Leading women from the advertising, marketing and media world on making the industry more inclusive

• The biggest task for today's marketers is to abolish gender roles and work on an honest portrayal of women.
• We reached out to a few leading women from the advertising, marketing and media industry to discuss a few stereotypes they are tired of seeing, how we can change the portrayal of women and making the industries more inclusive.

The advertising industry was infamous for perpetuating gender stereotypes -- from a sacrificing mother to a man being the bread-earner, the portrayal of women has remained very shallow for years. How brands depict women and their role in society has evolved today, she is independent, she has a voice and is slowly learning to care less about society’s judgement, but we haven’t taken a big leap yet. She is still a woman who is ‘aesthetically pleasing,’ fair-skinned, doesn’t come from a minority community and is a little far from real. We are limping towards inclusivity.

It is only when there’s an equal representation inside Indian advertising agencies and media organisations that we will have diverse voices in a brainstorming session, which ultimately gets reflected in a brand’s communication.

Recently, women have faced greater economic hardship through the Covid-19 pandemic, disproportionately losing jobs and income.

LinkedIn’s report shows how Covid-19 has disproportionately impacted women’s careers. Our latest Opportunity Index findings show that 85% of women in India have missed out on a raise, promotion because of their gender. Women’s careers are observed to have been more adversely affected despite increasing flexibility at work, as 68% of women and 74% of working mothers in India say it is difficult to balance career and familial responsibilities today. More than 7 in 10 women and working mothers in India also say that household responsibilities often come in their way of career progress.

So, it is safe to say that we are far away from building an inclusive environment for employees of all gender spectrum.

We reached out to women in leadership across media, brand and advertising industry to understand how we can bridge the gender gap and improve portrayal of women in advertising.

Here is what they had to say:

Pooja Jauhari, CEO, The Glitch:

Malini Agarwal, Founder of MissMalini and Creative Director at Malini's Girl Tribe

Divya Dixit, SVP, Marketing, Direct Revenue & Analytics:

Juhi Bhatnagar, Strategy & BD, India, Snap Inc:

Shradha Agarwal, Co-founder and COO, Grapes Digital:

Unmisha Bhatt, Chief Strategy Officer & Director - India & MENA region, Tonic Worldwide:

Rajni Daswani, Director, SoCheers: