"Recent statistics show that 70% of PR practitioners are female. This is up from 50.1% in 1980 and 41% in 1979. Based on those numbers, the trend is obvious. One could argue that this increase has occurred in many sectors over the past forty years and is not restricted to public relations. Still, 70% is quite high.
[...]Some of the most common beliefs:Women are better communicators than men. Public relations pays better than other female dominated fields. The school system tends to push girls towards reading/writing and boys towards math. In other words, girls learn the core skill set needed for public relations at a younger age than boys. Women find public relations to be more welcoming than other business disciplines. "
I'm taking a PR module at the moment with about 20 girls and 5 boys. What i've learnt is that, generally, the female perception of the PR industry is further from reality than the male perception of PR.
My own opinion is that it is bad for most industries to be dominated by just one sex.
17 comments:
Hello Richard!
"What i've learnt is that, generally, the female perception of the PR industry is further from reality than the male perception of PR."
Care to expand on that one? Oh, and:
"My own opinion is that it is bad for most industries to be dominated by just one sex."
That one too, please...
Richard - not sure if your PR course has also told you that all publicity is good publicity, but it aint. You're developing a bit of a reputation as a young sexist buffoon, and could soon find yourself unemployable.
Hi TWL,
Please could you also refer to the Forward-Moving post on your blog. That is the post i'm reflecting upon here.
Of course i'm happy to expand on both comments.
The female members of my PR class have a greater misconception of what PR actually is than men. They perceive it as a cross between event management and celeb crisis PR.
Which is far removed from the hectic, head-down, most PRs experience when they begin their careers.
I think this might be due to the nature of PR representations on TV and in films, and especially which gender these representations are targeted towards.
Males in my class generally want to be the people behind the scenes shaping people's opinions. Though music and sports PR are the most popular progressions.
The second comment. Both sexes bring unique character traits and thinking skills to an industry. To have any industry dominated by one gender would thus be to the detriment of that industry.
Tim, I'm not sure what in my post above made you feel i'm sexist. Please can you be more clear?
perhaps a dictionary definition of sexism would help at this point.
dictionary.co.uk:
"the belief that the members of one sex are less intelligent, able, skilful, etc. than the members of the other sex"
dictionary.com:
"attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles"
based on those definitions, without making a value judgement about whether sexism is good or bad or even whether you're right or wrong, how are you *not* portraying yourself as a sexist?
richard, you are presumably also learning that perception is everything - tim was commenting on how you are perceived. if that's not how you wish to be perceived, devise a new PR strategy for yourself, and quick. your antics on this site are undoubtedly gaining you a lot of attention, but the point being made is it is at your expense, not to your benefit.
Richard,
I've been in PR for almost 7 years, and share many of you views at the offset. They may be entirely correct, but even 'facts' are often argued.
However, given experience and time I learnt which battles to fight and which to stay away from. Having your own opinion is good - but more often than not it is wise to be less public about views on politics, gender and religion.
It's good to see someone being honest and open about their views, but at the same time it can also be detrimental to how others perceive you!!
Is your opinion entirely based on your experience of your female cohorts on your PR course? Have you drawn similar conclusions from observing the men and women who are actually working in and shaping the industry? What can you tell us about apt's MD, for example?
NB I am not sure how valid it is to compare stats from 1979 and 1980 with stats from today, without looking at anything in between. I've been working in and around PR since 1995, and it was a female-dominated industry when I started. I've been working for the IT sector all that time, and its predominantly male bias hasn't changed, either. Would you argue that IT's male bias has also damaged it as an industry?
"Please could you also refer to the Forward-Moving post on your blog. That is the post i'm reflecting upon here."
I don't see that as necessary - I was simply highlighting a post on your blog, not making any judgement on the content. I thought people might be interested...and after all, it's your perception of the research which is interesting, isn't it?
I did an English degree, the ratio of girls to boys was about 8:1 - as a young man it was brilliant. My advice to young Richard would be to stop making comments about the professionalism of these young ladies, take them out for a few drinks, and - erm - fill your boots.
haha, Anon. It's the same with my event management course. Far more females than males, about 8 to 1. Marketing is about 40/60.
TWL - fair point. It was a debate, not research mind.
Fiona - Yes, I think I mentioned in the post this was from my PR class only. I don't claim to say this is representative of the entire PR and i'm not sure what you mean by the question about apt's MD - do you want her opinion on my PR class? Or that any industry dominated by just one sex is a bad thing? Those were the only two points I made here.
The IT question is interesting. It was something we discussed in a lecture not so long back. The conclusion was that the male dominance is a bad thing. At the moment the IT industry does suffer a reputation problem and many graduates who would take an IT degree are going into other fields. Long term, that might be a problem.
You said in your post: "What i've learnt is that, generally, the female perception of the PR industry is further from reality than the male perception of PR."
I took this to mean that you had taken your experience of your PR course and extrapolated it to inform your opinion of the PR industry as a whole. Otherwise you wouldn't have used the word 'generally'.
This is why I wanted to know what your views are on the wider industry, and especially of the women working in it, hence my question about apt's MD. Would you consider that she is also out of touch with the reality of PR?
I can tell you this: during my time in PR, as well as shaping opinions, I spent a hell of a lot of time organising events. Events are part and parcel of the business. They are necessary, and as anyone who has organised a pan-European press event for hundreds of journalists will confirm, they are hard, hard, hard work. I think you might find that your female colleagues are more in touch with the 'reality' of PR than you might think.
Gender issues aside, and as you said yourself, it takes a diverse mix of skills to make an industry successful. Your favourite skill, 'hardline consultancy', is just one of many that the industry needs. I've specialised in another: copywriting. Your colleagues who like event management and celebrity crisis PR will also find their niche. That's the great thing about PR - there's scope for a lot of different talents to flourish, and frankly it doesn't matter one iota whether the person with the talent is male or female.
The female members of my PR class have a greater misconception of what PR actually is than men
I hate to break it to you Richard, but as an employer I find that a lot of graduates - male AND female - have a very carboard cut-out view of what we actually do here.
I've made my comments on the subject at my blog. I'm amazed to see so much sexism alive and well.
I tend to find that most students/people not yet in the industry, regardless of gender, think that it is all about attending parties, sipping champagne and hobnobbing with celebrities.
And that study doesn't really address the issue that most PR agencies are run by men. White, middle-class men, or at least the older, more 'established' agencies are. 70% of the profession are women? So how many directors are women then? One would hope a similar amount, but I think one would be disappointed...
And you are right, it is bad for an industry to be dominated by one sex. Perhaps before we start changing the PR industry, we could focus on the general patriarchal nature of business first, seeing as it encompasses more than PR - say, most other industries.
lizzie actually brings up perhaps the only point worth discussing here - how come so few of that 70% female employee population in PR end up on the board? that's undoubtedly the case in my (11 year) experience. but there's maybe no other industry where it's so demonstrably not the case that sex discrimination is to blame - it's overwhelmingly one reason: babies. i've worked within the same global PR group now for over a decade and watched us lose, much to our distress, dozens of the best PR consultants and managers to motherhood. it's great for them personally, a real issue for the PR industry, if by default the men become the directors because they're the ones left in the building. and no, richard, that's not a saving grace, because those 30% male PR consultants are often not the best in the building. (fyi i speak as a male director of a PR group, married to an ex-associate board PR consultant, who hasn't worked in PR since we had our first baby. i'd hire her back like a shot).
... not sure why my link in above post didn't work, basically:
http://www.spingroup.com/
oops ... above post to wrong blog. sorry for confusion.
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