CANNES – Women continue to be underrepresented in leadership roles in the creative industry, though as influential women from various fields such as advertising, business, and journalism asserted, it’s not for lack of creativity.
New York Times culture editor Danielle Mattoon pointed out that while women are underrepresented in many creative fields, it doesn’t by any means reflect the level of creativity that women are capable of.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that women are as creative as men. I think certain fields have favored men for a long time, and that’s changing, but in terms of intrinsic potential, there’s not a fight, really,” she said at a forum titled “Women Aren’t Creative?” held at the recently concluded Cannes International Festival of Creativity.
Hosted by JWT and The New York Times, “Women Aren’t Creative?” discussed the challenges that women in advertising face, and the factors that contribute to the lack of women in creative leadership positions across the industry.
Moderating the discussion was Meredith Kopit Levien, New York Times Advertising EVP.
“Women aren’t creative? I don’t buy it. What I do buy is that this is a very serious issue,” Levien said, starting the conversation.
The session took off from a discussion on work-life balance and how lack thereof contributes to the death of female creative leaders in the industry.
“The truth is, there is no work-life balance, at least not in Asia,” JWT Singapore CCO Valerie Cheng said bluntly, explaining that she still works up to 16 hours on weekdays, but makes sure that she saves at least the weekends for her kids.
“Even If I don’t get the quantity of work-life balance right, I hope I got the quality of work-life balance right,” Cheng said.
JWT Beijing CCO Polly Chu agreed with Cheng, saying, “In Asia, especially in China, we glorify suffering, so whoever enjoys life, these are not the good workers. This is our mentality. It is very difficult to correct this kind of mentality. There’s no balance of life there, however now, since the economy is better, people are starting to talk about it.”
“I don’t think there is work life balance in this business for men or for women,” Macy’s Integrated Marketing VP Betsy Spence continued. “It is not an industry that is family friendly…You’re at the mercy of sometimes ridiculous demands from clients, crazy deadlines, long hours. I think one of the issues is that for women, because they have to shoulder probably more of the burden of child care, managing things at home, it makes it more difficult.”
According to Spence, solving this problem comes down to fundamentally changing the way agencies are set up, while The 3% Conference founder Kat Gordon added that creatives have to set boundaries themselves.
“As creative leaders, you never know when you’re finished. There’s no sense of completion,” Gordon said. “I think we need to have hard stops because otherwise there are no stops in advertising ever. A hard stop is ‘I’m gonna be on the train at 6:30,’ a hard stop is ‘I have a nanny to relieve.’ A hard stop is boundaries. We live in a boundary-less world.”
GM brand and communications for Shell Malena Cutuli also pointed out the importance of delegating and working with people you trust.
“You need a good support system and to make sure you trust people you have at work and at home when you’re not there. It’s not easy for women who often want to be present for every single detail,” she said.
New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd brought up the need for women to “mouth off,” even if it may be difficult to do so.
“The difference with women is, if you’re in the business of critiquing then the criticism you get back tends to be much more about your looks and sexuality than it does with men,” Dowd said, pointing out that women tend to hold back on giving their opinions–for instance, when it comes to the gender split of New York Times opinion columnists, the men outnumber the women.
MediaLink CMO Dee Salomon added to Dowd’s point, saying, “It’s not just mouthing off, it’s who’s in the room listening. We really need men to understand and be open to change and to hear our stories.” She also explained that technology helps to amplify women’s voices through blogging and social media.
Gordon also pointed out that because there aren’t enough women in creative leadership roles, the task of mentoring young women falls on the men–though this is a task can sometimes affect the way the men are perceived.
Referencing Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Gordon shared that male leaders mentor young men over young women because spending time with young women can “look unsavory.”
“I would encourage men in the group to get over it. Let people wink behind your back, those young women need you more than you would ever know,” Gordon shared.
For JWT MEA CSO and JWT Egypt CEO Amal el Masri, part of the challenge in achieving progress for women creatives is breaking stereotypes–some of which, the industry itself has helped build.
“I think it’s very useful to talk about employment and nurturing and mentoring women, but I think the tougher issue to deal with is the very ingrained things on stereotypes and stereotypes of women. We are in the business of communication,” el Masri said.
“What are we communicating outside of our walls? If we look back, we’ve spent decades and decades and decades shaping certain stereotypes of women. I’m sure we did it with good intention. The keenness to be relevant to our audiences through different times just perpetuated these stereotypes,” she continued. “It takes a serious commitment to say as an industry and with our clients we are gonna be very committed to unshape what we played a very big role in shaping.”
