{"id":90138,"date":"2016-07-05T15:44:35","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T15:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=90138"},"modified":"2016-11-10T16:07:42","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T16:07:42","slug":"women-in-public-affairs-whats-changed-and-what-needs-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/women-in-public-affairs-whats-changed-and-what-needs-to-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in public affairs: what\u2019s changed and what needs to change"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning, the Women in Public Affairs Network met for a breakfast event with Stephanie Lvovich, Global Public Affairs Chair at Edelman and Anji Hunter, Senior Adviser at Edelman. They discussed the ups and downs of working in the industry, how things have changed and what more needs to be done. It made for an interesting conversation, with women from the wider public affairs and communications sector also sharing their experiences. Here are 6 things that came up.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Being a woman in public affairs has gotten better:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In business, 10 of the top 100 FTSE 100 CEOs are women and most work in areas which have been traditionally male dominated. Similarly, when Anji started working in the House of Commons as a Research Assistant to Tony Blair, there were just 41 female MPs \u2013 now there are 191, making up 30% of the total intake, and there\u2019s gender parity for MPs under 35. This isn\u2019t perfect, but it bodes well for the future of gender balance in the House of Commons and, more broadly, for women in politics.<\/p>\n

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    1. Ignore the ‘silent critic’<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Compared to thirty years ago, women in the UK are up against far fewer barriers in employment: there’s equal pay, maternity leave and legal protection against discriminatory practices. The biggest issue that both Stephanie and Anji see facing women today is a lack of self-belief, and the \u2018silent critic\u2019 which tells them that they shouldn\u2019t really be going for that promotion or pay rise. Even Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg has experienced this: she says she felt embarrassed when she found out she’d made the Fortune 500. So while there are less structural barriers stopping women from achieving success, there may be more to be done on a personal basis.<\/p>\n

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      1. Public affairs is changing<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Public affairs has a reputation for being an old boy\u2019s club, and can be dominated by a \u2018who do you know\u2019 not \u2018what do you know\u2019 way of working. But, as Stephanie points out, it seems to be moving from a space where relationships define your career to one where strategy, knowledge and issues are more dominant. This change in focus\u00a0may benefit the women who don\u2019t feel part of the old\u00a0boy\u2019s club.<\/p>\n

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        1. Women in politics face some unique problems<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          For women in politics, likability and success is inversely correlated. There\u2019s a balance that needs to be struck between authority, which we assume politicians should have, and softness, which we assume women should have. As such, female politicians have a hard time trying to get this balance right in a way that voters find compelling. In the near future we\u00a0may have a female Prime Minister, President and Leader of the Opposition, so it will be interesting to see how the media and public view\u00a0them in this respect.<\/p>\n

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          1. Quotas have a time and a place<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Politics and public affairs are areas that have improved in terms of female representation, but as one attendee pointed out this morning, there are still large proportions of the industry which are heavily dominated by men. In terms of making change happen, there was general consensus that quotas serve the purpose of normalising the position of women in male dominated workplaces. As all-female shortlists for MPs have shown, this isn\u2019t something which needs to be permanent, but works as a means to drive change.<\/p>\n

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            1. Brexit and PR<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              Unavoidably, Brexit came up in conversation. From a business perspective, the insecurity and lack of confidence that Brexit has created was broadly viewed with concern.\u00a0From a PR perspective, it also raised interesting questions about how the industry now has to understand and reach out to the 17 million people who voted to leave the EU.<\/p>\n

               <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              This morning, the Women in Public Affairs Network met for a breakfast event with Stephanie Lvovich, Global Public Affairs Chair at Edelman and Anji Hunter, Senior Adviser at Edelman. They discussed the ups and downs …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":90141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7271,1449],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90138"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90138"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95650,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90138\/revisions\/95650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}