This document discusses how advertising and popular culture perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes through sexist myths and narratives. It provides examples of how advertising frequently objectifies or demeans women. However, it also notes some positive changes, like campaigns that challenge gender norms and initiatives to increase gender diversity in the advertising industry. The document argues that new, non-sexist stories are needed to shift societal narratives from male-centered to humanity-centered. It asks the reader to consider what they can do to be part of changing harmful myths and cultural archetypes.

1. We live in a Mad
Men world

2. An ocean of sexist
messages

18. When the public is offended, the agency
or the brand answer it was just humor,
trivializing the issue

19. But sexism is real and lethal as we can see in
this Google autofill ad from UN Women

20. And brands do not only
foster gender stereotypes
but also price women and
men products differently

21. Products marketed for women
and girls are more expensive

24. La tasa rosa
1.400$
En España las
mujeres cobran un
19,3% menos que
los hombres a
pesar de tener la
misma formación y
desempeñar las
mismas funciones.
Algunos ejemplos de diferencia de precios:
más que los hombres por
productos iguales.
Según un estudio del
Departamento de Consumo
de Nueva York, las mujeres
pagan un 7% más que ellos
por los mismos productos.
Pero solo el 1% de la riqueza mundial está en manos femeninas
Población
Riqueza
Según la revista Forbes,
las mujeres americanas
pagan cada añoEl 50% de la población
del planeta son mujeres
42%
Mujeres Hombres
Fuente: Estudio “Gender Pay Gap” de la Comisión Europea, 2015
(1.267 €)
+ 7%
Se analizaron 794 productos:
de los casos el precio
de la versión femenina
era superior
18%
el precio de la
versión masculina
era superior
En las redes sociales se anima a denunciar estas desigualdades con la etiqueta #womantax
-19,3%
40,75 €
42,30 €
Lima
electrónica
49,50 €
57,00 €
Perfume
6,40 €
6,51 €
Colonia
infantil
13,90 €
23,90 €
Juego de
construcción
44,90 €
48,90 €
Moto de
juguete

28. And it’s a terrible strategic
mistake

29. 9
“The advertising
“The advertising
“business is a
$33B industry.
Misunderstanding
female consumers,
from a business
perspective, is
sheer lunacy.
Kat Gordon
Founder, The 3% Conference

30. 6
Women control 73% of consumer purchasing
and $20 trillion of the world’s annual consumer
spending.2
They are more active on social networks and more likely to share a brand’s message with others.3
Women also represent the majority of early tech adopters4
, social gamers5
, and are amassing wealth
at rates that will culminate in control $22 trillion of US wealth by the end of this decade.6
But perhaps the figure that matters most comes from Greenfield Online for Arnold’s Women’s
Insight Team, where 91% of women reported they didn’t think that advertisers
understood them.
In short, the consumers who brands should want to fall in favor with most report overwhelming
dissatisfaction with the way brands speak to them. While good creatives are trained to
market anything to anyone, a 97% skew (now recalculated to 89% skew) creates a level of groupthink
that represents a group not holding the consumer reins.
The advertising industry does not have a recruitment problem, but a retention
problem when it comes to gender diversity in creative departments. Portfolio schools are
graduating equal (if not greater) number of women than men. Yet these same women “disappear”
from the field right around the time they have the appropriate level of experience to be CDs. The 3%
Conference tackles the many reasons why: lack of mentorship, lack of visibility of female CDs, award
show jury bias, lack of support for motherhood and other factors.
WHAT AGENCIES NEED TO DO
Agencies that care about gender
diversity can’t improve upon their
current state if they don’t know
what it is. A company-wide audit is
needed to set current benchmarks
before agencies can accurately
measure whether their efforts at
diversity are fruitful. The same holds
true for ethnic and cultural diversity,
which also are not reflective of the
current consumer landscape, nor are
widely measured and tracked.

