The construction of gender and creativity in advertising creative departments

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine female creatives' perceptions as to why there are so few women working as creatives (art directors, copywriters, and creative directors) in advertising. Design/methodology/approach -Interviews with 21 female creatives provided insights into reasons for underrepresentation. Inductive coding was used to allow themes and categories to emerge from the data. A social constructionist interpretation was used. Findings -Since both gender and creativity are socially constructed, doing gender in the masculine creative department impeded progress and job satisfaction for women. Because women were held accountable both to the norms of the masculine field and to the norms of femininity, their performance suffered as they tried to succeed in an inequitable system. Originality/value -This paper examines how being a woman operating within a masculine paradigm might be especially difficult in creative fields. Because creativity is constructed based on mostly male gatekeepers using masculinity as a model, women are devalued and unable to influence the field of gatekeepers.

Is there gender bias when creative directors judge advertising? Name cue effect in ad evaluation

“…Other related factors will not be addressed in this experimental design. Previous qualitative research suggests that professional women feel their ideas are discriminated against by men in advertising agencies Windels & Lee 2012). On the other hand, Hernández et al (2012) argue that there is no relationship between a predominant creative male environment (Nixon 2003;) and advertising sexism, despite the broad use of gender stereotypes in advertising (Shao et al 2014).…”

“…Women lack peer recognition since they do not participate in such networks (Cuneo & Petrecca 1997;Bosman 2005). In contrast, they appear to be trapped as pink ghetto, especially when limited to working on female products such as those, related with beauty, cleaning and children Windels & Lee 2012). Some other variables show that an absence of women in creative departments is related to managerial knowledge (Martín et al 2009), lower salaries in the advertising industry for women (Martín 2007), a lack of creative leadership positions (Pool 2001;Mallia 2009) and, especially, motherhood penalty (Mallia 2009;, which is not exclusive to the advertising sector (e.g.…”

“…These networks lead to two kinds of gender segregation (Grow & Deng 2014); vertical, when there are fewer women in senior positions (creative directors), and horizontal, with male domination within creative departments. Windels and Lee (2012) researched the construction of gender and creativity in advertising departments through female voices. They found gender had a strong negative impact in creative's ideas evaluation, credibility and quality of assignments.…”

“…This can be understood as the hiring homogeneity that jeopardizes the minority which is women (Mallia 2009). Previous research regarding bias in the hiring processes in advertising has been studied by Sego (1999) in the account area and by Windels & Lee (2012) and Roca et al (2012) in the creative field. All three investigations used students as judges.…”

“…Creative departments are considered as being a laddish creative environment, or what has been defined as men's club (Alvesson 1998;Nixon & Crewe 2004;Broyles & Grow 2008;Etayo & Del Río 2008;Fitzsimmons 2008;Mallia 2009;Gregory 2009). One of the reasons is male networking outside the agency (Ibarra 1992;Gregory 2009) which leads, for example, to male dominance in judgment committees Windels & Lee 2012). Women lack peer recognition since they do not participate in such networks (Cuneo & Petrecca 1997;Bosman 2005).…”