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Cindy Gallop Advertising Gender Equality

Cindy Gallop's XX Files: Advertising women to share their experiences in the industry

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By Stephen Lepitak, -

September 30, 2016 | 3 min read

The advertising industry’s force of nature and entrepreneur Cindy Gallop, who continues to lead the charge against sexism and gender bias, is to curate a semi-regular series of opinion pieces going forward, allowing women from the industry to highlight their experiences to The Drum’s readers.

Cindy Gallop

Beginning today with a piece by Tara Hirebet, this Cindy Gallop XX Files series will offer honest and frank viewpoints from women who have experienced discrimination in some form within the advertising sector.

Gallop explained: “Every week, white women and women of color message me from the ad industry all around the world. They pour out their stories of industry bias, sexual harassment and retaliation. They share broken dreams, derailed ambitions, passion and talent, creativity and skills, dedication and commitment given nowhere to go and exiled from/managed out of the industry.

“The tales they tell are horrifying, appalling, upsetting and heartbreaking. The most wrenching phrase that regularly crops up in these messages is, ‘For a long time, I thought it was me.’ The domination in our industry of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys makes women doubt themselves, their talents, believe they're as crap as the male boss they refused to sleep with tells them they are. That's why I am now asking those women who message me to share their stories publicly,” Gallop continued.

As Ken Burnside says in his analogous post about the gaming industry, ‘All it takes for sexism to flourish is for good men to see nothing.’ I want the women of our industry to join Lisa Leone and Heidi Hackemer sharing their stories publicly to make the men of our industry aware of how much we need to change to stop haemorrhaging female talent, and how much they need to actively and proactively intervene to turn this into an industry that welcomes, celebrates, champions, values and rewards female talent and creativity to the betterment of us all,” she concluded.

If you have a story you wish to share for Cindy's XX Files then email her cindy@ifwerantheworld.com and discuss it with her personally.

Cindy Gallop Advertising Gender Equality

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