The Power of Women

JUNE SARPONG MBE is one of the most recognizable British television presenters and broadcasters and the co-founder of the WIE Network (Women: Inspiration and Enterprise). She is the author of Diversify, an empowering guide to why a more open society means a more successful one, which won the 2018 London’s Big Read award.

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © June Sarpong 2018

June Sarpong asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008306779

To every woman trying to be her best

self, and every man trying to help.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

INTRODUCTION / The Empowered Woman

Power in the Media

Power in the Workplace

Power in Numbers

The Power of Persuasion

Afterword: The Power of Role Models

Notes and References

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION / The Empowered Woman

Feminism (n). The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

Oxford English Dictionary

The definition and the focus of feminism has changed through the ages as it has sought to resist and overcome the tenets of patriarchy. Women have always fought for their place within the household or family, usually employing femininity as an iron fist in velvet gloves, using covert or non-confrontational means to assert themselves. The political, social, and cultural upheavals of the twentieth century gave women a greater awareness of mass movements demanding political and social change. Women also became organized, but with a different end goal to many of the radical movements that sought the overthrow of the existing order.

The women’s movement – feminism – did not want to take power, but to share in it. However, the competitiveness which society often instils in men means some see the pursuit of power as a zero-sum game. This has resulted in any challenge to the status quo often prompting fear and suspicion – to the extent that feminism has frequently been met with aggression and violence, both from the state and individual males.

Thankfully, both men and women have evolved to the extent that the majority of us acknowledge that there needs to be gender equality, and politicians (still mainly men) have passed laws to underpin this belief. However, the zero-sum mentality still exists, where men view feminism as a movement of confrontation rather than an opportunity to achieve solutions to inequality. Some women also shy away from the label of feminism as it can often be typecast as a movement with unreasonable demands, that victimizes and takes power from men in favour of a female hierarchy.

True feminism is nothing of the sort. Rather, it is a movement that seeks to create the equal balance between the genders that we all need, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.’ We seem to get fixated on the advocacy of women’s rights over the aim – which is equality.

Neither men nor women need to be afraid of the term feminism, because the imbalance and inequality that requires its existence costs us all dearly. Gender imbalance and inequality in female education will impact the male and female children who women might give birth to. Gender imbalance or inequality at work and in business impacts on how effectively a business or organisation is able to operate. These are issues that concern us all regardless of gender, which is why we must act on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s clarion call. Indeed: We Should All Be Feminists.

As we celebrate the centenary of female suffrage in the UK, in the wake of the explosion of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements and calls for greater pay transparency, it’s clear from recent indicators that there is a fierce appetite for a change in the way society treats women. With this glorious uprising of women everywhere we could be forgiven for feeling a sense of achievement, and indeed the social and cultural change in Western society has been significant and has ushered in a redefining of assumed gender relations at work and elsewhere. But the call for gender equality is nothing new and there is still much work to be done.

Women are the largest oppressed group in the world, and the degrees of subjugation vary from country to country, with women in the West faring much better than their counterparts in developing parts of the world. But even in the UK and the US, there are more women living in poverty than men1, and of the people who were paid below the National Living Wage in 2016, 64% were women2. Levelling the playing field will be a struggle but it will, without question, be worth it for everyone, given the rewards that are to be won. According to the UK version of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Power of Parity report, bridging the UK gender gap at work ‘has the potential to create an extra £150 billion on top of business-as-usual GDP forecasts in 2025, and could translate into 840,000 additional female employees’.3 Certainly, as things stand, we are often failing to harness the full potential of 50 per cent of society. Imagine the technological, cultural, and political progress we could make if we fully empowered that half of society.

It can be tempting to see this as exclusively a women’s issue. But that’s not the case. And in addition to discussing how important it is that we provide a level playing field for mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends, this book will prove just how much society as a whole – including husbands, sons, brothers and male friends – has to gain, economically and socially, from the rise of empowered women.

And there are wider benefits too. Women are usually the de facto operational managers of a home. An ability to manage a budget, resolve conflict, and inspire excellence come as standard. This skill set is an obvious advantage in management and should not be overlooked or undermined. That is not to say these attributes are exclusive to women, but those who are able to demonstrate these transferable skills are undoubtedly an asset to any business. For the male boss above her this operational manager brings a responsible pair of hands, and for the male subordinate, possibly an encouraging style of leadership that fosters progression and development. And for colleagues – yes, an element of competition, but also an opportunity to learn alternative styles of working and thinking. Women have shaped the template and culture of the home for centuries; it’s now time for us to add a lasting ‘feminine’ dynamic to the workplace, and reap the social and economic benefits of doing so.

The results – personal, cultural, and economic – of gender equality will be spectacularly beneficial, for women, for men, and for society as a whole. But we won’t get there unless we can convince even the biggest cynics that feminism works for everyone. This book will highlight women’s lost potential and, more importantly, provide the tools and arguments to support the fact that gender equality will enable a bright future we will all benefit from.

Power in the Media

Throughout the ages, from paintings through to magazine covers and the movies, society’s beauty standards have been represented in the media via images that have been heralded as the ‘ideal’ of the day. Women in particular have been subjected to this relentless objectification and anyone falling short of these standards is either denigrated or ignored, leaving millions of young girls and women feeling unworthy, unrepresented, and fearful of rejection.

Women are held to an entirely different set of standards than their male counterparts – we are valued by the way we look and how young we are; the ‘prettier’ and younger the better: only 18 per cent of TV broadcasters over fifty years old are women,1 and the majority of female film characters are in their twenties [32 per cent] and thirties [25 per cent]2. The mental pressure this creates wreaks havoc on our self-esteem. As a result, women are plagued with a level of self-doubt and self-criticism (myself included) that men do not have to face. And it’s led to a narrow representation of women, not just in the visible media but behind the scenes as well.

As someone who has worked in the media for almost twenty years, I am very much aware of the power of the visual image and the impact it has on how we value ourselves; I’ve experienced its discriminating effects first-hand. With ordinary women drastically under-represented, the proliferation of misogynistic trolling on social media, and the easy access to online porn, it’s become blindingly obvious that unrealistic, unrepresentative, and sometimes unhealthy images of women are projected into people’s homes and minds on a daily basis. To counter this, we clearly need our media to start involving and portraying women in a more balanced and affirming manner.

The Oscar-winning actress Geena Davis has become a leading advocate for the better representation of women in the media: her Institute on Gender in Media is doing a stellar job of holding Hollywood accountable by monitoring the representation of women both in front of and behind the camera. I was fortunate enough to discuss this issue in detail with Geena when she delivered the keynote address at the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise (WIE) New York 2012 conference, which I helped to organize. And, in the six years since Geena delivered her keynote not much has changed – the data from her latest research on gender equality in advertising is quite startling: when studying the screen- and speaking-time of women in commercials (across 5 English-speaking territories), there had been no discernible change in a decade. In 2006, 43.6 per cent of all commercials showed women on screen for 20 per cent or less of the commercial. By 2016, the figure was a similar 44.2 per cent. Commercials with men only were five times as common as women-only adverts (despite the fact that women dominate in many purchasing decisions). In advertising, men were on screen about four times as much as women.3

We see a similar picture in TV and film, where of the 100 highest-grossing films of 2017, women represented: 8 per cent of directors, 10 per cent of writers, 2 per cent of cinematographers, 24 per cent of producers, and 14 per cent of editors.4

The Institute’s findings point to a systemic problem at the very core of the industry: the largely male decision makers in the commissioning meetings, and maybe even the writers and directors themselves, are unwilling to put women at the heart of their stories. Geena is very frank about the problem: ‘All of Hollywood is run on one assumption: that women will watch stories about men, but men won’t watch stories about women. It is a horrible indictment of our society if we assume that one half of our population is just not interested in the other half.’5

In some ways, we are trapped in a vicious circle here. Boys see from early on that male superheroes have a wide range of abilities, but the female’s superpower will primarily be that she looks good in a tight outfit that may well be nice to look at, but it can’t be called interesting. In a world where women on screen are idolized primarily for their appearance and rarely given stories of depth or complexity, it’s no wonder that it’s been hardwired into all of society that women are not interesting to men.

