Yesterday, someone sent to my mailbox the results of the CB news awards for French communication agencies.
One of our main client has been awarded several times —which is great, and most of the biggest agencies were in the top list. So I read it, as a matter of cultural immersion, even if I have no peculiar interest in who’ve won what.
Awards are given to the best Art director and best Creative director of the year: 9 names on the top AD and 11 on the top CD. Which leads us to 20 names.
And only 2 women. WTF??
I knew that advertising & marketing agencies were quite misogynistic places. But I was never very conscious of it as a young designer: I admired designer stars figures without noticing there were not so much women in there. As a young employee, I thought it was a matter of workplace: I am now the only girl in a team of nerds. Hearing things like” she’s hot, so surely not competent” was only a bad taste joke. I once met a graphic design teacher who was astonished with me being an art director, not because of my age, but because of my gender.
Now… I start wondering. How many female creative and art director do you know? How many female graphic designers never climb the ladder? How many famous creative with tits have you ever heard of? I mean, it’s not like we have to lift charges or repare cars, it’s not a physical job. And I never heard that women were less creative than men.
To be clear, I’m not a feminist — as in I never felt the crave for a fight, since i always felt respected and equal to my male counterparts. But then, I need to question this, because it irritates me. If you have any answers, I’ll take them.Are creatives jobs a man job?
One of the best designers I’ve worked with was a woman.
My first art director was a woman as well.
The industry is overwhelmed with the male counterpart. Since I worked at that agency, I have only worked with one other female, who was still in school for an unrelated degree. She is still doing design, but I’m not sure she pursued a broader skill set, to say.
I certainly believe that women are equally great designers than men.
Since I wrote this post back in January, I’ve not met any other female designer, except for a job applicant that has been working in print design the next 3 years.
I’m starting to think not only are there few female designers in the industry, but also that there are even less in the multimedia/digital/web industry.I do wonder if this is a consequence of the “Mad Men culture” or if it’s just a sort of determinism — women not going in field known as pretty masculine. Might be both, i guess.