32. More progressive ads generate
more engagement, visibility and
brand impact

33. WHY then?
Still few women at the top of the
ad world

35. Ever since The 3% Conference came into existenc
in September, 2012, countless reporters, students
and ad folks have reached out to ask where the 3%
statistic comes from.
While the figure itself is widespread, its origin is not. The number comes from a 2008 dissertatio
by Kasey Windels, then a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. In “Proportional
Representation and Regulatory Focus: The Case for Cohorts among Female Creatives”1
and he
subsequent conference paper, “An Exploration into the Representation of Female Creatives in
Today’s Advertising Agencies,” Ms. Windels painstakingly checked the gender of award winners
in the 1984, 1994 and 2004 Advertising Annuals of Communications Arts. She found just 3.6% o
Creative Directors were female.
ART DIRECTORS
CREATIVE DIRECTORS
3.6%
9.6%
COPYWRITERS
11.6%
PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN
IN THESE ROLES
The advertising industry is still massively
run by middle-aged white men

38. Which explains the resistance to
change

39. But the ad industry is only
reflecting our cultural
archetypes

40. Our meta stories are sexist

41. From all powerful Zeus
swallowing his wife
Methis and giving birth by
himself to Athena
To the rape of the Sabines
Where no means yes

42. From the temptress Eve,
cause of humankind fall
from Paradise
To Pandora who opened
the way to all evil
Created from
man’s rib

43. From virtuous, faithful and expectative Penelope
To fairy tales
princesses waiting
on their death bed
for a kiss to come
back to life

44. It is hard to escape from the
saint/whore dichotomy

45. From Marie and Marie
Magdalena

46. Myths create reality
• Myths present ideas that guide perception,
conditioning us to think and perceive in a
way, especially when we are young and
impressionable.
• We learn what is socially acceptable.
• Key for women: myths from male deities
religions give a specific image of what it
means to be born female: second mate,
gullible, to blame for pain, guilty, less wise
than men, not of god’s image, tempting man
to do wrong.

47. Importance of creation myths
• Gender symbolism in creation stories
proves a reliable guide to sex roles and
sexual identities in a given society.
• Peggy Reeves Sanday: out of 112 creation
stories, 50% male deity, 32% divine couple,
18% female deity
– When masculine story, 17% of fathers cared for
infants.
– When couple, 34%
– When woman, 63%

48. We have lived 3.000 years of
sexist endoctrination
• The symbolic devaluating of women is
one of the founding metaphors of the
Western civilization.
– Messages from the Bible
– Messages from Greek philosophes
– Messages from psychoanalysts

49. These myths are so embedded in
our psyches that we don’t notice
them any more
• We have internalized them. Both men and
women.
• They seem natural, and thus invisible.
• And the effect on our psychologies and
self-esteem is tremendous

50. But these myths are false, they are
created narratives we need to unlearn

52. We need to reclaim our true
story

53. And become the heroines of our own
lives

54. We need new stories
• We need to create new myths, new
archetypes
• You have the choice of the narrative
• Which story do you want to tell?
• Our world is changing, our stories need to
change too.

55. Like system vision shift from
Ptolemaic to Copernic

56. We need to shift the stories from
male-centered to humanity-centered

57. Which initiatives are shifting
the balance?

58. s Windels, “Proportional
tion and Regulatory
Case for Cohorts among
atives,” University of
ries
n Consulting Group
erg and David Adelman,
lar Social Media Sites
hy Women Are The
Behind The Huge
Pinterest and Tumblr,”
nline.com
adrigal, “Sorry, Young
e Not the Most Important
ic in Tech,” The Atlantic
gram, “Average Social
43-Year-Old Woman,”
m
Categories Where
ales to Women Are Worth
Harvard Business Review
11
Started as a passion project to spotlight a huge business
opportunity in advertising — the lack of female creative
leadership and its impact on connecting with an overwhelmingly
female marketplace — The 3% Conference has grown
exponentially since its 2012 launch. Today it is a fully fledged
movement: encompassing a 600-person, 2-day annual conference
in San Francisco and multi-city “road shows” throughout the
world, along with a vibrant online community, agency consulting,
and a student scholarship fund.
3percentconf.com

59. September, 2014
Sponsored by:
FEMALE CDS
ON THE RISESponsored by:
ON THE RISEON THE RISESEPTEMBER 2014
A 2014 study of women serving as advertising Creative Directors

60. The percentage of
female Creative Directors
in the Communication
Arts 2013 Advertising
Annual reached 11.5%.
That’s a 319% increase.

62. WORKPLACE CULTURE
1 #ClockOutConcept – Create a hashtag for brilliance
that happens off the clock and outside the office. This
combats the dangerous habit agencies have for valuing
availability over creativity.
2 Host a skill-share day where employees can show
off some of their hidden talents (playing music,
photography, pastry arts, etc.). Complement this with
a “Fun Facts” board about co-workers that celebrates
how people spend their free time.
3 Implement a “no assholes” role and enforce it.
Margaret Keene, Mullen
4 Implement a “no interruption” policy and enforce it.
5 Create a “Sorry” jar and fine anyone apologizing
$1. You can still say “pardon me” or “after you” to
demonstrate politeness, but kill the self-diminishing
instances of women apologizing before they share
a thought or ask a question. Use your sorry jar
proceeds to host an improv class or other professional
development.
6 Invite clients to your office expressly to discuss the
issue of diversity and how you can both work together
to support it. In an era where agencies are eager to
deepen client relationships, proactively addressing an
issue that affects a client’s bottom-line shows a true
spirit of partnership.
7 Check to see how many women are on the board of
your holding company. If none, or few, shoot the CEO
an email with the following links: bit.ly/1uEdxPG and
bit.ly/1nEk5cm.
8 Implement and promote a variety of flexible work
options, including workforce exit and reentry
opporctunities, and support women returning to
positions of equal pay and status. Flex-time is also
proven as a great tactic to retain millennial employees.
9 Establish a clear, unbiased, non-retaliatory grievance
policy that allows employees to comment or report on
treatment in the workplace.
10 Banish the term “women’s account” from your
vocabulary. Virtually every consumer category is
dominated by female influence, including automotive
and electronics.
11 Enable telework and make it a company policy that
flexible work schedules should not affect anyone’s
opportunity for advancement. Ernst & Young
12 Amplify the ideas of women in meetings. By reiterating
a thought shared and attributing it to the woman who
offered it, you endorse worthy ideas and ensure the
appropriate person is remembered for them. Christina
Knight, INGO
13 Mentor someone (or several someones).
14 If you have a women’s initiative, consider calling it
something business minded, instead of a “Women’s
Initiative.” Include men in every meeting. Otherwise
it’s an echo-chamber of women talking to other women
about women.
15 Explore the idea of job sharing to retain valuable
employees, especially during transitions where full-
time work may not be an option. Offering a very skilled
employee 50% of the time is often more valuable to
a client than a lesser-skilled employee being at their
beck and call. IPA
MEN
16 Be open to mentoring young women, no matter if
others make suggestive jokes. Young women need your
guidance more than you know.
17 If your company has a women’s initiative, attend
meetings and get involved.
18 Download our Manbassadors BINGO card and
post it in your office. Aim to try one new microaction
each week.
19 Join the 3% community and contribute to our blog’s
“The 97% Speak” series.
20 Read up on implicit bias and stereotype threat. Talk
with your team about key takeaways.
21 Give women the floor in meetings and ensure they’re
not interrupted when speaking.
100THINGSYou Can Do Right Now To Help
Drive the 3% Number Upward
Thanks to the many individuals, agencies and
companies who have contributed here, many of
whom are recognized in pink type.

64. Dove campaigns

65. Axe Find your magic

66. Ariel Share the load

68. URUFARMA Uruguay

69. Cannes Lions festival created a new
award to recognise advertising that
challenges gender norms
Sandberg said in an email that she welcomed their voices.
“Brands have immense power to shatter stereotypes and overturn clichés.”

71. It was not banned by the Advertising Standards
Authority despite more than 200 complaints.

72. Consumers reacting to ads

73. Same in Germany

90. Male leaders are taking a stand

92. Your job is to take part in
the change of the myths
What are you going to do to shift
the balance?