But things are beginning to change, and savvy studios are reaping the rewards. In 2017, the three highest-grossing films of the year in the US all had female leads: Star Wars – The Last Jedi (Daisy Ridley), Beauty and the Beast (Emma Watson) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot).6

Women need the support of men to create new, more inclusive stories, because of course part of the issue is undoubtedly that the decision makers, writers, and directors are – as the stats above confirm – also predominantly men. But we all need to challenge our internalized misogyny. Gender discrimination can be insidious and more difficult to detect because it doesn’t carry the same level of self-reproach as racial or disability discrimination. The vast majority inherently know racial discrimination is wrong, even if we carry conscious or unconscious bias, but with gender our ideas about what constitutes sexism are warped, so diagnosing misogynistic behaviour can be difficult and confusing.

The challenge, therefore, is manifold. As well as conducting some self-analysis of our own internalized misogyny, we also need to work together to create stories around women, and to make sure women have the opportunity to tell those stories themselves. Until women see more balanced and inspirational images of themselves, the journey to reach the level of unwavering self-belief required to fulfil our potential will be all the harder. As it stands, only the exceptional can get through. Unfortunately, by the mere definition of the word, most of us are not exceptional.

The film industry is not the only culprit in the media, of course. Unfortunately, a lack of diversity is still very much prevalent in mainstream women’s magazines, too. Despite it being a female-centric industry, the images that make it onto the pages of our glossy magazines have long been notoriously homogenous – the women are reliably young, thin, and – more often than not – white.

In the US, Anna Wintour, the legendary former editor-in-chief of American Vogue, has been at the forefront of addressing this. Over the last few years she has broken the mould and produced covers that feature leading women of colour such as Rihanna, Michelle Obama, Serena Williams, Zendaya, and Beyoncé. Franca Sozzani, the late great editor of Italian Vogue, also made it her mission to make her pages more inclusive and, as with Wonder Woman or the astronomical success of Black Panther, the numbers speak for themselves; the famed ‘Black’ issue of Vogue, which featured the most iconic models of colour, past and present, is to date one of the biggest-selling editions of that magazine.7

Unfortunately, the UK still lags seriously behind on this issue, though there could be sunshine on the horizon as we again turn to Vogue. The appointment of Edward Enninful as its first editor of colour (who also happens to be a man) could result in the UK’s most trusted and elite fashion bible becoming a publication in which all women can see themselves represented.

So far, this seems to be the case. In his short reign as head of Vogue, Enninful has already began a wave of more inclusive editorial and covers, which has not only proved refreshing to a wider consumer base but also incredibly lucrative. Vanessa Kingori the first ever female publisher of British Vogue (who also happens to be black) recently announced: ‘Total sales are up 7.5 per cent since Edward’s first issue and UK newsstands sales have also increased. Total advertising revenue is up too, fuelled by a 26 per cent increase in digital advertising, and the company reports a 1,033 per cent increase in events and special projects revenue.’

And as we saw with Vogue’s ‘Black’ issue, or indeed Nike’s #betterforit campaign, if done right, inclusivity can also be very lucrative.

But is it any wonder that representative media is the exception rather than the rule? The less public side of prejudice can be found in the severe under-representation of BAME individuals in the creative industries. We’re at risk here of taking steps backwards rather than forwards – the government have cut funding to Creative Access, an organization that has been working to increase diversity in the creative industries through internships, apprenticeships, and other entry routes for young people from underrepresented backgrounds.

This brings us to an even more damaging element of gender inequality because, when it comes to representation in the media, the fight for gender equality often crosses over into, and sometimes clashes with, the fight for racial equality, and black women are at the epicentre of these two struggles. They have a fight on two fronts: they must negotiate a society that discriminates against them because of their gender, and also imposes upon them a standard of female beauty that is at the other end of the spectrum to what they represent. And all in a patriarchal society where women are judged primarily by their appearance before they even say or do anything.

