers overall (which I’ve read), it wouldn’t surprise me that the trend would continue across industries, for now.
What we need to look at is what is the cause of the two different issues, a supposed glass ceiling for PR practitioners and a lack of popularity of female PR bloggers. As a guy who was outnumbered 4:1 by females in PR classes, I am sure it’s only a matter of time before they take over the practice altogether. Blogging may follow a bit later for different variables.
Good post overall. I hope I have my blog up the next time I want to respond.
What might be interesting to consider is gender ratio in public relations vs. executive management across all industries. I haven’t looked, but it seems public relations might have an edge.
Adding onto DJLitten’s comment, my classes are always dominated by female students, at a rate much higher than 4:1. This year it is 10:1. What does that mean? I don’t know. I don’t really pay attention to gender as much as good writers/bloggers vs. not-so-good writers/bloggers.
The reality is that PR is a women-dominant, not women-dominated, profession. Top power still largely in male hands, with of course the noted exceptions.
Why aren’t more women in charge? Same reason people still express concern that a woman cannot be elected president. Same reason there are few F500 women CEOs.
We’ve come a long way, but we still have a ways to go.
Geoff,
Nice Post. It’s nice to see someone calling it into light. I agree the the female representation is light in this industry. I am a young PR person, and think it’s important to point out that younger women in this industry are positioning themselves to take leading and powerful roles in the future. Women like Sarah Wurrey, Jackie Vettorino, Justine Ezarik, Kirsten Johnson etc. are involved in major campaigns and major projects that are going to give them the experience they need to be big players in our game. If any industry can look past gender bias I believe it’s ours.
Just some quick thoughts as I read.
Thanks again,
dentonmd
Dom, Rich, Susan and Denton, just wanted to thank you for coming by and weighing in on this important issue.
Great, lively discussion! But gender debates do usually provoke comment. I think there is merit to the argument that there are fewer women PR bloggers because we are busier. ‘nough said.
Diversity is important; we all agree. Most PROs I’ve worked with in the last 10 years have been women. Men just don’t seem to enjoy the culture/pace, I find. But now, my company is in the midst of hiring our first man for our offices in the Isle of Man (go figure!). It should be interesting to see how/if he has an affect on our team dynamics.
You raise some interesting points, that I agree, are two separate issues. It’s a hot topic!
Our firm is 90% women, not by choice but due to the talent we meet. We continue to look for ways to diversify our gender makeup. Ironic. My direct reports are two women, one man.
Why are there not more female tech bloggers? Not sure. We have two company blogs that our women (and our men) write, but we’re not making a business of it, as the men you may refer to, do. All the tech bloggers I really follow, you’re right, are men. Not one woman.
On women running or owning PR firms, you promted me to look at the WBJ’s Book of Lists for privately owned PR firms, and there are actually, 9 out of 25 firms run by women, with 4 in the market of tech PR: Robyn Sachs, Chryssa Zizos, Joyce Bosc, and yours truly. I know when I co-founded SpeakerBox (with another woman!), we did not go into it for lifestyle purposes, nor for flexibility with children, homelife, etc. If we had, we would soon learn the reality of the situation.
Thanks for keeping the topics interesting, Geoff.
Geoff – thanks – first for calling me a “great professional dad” – that means a lot to me. I think there are a lot of great professional dads (and moms) though – I just happen to be a single dad with custody of his kids (for the last six years, since they were 12 and 10).
My kids are the main reason I decided to go into consulting – to care for them the way I wanted to I made a choice that I would “write my own ticket”. I’ve never regretted foregoing my nearly $220K/year salary to do that – and that is exactly why I bristle when I hear people (mostly women, actually) talking about other female professionals that decide to either leave their careers (or put them on hold for a while) catch crap from their former coworkers.
I certainly understand why those women (and increasingly more common, men) make that choice – the chances are that I can make 200K a year again sometime. The chance to raise my kids will never come again.
I don’t think the PR industry is any diferent than any other professional industry – historically women have been the ones to put their careers on hold for the children – and this has put them at a disadvantage when it comes to senior leadership positions.
But this too shall change. It already is.
Thankfully.
Hi
Describe the interesting sites ?
According to me in PR sector now females are much in numbers as they can deal with patient to the clients. They have good convincing skills to convince there clints. As PR industry is one such industry where you maintaine the crediblity with the client with patients and calm.