Three views on Feminisation of PR and its consequences

Why are there so many women in Public Relations, but only so few women entrepreneurs? These are the two key questions which were mentioned in this week’s PR issue class.

Compared to Michaela’s presentation about female career choices, this topic doesn’t interest me much, especially when it came to our group discussion about why “women will always work in PR industry, but will never run it”.

I have no problem with women working in Public Relations, especially since women in many countries have only started to get the right to choose their career freely in the last 50 years.

In response to this gender equality issue, I have some different views.

1) The number of women working in Public Relations

Once I was told that if we look at the PR industry in the UK as a person, it would be a pretty young blond woman.

In China, the industry behaves in the same way. For example, Edelman China agency is considered as “a pretty women company”

Fist, I would like to say: Well done, girls!

From east to west, half of this industry is occupied by female practitioners, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing for women.

Secondly, as Grunig (2001) points out in the book "Women in Public Relations: How Gender Influences Practice", some people have the uneasy feeling that so many women in PR just because it is less important and easy to access.

I would argue that more females work in the PR industry not because it is easy, but because women are good at communication and interested in this profession.

Additionally, female professionals have increased their roles, influence and importance very dramatically over the last couple of decades. The so called "feminisation" has increased so rapidly that it is already threatening the roles of men within organizations.

2) “Women will always work in PR industry, but will never run it”

My question is, why must women “run” the PR industry?

Does it mean that all women must be at the top of the PR industry?

Is the only fair thing that 50% of women control everything and let men control the rest? Or should women take care of the board room and kick out all the men?

We all know that female can run the industry, since there are uncountable examples of women running PR practices as our group debater presented in the class.

Men have run their countries for thousands of years (at least 5000 years in China alone). Only in the last 100 years, have women enjoyed a better chance for a good education and all other aspects of life.

I think that it’s just a question of time.

I personally believe that in order to be the “top man”, you need to live a life like a perfect machine. Compared with me being a female CEO, I would rather spent my spare time enjoy other beautiful things.

3) Consequences of the feminisation in PR

I think that in order to succeed, the PR industry needs to manage its reputation as a sexier industry, which will in turn attract more and more talents, both male and female.

BTW, I don’t want to be a top performing robot woman, do you?

Reference:

Grunig, L. A., Toth, E. L., & Hon, L. C. (2001).Women in public relations: How genderinfluences practice. New York: The Guilford Press.

Jeannie Rea.The Feminisation of Public Relations: What’s in it for the Girls?

Hasan Suroor(2005)The myth of "feminisation"