Campaign Brief Q&A: How Agender is advocating for equal opportunities in the industry

As we celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, Campaign Brief is shining a light on the women driving change, creativity, and innovation in the industry. One of those trailblazers is Agender, a Gender Lens Studio transforming photography, arts, and advertising through a female-focused perspective. As creative and cultural change consultants, they challenge the status quo, ensuring women’s voices shape visual culture. Their productions are led by women at every level, dismantling stereotypes and addressing the underrepresentation of women behind the lens. Beyond production, Agender drives change through exhibitions, panels, and industry dialogues, pushing brands and agencies to rethink who defines representation. Rejecting tokenism, they partner with those committed to real progress—because the way women are seen, the way they see themselves, and who controls that narrative doesn’t just reflect the world—it shapes it.

 

In this exclusive Q&A with Campaign Brief, we delve into Agender’s mission to shift the industry towards a more equitable landscape, and how their upcoming projects like The Lipstick Effect exhibition at the Sydney Opera House, and the re-launch of Never Not International Women’s Day are pushing the conversation forward. From its humble beginnings to its bold advocacy for change, Agender continues to elevate the voices of women in creative industries, driving the movement for parity in commercial photography and advertising.

What inspired you to create Agender, and how has its mission evolved since its launch?

Cybele: It was 2016. I had been a photographer and director for ten years. But I began to question: was there an imbalance in opportunities for male and female photographers? Was it just paranoia, the stress of a working mother of two? Or was there a real issue? My husband, also a photographer and father to the aforementioned two children, didn’t seem to face the same career hurdles. When I started talking to others on set and examining the data, the truth became clear. This wasn’t paranoia. It was ingrained gender bias, impacting women in countless ways. Then, one night, Agender’s purpose crystallized in a glaring moment. At an exclusive camera event, amidst a sea of grey-haired men, I was one of only three women. Myself, and the other two women worked on the marketing of the event. I turned to one of them afterward, and she said, ‘They invited women, but they didn’t come.’

Pictured above: Cybele Malinowski, Co-founder, Agender

Ange: When we started, I was deep in my freelance creative career. Coming from investment banking—historically a boys’ club—I was shocked to realise that the creative industry was, counterintuitively, even worse. In banking, at least there were HR-driven quotas and corporate accountability. In freelance creative fields, it was network-based, and women were getting left out for some reason.

In 2018, we found that 50% of professional photographers were women, yet only 25% of agency-repped commercial photographers were female. The number of major ad campaigns shot by women was even lower (Jill Greenberg’s TED talk estimates 8% globally).

In 2021, after seeing the effect that COVID had not only on the creative industry in Australia, but also to women all over the world – in times of crises, women are the first and most greatly adversely affected – I became a first time mum to a beautiful baby girl. Suddenly, Agender’s mission became even more personal. There was no way I’d let my daughter grow up in a world where advertising, news and entertainment media would be mostly fed to her through a man’s eyes.

The numbers haven’t changed enough, and that’s why Agender is still here.

Pictured above: Angela Liang, Co-founder, Agender

Can you tell us more about The Lipstick Effect exhibition? What do you hope audiences take away from it?

Liz: Having a venue like the Sydney Opera House, alongside the incredible AAW festival, is a dream for this kind of exhibition. Being outdoors and fully accessible raised questions around content, but we pushed the curation to reflect the diverse visions of these 18 artists while staying focused on the goal—provocation, resonance, impact; provoking everyone from an allied young intersectional city feminist to a retiree tourist caravanning into the big smoke!

We selected powerful quotes from past AAW speakers—Kirli Saunders, Miranda July, Grace Tame—and let the images naturally group themselves around five chosen passages. Overarching tropes of womanhood and motherhood will be obvious but then there were these more nuanced and poetic suggestions that as women we really resonated with—caregiving, escapism, laughter, masking, boredom, beauty in the banal. Together, they form something layered, like a collection of short stories.

