By Tanya Houston, CEO of Wildwood
The theme for International Women’s Day 2020 is #EachforEqual – an equal world is an enabled world.
Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day. We can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.
Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender equal
world.
Let’s all be #EachforEqual.
I’ve been lucky enough to run Wildwood PR for 25 years – and in that time, I can honestly say that I have not personally experienced discrimination, but I realise this is not the case for everyone.
As a team, we are focused on delivering for clients, but at the same time, we strive to create a working environment that is fun, equal and ‘gender-blind’. In fact, at Wildwood, not unlike in many other PR and Marketing organisations, we have more women on the team than men, but many of the clients for whom we work are in the much more traditionally male-dominated industries.
It has not been uncommon in the last 25 years for the Wildwood team members to be the only females in meetings, presentations and events. BUT – and it is a good but – this has absolutely changed over the years. Nowadays we see many more females in positions of authority as well as at the sharp end of business, working as designers, engineers, technologists, architects and more, and it is heartening to have witnessed this (albeit slow) change.
This is a great step forward, and we all need to continue to
empower people to develop and grow, to move on in their careers, and above all,
to be treated equally.
Recently I attended the AVIXA Women’s Council event at ISE2020 – and the keynote speaker made a great point: the number of men and women in the world is roughly equal, out of 1,000 people, 504 are men (50.4%) and 496 are women (49.6%). In order to survive and grow in business, we need to be creating environments that welcome 100% of this talent pool – and treating everyone equally.
