Mavens launches new Gender Diversity report
Trigger warning: this article discusses sexual harassment. Australian gender equality organisation Mavens has today released a new report on the state of equality in Australia’s advertising and media industries.
Data for the 62-page report was collected late last year by Mavens founder, senior copywriter Leah Morris and creative director Chris Taylor. Together, they surveyed 237 advertising professionals with an alarming 27% citing they had been sexually harassed at work.
This statistic is exceedingly higher than the national average, which is 17% for women and 4.3% for men (ABS).
Said one anonymous respondent: “I was sexually assaulted on a work trip by a client’s colleague, and told to drop the complaint as it would reflect badly on the agency and affect the client’s likelihood of continuing to work with us.”
Allegedly high rates of abuse aren’t limited to sexual harassment, with 45% stating they had been bullied at work.
Says Morris: “The way women and minorities are treated at work needs to change. These statistics are coming from real people who are trying to tell us things are not okay. Bullying, harassment and abuse rob people’s psychological safety, which is essential to producing quality work and maintaining good mental health.”
The survey also uncovered a lack of representation, with not one of the respondents identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander. Only 5% identified as living with a disability.
British ad maven and former BBH chair Cindy Gallop has endorsed the initiative: ‘Mavens is a terrific resource for the Australian ad industry, because no longer can any creative industry leadership say, “oh, we really WANTED to hire brilliant women, we just couldn’t find any” – they can just go straight to Mavens, see these incredibly talented women and pay them what they’re worth.’
Get your free digital copy of Mavens Gender Diversity Study here.
Subscribe to Mavens’ mailing list: https://www.themavens.com.au/
Join the conversation on Instagram: @mavens_aus
7 Comments
Go Leah!
Discrimination in the workplace, exclusion/firings/redundancies after babies – all good fodder for the next report
Great resource for employers and great support for employees, this is what people need now more then ever!
I’ve downloaded the study and look forward to reading it. One thing I was wondering about is whether there is a suggestion that greater workplace diversity would lead to less bullying. People can be cruel irrespective of their gender, ethnicity etc. Often, I would think, the traits that help people rise through an organisation, could tend to correlate with aggressive and potentially bullying personalities.
JaseR, thank you for reading the study. Your point is a good one – organisational structures do reward certain types of behaviour, which often helps bullies rise through the ranks. Perhaps if we rebuild our frameworks which were built by men for men (not a complaint, just a fact) we will be able to create psychologically safe spaces for everyone to do their best work.
Thank you for making this data so easy to read!
Very confronting but so necessary to talk about.
Well done., Leah!
An excellent report on an issue that has been a long struggle – from the days when the reason for excluding women as ‘there aren’t enough female toilets’, or we haven’t encountered any women with sufficient skills’.You saw a real need and you went for a solution. Its people like you who make the word a better place.