Curating outside a traditional gallery meant thinking beyond the linear. The open-air plinths create a meandering choose-your-own-adventure experience—images resonate with the quotes, but also spark unexpected connections with works nearby. As viewers move through, new dialogues unfold, and by the time they complete the walk, it’s come full circle.

Pictured above: Liz Ham, Exhibition Curator

The Lipstick Effect exhibition asks “Would a man have photographed this?” – what kind of discussions or reactions do you hope the exhibition will provoke?

Liz: We kept coming back to this question during curation. So much has been explored under the banner of the female gaze that we almost had to invert the idea—push it further. At times, it was confronting. Gosh, some of our work looked like a man could have made it – ha!

A female lens can offer a very different perspective in both subject matter and the ‘way of seeing’. Take Anna Pogossova’s Acetoin—I simply can’t imagine this coming from any other person, or gender. A butter sculpture of a classical nude, placed in a fridge beside a cabbage. Or Judith Nangala Crispin’s Lumachrome glass print chemigram made with a baited marsupial mouse and blood on fibre paper, 14 hours under marked perspex in thick humidity and summer light. Titled “Poisoned by humans, Hannah called out, in all her terror and aloneness, and the sky drew her back into its womb, on a string of blood and hair.” – really, would a man have created this?

Ultimately what comes from a woman’s perspective can be beautiful, funny, ugly, haunting, yearning, visceral and pretty confronting – because that is what our shared experience of life in these bodies feels like.

How does the exhibition connect with the broader conversation around gender representation in advertising and commercial photography?

Cybele: In curating this exhibition, our central question was: How can we re-examine the female gaze?

As female photographers, we inherently represent gender through our very being. But how can we leverage this powerful position to actively shape our artistic interpretations of the world, and inform the world through our commercial and advertising work? Through the work we create—the messaging, the talent we cast, the crews we hire—we can build a more equitable world, one shoot at a time.

At Agender, we believe representation is a powerful tool for change. “The Lipstick Effect” is a poetic manifestation of this belief.

Ange: Refer to my answer to Question 1 🙂

ShEqual did incredible studies around gender inequality in advertising and its ultimate links to domestic violence, as well as its impacts on women’s health & wellbeing.

You don’t have to dig far to make the connections thematically, but ultimately The Lipstick Effect asks: How do women see, and how are women seen? In advertising, representation still doesn’t reflect the diversity of experiences in the real world. How can we, if ads are still ultimately being created by a non-representative cross section of society?

Despite women making up 85% of consumer decisions (according to recent studies), why do you think so few major ad campaigns are shot by women?

Cybele: This is our big Why? If women exert such significant influence on consumer behavior, why are their perspectives so often absent in the creation of the very messages targeting them? Is it simply coincidence that the vast majority of ads are created by men when the target audience is overwhelmingly female? This disparity is what we’ve grappled with from the very beginning.

Why does this imbalance persist? Here is a fun list of topics one could write a thesis on – Historical Bias and Gatekeeping, Unconscious Bias, The “Safe Choice” Bias, Lack of Visibility and Access, Perception of Risk, The “Boys’ Club” Mentality, Double Standards, Industry Culture and Work-Life Balance, The “Pipeline” Myth, Implicit Association and Stereotyping, Lack of Mentorship and Sponsorship, Networking Barrier, Lack of Data and Accountability, The Illusion of Meritocracy etc.

Ange: This goes deep.

A lot comes down to legacy bias. Advertising started out as a boys’ club a-la Mad Men, and change has been slow.

Women face systemic barriers from the start—lack of access, lack of representation in talent agencies, and an industry culture that still subtly codes high-profile, high-budget work as “male.”

As well as gender, there are legacy issues of socio-economic status.

• • Photography is expensive. Not everyone can afford to buy equipment or put in the unpaid assisting hours needed to break in.
• • The industry runs on networks. People hire those they’ve worked with before. And when the majority of those people are men, the cycle continues.
• • Creative agencies and big brands still have overwhelmingly male decision-makers. Even when they want diverse perspectives, final approvals often sit with male creative directors.

There’s also risk perception. Big-budget campaigns mean big stakes. The industry still has a deeply ingrained bias that men are the safer bet for running high-pressure productions, while women get sidelined to “softer” campaigns like beauty and wellness.

