International Women's Day: Women in Marketing

International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate women globally, calling for a ‘gender free’ world that is free of discrimination. It is a day to raise awareness about gender inequality, speak up, and take action.  

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Yellow Spider Media discusses how women are represented in marketing, and leaders in digital marketing who you should be following on social media.

Fortunately, awareness of gender inequality (including the intersectional problems with race, age, disability, religion, sexuality, and more), is a topic more acknowledged and discussed over the last 10 years. This is likely because of the tools that social media provides, such as the ability to cultivate communities online, create hashtags, trends, and raise awareness for social movements quite quickly.

Although discussed heavily, the rise in the discourse on these topics does not necessarily represent a real-world, systemic change.

The Wage-Gap and Statistics about Women in Work

One of the pillars of the feminist movement over time has been recognising socio-economic inequality, such as the wage gap. Sadly, the wage gap is still a huge problem affecting many industries.

Even though women are more likely to start their career in marketing than men (21% compared to 16% of men), women in managerial positions still earn around 11% less than their male colleagues. 

Furthermore, ethnic diversity has been regarded as poor in the marketing industry. A study done by the AIMM (Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing) showed that in the US, African Americans have 4% of the ‘senior level’ roles and Hispanics have 9% of those roles.

Scottish Widows recently revealed that women have half the pension of men between ages 65 and 74. This means that women will need to work an extra 37 years if they want to have the same amount of money in their pension pot.

Moreover, The Global Gender Gap Report revealed that COVID-19 has only further exacerbated existing inequality between men and women, since more women work at the sectors that have been the most damaged.

And that is just across work and careers.

More positively, 47% more women started a business in 2020-2021 than men (44%), and women of colour are responsible for 89% newly created businesses in 2019.

Despite the real-world inequalities that women face every day, across work and in social life, women are proving they can be successful, powerful and in charge of their own lives.

Leaders in Digital Marketing

Sophie Miller (she/her) is the founder of Pretty Little Marketing and a full-time freelancer, taking to social media to inspire young marketers to fight ‘imposter syndrome’, providing free advice and resources for marketers and ultimately creating a community online where marketers can share ideas.

Sabeeka Ashraf (she/her) is a creative freelancer and social media marketer, talking about ‘growth mindset’, Gen Z and millennials, and breaking down social media marketing trends.

Amelia Sordell (she/her) is the founder of The Personal Branding Agency, often taking to social media to give advice on content creation, whilst also inspiring confidence and providing positive affirmations for those in marketing.

These three women are active on LinkedIn and social media, creating safe communities where many feel comfortable sharing their marketing (or otherwise) related advice and problems – and have been raising awareness for International Women’s Day today (8th March).

Problems facing women in work and careers often echo other inequalities, therefore it is undeniably important to raise awareness about Women in Marketing today and all days.  

By Rozz Cottrell.

Image on the Cover Art taken from IWD and drawn by https://www.instagram.com/___snaps/