It is in this context that we find the labels of the ‘strong black woman’ who overcomes opposition and adversity, and the ‘angry black woman’ who is loud and unreasonable. In the UK and US, women who are given these labels soon become aware that they were not meant to be the delicate damsel rescued by the hero we see depicted in Disney movies. In fact, in order to be worthy of acceptance they need to become as close as they can manage to their white counterparts by suppressing the essence of their authenticity, i.e. their ‘blackness’. The burden of women being judged by their appearance before all else is, therefore, especially damaging for women of colour.

So it is that black women in corporate front-of-house roles are often told that their natural Afro hair or braided styles are unacceptable, and that chemical treatments or weaves and wigs that give the appearance of straighter hair are preferable. Even then, wigs and weaves can become a means of denigration, as black US congresswoman Maxine Waters found when US political commentator Bill O’Reilly of Fox News claimed he ‘couldn’t hear what she was saying because of her James Brown wig!’

As a black woman in the media, I have my own wounds and scars from some of the prejudice, rejection, and subtle slights I have faced throughout my career. I learned very early on that the rules were not the same for me, and that my point of difference, although an asset in most cases, was also sometimes a liability.

One incident that comes to mind was when I was around 21. I had not long been at MTV, yet had one of the highest-rated shows on the network: MTV Dancefloor Chart. I was succeeded by Russell Brand when I went to co-present MTV Select with British comedian Richard Blackwood. It was a great time in the channel’s history – I was part of a wave of MTV VJs (video jockeys) that included Cat Deeley, Edith Bowman, Donna Air, and Sara Cox. We were young, hip, and the voice of Generation X. MTV had just newly rebranded in the UK and Ireland, and the network comms team embarked on an extensive marketing campaign to promote the faces of the channel. This involved a Sky Magazine cover titled ‘MmmmTV . . . Delicious Reasons to Watch MTV’. The cover was a substantial beauty spread that included every female MTV presenter, except me – even though, at the time, my show was riding high in the ratings and I was a firm favourite with the viewers. My heart sank as I walked past newsstands and saw the cover glaring at me. I was happy for my colleagues but couldn’t help crying at the fact that I’d been excluded.

What happened next completely raised my spirits though. Because it was such a big cover story, the viewers of MTV started calling the network to ask if I had left the channel. The news soon spread that I hadn’t left, I just hadn’t been included in the shoot. It would later transpire that it wasn’t Sky Magazine that had vetoed me – rather, it was the MTV PR team, who didn’t think I was right for the feature so hadn’t put my name forward. I have always been a glass-half-full type of person, and always look for the silver lining where possible. This rejection, painful as it was, ended up working in my favour – more and more viewers kept calling the MTV switchboard to complain. As a result, the MTV press office devised a marketing campaign specifically for me and I ended up shooting a piece for Sky Magazine with the legendary David Bailey.

Incidents such as these would continue throughout my career. Many times I would agree to a cover shoot, only to be bumped off at the last minute – something fuelled by the general unspoken belief in the industry that women of colour do not sell magazines, which as demonstrated by Vogue’s bestselling ‘Black’ issue, clearly isn’t the case. So, it’s fair to say that women of colour have a double dose of discrimination: we are often ignored and excluded or, worse still, insulted in the media – and sometimes that insult is at the hand of our colleagues.

Such was the case for stalwart Labour MP Diane Abbott, following the Article 50 vote that awarded Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May the authority to begin the process of leaving the European Union. The Brexit Minister David Davis allegedly attempted to hug Abbott for voting with the government, but apparently her response to his show of affection was a strong verbal rejection. Davis then proceeded to inform a ‘friend’ about this exchange via text, remarking that he would have to be blind to hug Diane Abbott. Fortunately, this ‘friend’ leaked Davis’s text to the press. As hurtful as this was for Abbott, it was important that Davis’s disgraceful disrespect was exposed for all to see.

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