Another piece of the puzzle is talent agencies. These reps control access to major commercial gigs, and in 2018, only 25% of agency-repped commercial photographers in Australia were women. That number barely budged in six years. If women aren’t being signed, they’re not even in the running.

What challenges do women commercial photographers face in securing agency representation and big-budget advertising work?

Cybele: Whenever I go into an agency or company to speak about why women don’t statistically land the big lucrative jobs less, I speak to this.

The biggest barrier? Experience bias. Agencies want photographers with a proven track record—but how do you get that experience if no one gives you a shot?

This is a scenario I often use when talking about why women are statistically less likely to land the big, lucrative jobs in commercial photography.

A creative director is pitching a huge luxury car campaign. They include Anna Anne, a brilliant creative, in their shortlist. But she hasn’t shot cars before. Meanwhile, Tim shot the last campaign, and John is the “car guy.” Anna delivers a killer treatment, but when the client asks for previous work, she has perfume and lifestyle ads—not cars. The client, playing it safe, picks Tim.

It’s not just about talent or skill—it’s about access and opportunity.

Women are at odds from the start. Although 75% of photography graduates are women, only 26% of photographers in the top agencies (in Sydney) are women. This number has gone up from 24% in 2018, however we would argue, so too has the number of women entering the industry, and taking that into account, we are lower now proportionately compared to 2018. So what is happening?

Then there’s assisting – the first step into photography. I am constantly reaching out for assistants for my shoots. I get a list of 20 recommendations: No women. The assistants of Sydney have a whatsapp, they pass jobs from one dude to another. Women are now getting more digi work – this is an easier pathway for them. I am now however working with some incredible female assists. Interestingly some of them are getting their big break overseas, not here.

Liz: As a tertiary educator I am always asked about pathways into the industry, and it saddens me to look around a classroom of 70-90% eager female faces and wonder how many will drop out year after year…

Obviously (hopefully) the more that stick, the more that will then pass on assisting work to other young female photographers and so on, but we keep seeing this drop off in the stats and that’s very disheartening.

As part of my teaching practice I do remind them that they will need to probably work harder and better than their male counterparts in order to get that foot in the door and keep it there. I remind them of their superpowers: being able to multitask, read the room, have empathy, and better production skills – BUT it’s for these reasons that the girls fall into digital operating (which is great as it’s actually way more lucrative!) and also producing or agency repping.

Do you think brands and agencies are starting to recognise the commercial value of the “female gaze” or is there still resistance?

Cybele: Definitely. It piques many brands and creatives’ interest. But we are still stuck with a concept of what the female gaze is. Female gaze doesn’t mean misty filters and soft gels, crimped hair and pastel palettes. It could mean that, but it also could mean a cluster of tradie men lounging half-naked in a fountain, fanning themselves with their Ryobi blowers. Hi-vis Pre Raphaelite Nymphs. That’s my kind of female gaze. And this is the point. What is the female gaze? Liz speaks specifically to this in her curation. This was the question underpinning this exhibition.

Ange: In theory, and if you ask point blank, the answer is of course – yes. Brands and agencies have entire teams dedicated to customer research, but the irony is that this still doesn’t necessarily translate into making representative choices when it comes to ad creative or execution.

On resistance…It’s not always overt, but it’s definitely there.

From our conversations, a lot of it seems to come down to inertia. People in agencies and brands are used to doing things a certain way, and change can be uncomfortable. There’s this unspoken belief that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” – even if the system is actually pretty broken when you look at the numbers. We’ve answered on this above.

Then there’s the fact that many brands cling to outdated views, with 25% of ads still sexualising women, and 85% of those featuring the stereotypical “good girl” image. Marketers often think they’re hitting the mark—76% of female marketers and 88% of male marketers believe they’re avoiding gender stereotypes. Yet, nearly half of consumers feel advertisers are still missing the boat.

