Glass: The Lion For Change > Glass: The Lion for Change

NO MORE FEMALE PROFESSIONALS

MULLENLOWE GROUP, London / INSPIRING THE FUTURE / 2018

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Overview

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Overview

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The language we wanted to stamp out had become so normalised that it took nothing more than an online search to find a plethora of examples of women being unnecessarily qualified with their gender.

Take film director Patty Jenkins. 6.5% of the times she's mentioned as a director she is clarified as being a female director. If we conduct the same search of the social web for a male director, Joss Whedon isn't once clarified as being male. Not one mention on the entirety of the internet during the time period we searched thought it was relevant to confirm he was male alongside discussion of his work.

The evidence of unconscious bias was everywhere, but no one was stopping to call it out. It was slipping through media unnoticed and as a result, was not just questioning women occupying those positions, but also limiting the scope of possibility for younger generations. Because each time we bring a female professional's gender into the conversation, we suggest that a woman holding that position is marked. That it is in some way unnatural, and that it is natural for men to hold it.

CampaignDescription

Our campaign "No More Female Professionals" highlights how language perpetuates gender bias by defining the norms when it comes to jobs. By qualifying job titles with gender, in particular by adding the 'female' prefix before the profession, we question the legitimacy of women having these jobs roles, diminishing their opportunities and pay. The campaign also demonstrates how language is a powerful tool that doesn't just reflect culture but can also construct it.

The first stage in eradicating this language was drawing attention to it. When the language had become so normal it wasn't even visible to our audience, we knew our creative idea needed to be provocative enough to stop people in their tracks. So we used the same language to drive or point home.

Execution

Social media was always going to be the home of our message as it was where much of the language we were calling out was taking place. We seeded our content across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, launching with a bang the week after International Women's Day, which gave us maximum potential for exposure and supported a mislead that this a campaign that feels tired of feminism. Animated mega screens in 50 locations all over the country echoed this sentiment, each shouting our disruptive headline, before revealing the insight that a woman should just be referred to with her job title, not her gender.

Whilst the rest of the world was celebrating female achievement, we were stealing headlines by campaigning to get rid of female professionals - propelling our message into the palms of those we know would be most likely to act and share immediately.

Outcome

For a campaign aimed at driving professionals to our website to sign up as mentors, our site traffic increasing by 71% when the campaign was released, indicating that we can create a world with no more female professionals.

The rail sites delivered 3,928,572 all adult impacts and the roadside delivered 9,780,800 all adult impacts over two weeks.

What's more, our video was seen and shared by those who had first-person experience of the effect we were trying to stamp out. 9.2% of the people who tweeted about it were Executive level or above, with a total of 24 coming from CEOs themselves.

Strategy

Our strategy to get our film seen and shared by as many people as possible was to start with women whom this issue had directly affected, those who had first-hand experience of their gender constantly being used to qualify their achievements. People like Brenda Trenowden,Head at ANZ Bank, Inga Beale, CEO of Lloyd's Bank and Jasmine Dotiwala, a well-known British broadcaster and director.

With them on board, we reached out to thought-leaders in the feminist activism space, those who would respond most vehemently with our sentiment, imploring their social following to watch and support the cause. One such advocate is Helen Pankhurst, the international women's rights activist and the great granddaughter of suffragette Emily Pankhurst.

Synopsis

Inspiring the Future exists to open up new possibilities for young people in Britain. Their innovative matchmaking platform connects schools and colleges with role models in the workforce, bringing them into schools to show young people that there are no limits to their future achievements. Our previous work, like Redraw The Balance, focused on highlighting the young age that gender stereotypes are defined; this time, we wanted to focus on the language that was perpetuating these stereotypes. Because each time we celebrate a great professional caveated with her gender, we undermine her success by qualifying it unnecessarily, setting us back in our mission.

When, and only when, we begin using non-gendered words to describe someone's achievements will we begin to see people and professions as non-gendered too, removing the invisible barriers that limit a young person's potential. So we set ourselves a bold task, to remove this language entirely.

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