Women over exceed men in PR

During our last class we had a debate on the topic: “Women will always work in PR but will never run it”.

My position is the opposite - women will work in PR, will oust men and occupy top positions.
It is obvious that the PR industry once dominated by men is now outnumbered by women and the trend shows no signs of abating.

The mark of women’s presence in PR over the last 25 years is a major shortage of men coming into the profession, and that's official.

According to figures released by the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) in 2004 women outnumbered men by 60:40 - a massive swing since 1987, when figures highlighted the opposite at 20:80.

Over the last two decades, women have risen up the ranks to practice leaders and office leaders, but are still not appropriately represented in the senior positions. However, many of the up and coming independent firms are led by women entrepreneurs who create their own path to success.

Powerful women in PR, industry veterans who actually helped shape the more balanced public relations field we have today: Christine Barney (CEO, rbb Public Relations), Melissa Waggener Zorkin (CEO, President and Founder, Waggener Edstrom), Donna Imperato (CEO, Cohn & Wolfe), Margaret Booth (President, M Booth & Associates) and MaryLee Sachs (Chairman, US Hill & Knowlton).

There are more of great examples of women who made it to the top: Gail Heimann, for example, is a major player at Weber. And Margery Kraus (Chair, President and CEO, APCO Worldwide) is someone who built a $100 million business. Other brilliant women in PR include Aedhmar Hynes of Text 100. She is someone who has made a huge impact in the technology driven space, which is very male dominated. She is a real role model and has built a spectacular company around the globe.

It is a fact today that more women than men are enrolling in college. PR feminization is not simply coming, but is already the reality. The younger generation is much more open to female leadership.

Kathy Obert, Chairman and CEO, Edward Howard: As women become more comfortable – societally and financially – with being hunters and with taking personal financial risks as owners, we’ll see more women at the top. And by the way, our industry needs men and women, in both management and client service roles.

Expect that change will come slowly, but it will be more rapid in geographic areas that demonstrate higher tolerance for diversity generally. Expect to see faster parity on the coasts and in markets like New York, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Change will come more slowly in the Midwest and Bible Belt regions. That’s not a PR-specific issue, it is a societal issue.

Women tend to be more practical than theoretical, particularly when it comes to attention to detail, and are better than men at thinking on different levels all at the same time, which are critical success factors behind award-winning PR campaigns.

Gidon Freeman, editor of PR Week, noticed that in 2004 the gender readership split for the industry's magazine has moved in favor of women with a 65:35 ratio. According to his words "PR is all about developing relationships and bringing influence to bear, which historically women have always mastered better that men".