Authentic representation isn’t just a nice-to-have though; it is commercially sound. The Guardian wrote that inclusive ads can boost short-term sales by 3.5% and long-term sales by over 16%. Plus, more than half of women have bought a product because they appreciated how it was advertised.

Embracing the female gaze isn’t just the right thing to do—it’s smart business. Brands that get it are seeing the benefits. It’s time for the rest to catch up.

Ultimately, we know the resistance isn’t malicious. It’s just… comfortable. But comfort doesn’t lead to progress.

What does authentic representation in advertising look like to you? Are there any brands or campaigns that you think are getting it right?

Cybele: Representation. Diversity. Not tokenism. Honest, real representation of the world around us.

Authentic representation in advertising, to me, is about genuinely reflecting the lived experiences, complexities, and nuances of the people being portrayed.

At Agender our push is to have diversity behind the lens. To tip the scales towards parity with each job- with as many women behind the lens and in our crew as possible. We are also dedicated to diversity not being a trend, but rather a new norm.

There are some great ads with authentic representation coming out. The Nike campaign So Win is brilliant. It speaks to the rules and restrictions placed on women, left right and centre, dissenting the arbitrary adages, and beckons women to break through, in spite of them. Reading through the comments on Youtube, it’s just more do’s and don’ts. What Nike can and can’t say about women, what women can’t say about Nike, what commenters can’t say about other commenters. The campaign rises above the noise, and just conveys a simple message to all those who wish to rise above: win. SO GOOD. And to top it all off, it is directed by Aussie director Kim Gehrig – A woman who has risen above the rules and restrictions herself in the vastly male dominated industry.

What role do allies—such as agencies, production companies, and clients—play in pushing for gender equality in commercial photography?

Ange: Fixing this takes more than token hires. We’ve seen diversity pushes, but hiring one female photographer for a “female-focused” campaign isn’t the fix.

The real work comes from:

• • Rethinking hiring practices—stop defaulting to the same (male) names.
• • Expanding talent pools—actively seek out and invest in female photographers & building their portfolios to include “the spec car ads”.
• • Ensuring equal access/pitching opportunities to high-profile, high-budget jobs.

Industry allies like Assisterhood, Never Not Creative, Youngbloods, and Mavens are incredible. They focus on mentorship, mental health, alliance and systemic bias. And while these programs influence the individuals within the system, which is so important, they still mostly sit outside the core decision-making mechanisms of agencies and production companies.

Real change has to come from the top-down. Ad agency world, which has seen progress over the years, have DEI programs—with hiring pipelines, accountability, and internal targets you can physically see on the office floor. On the production side however? It’s looser. It’s network-based. There’s no built-in structure forcing gender balance.

Talent agencies, production companies, and brands must push for female photographers and directors—not just for “feminine” briefs, but across the board for major commercial campaigns.

What’s next for Agender? Are there any upcoming projects or initiatives you’re excited about?

Cybele: The Lipstick Effect is our launchpad into 2025. With art as our weapon we are talking to brands, agencies, creatives, who want to align.

We have some exciting stills and motion projects with commercial allies of ours coming up. We are working with people and brands who have a similar overarching mission to create good.

What Ange and I have always said is – we know we are making real progress for parity when we are working with brands who historically would not actively seek to work with us; Brands who have been blind to their bias. To speak to these brands, and their audience, would be the biggest win.

Ange: We’re working with Never Not Creative for a re-launch of Never Not International Women’s Day (NNIWD)—because one day of activism isn’t enough. It’s a channel that runs on loop 24.7.365 until the conversation is no longer needed.

We’re bringing together artists, brands, production and ad industry leaders through to juniors for conversations that go beyond just performative gestures. More soon (we’ll definitely tell you about it when it’s about to launch) — it’s going to be powerful.

 

The Lipstick Effect can be seen at the Sydney Opera House, in public view at the Western Broadwalk from 1-9 March 2025, as part of All About Women festival. Soon, Agender will be re-launching Never Not International Women’s Day – a 24.7.365 looping channel of ideas and conversations – alongside Never Not Creative, a stalwart in the ad agency mental health space. Want to add your voice to the groundswell? Find out more here.

 

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