It's hard to tell the difference sometimes. First we had Larry Summers, the President of Harvard, discussing why Harvard doesn't have many women professors in math and science. According to Summers, this is not due to discrimination, for which there is no "evidence", but because women don't have the required "innate ability" to succeed in those roles. This comment was made as Summers supposedly was trying to recruit more respected women science professors to the University. Way to go, Larry, they're really banging down the doors to work there now!
Now, we have the legendary ad guru Neil French, Worldwide Creative Director of WPP, one of the largest ad agencies on the planet. At an ad-industry event which advertised itself saying "no question will be spared and no topic will be taboo", women learned a little too much about French's true feelings when he responded to a question about why there weren't more female creative directors. His answer? "Women don't make it to the top because they don't deserve to. They're crap."
French then continued to call women "slacker-breeders", "babes", "bitches", and even "c*nts" (!) who will inevitably leave work early to "go suckle something" (who fed French when he was small?). Now you can ask what else you would expect from a former pornographer and heavy metal band manager. Or you can ask how someone with those views could make it to the tippy top of one of the most respected empires in the communications world. You can say that this is a rare case where an extremist shoots his mouth off. Or you can wonder how many others share the same opinions, but have far too much delicacy to say so.
Nancy Vonk, one of the women who considered Neil French a mentor, was at the event and said she has finally "snapped out of it" and realized behavior like his cannot be tolerated. Comments on her blog say this is just "one man's opinion", that women aren't negatively affected, and that childrearing is more important than work anyway. Which is fine until it comes to questions of promotions, pay, and which creative ideas "win".
And then, I bet, it really matters if someone who thinks like Neil French is your boss and you're female. And because women make the vast majority of all consumer purchasing decisions, workplace gender discrimination probably erodes an ad agency's bottom line as well. Who would hire an agency that is so out of touch with the people they're trying to reach?
Neil French has resigned (or been asked to resign) his post; Lawrence Summers kept his after a minor dust-up. How many others are out there, in charge of hiring, managing, and promoting? And how long will it take Neil French to get a new job?
Recent Comments