One day you are finishing high school and a few months later you start university because you want to be a publicist. You still don’t know very well what area or position you are going to focus all your talent on, or maybe you do. Maybe you have it very clear and you want to be smart, or creative. Or maybe strategy is your thing and you decide to go that way. First you have to train yourself, bend your elbows with all your might, and then think about doing a master’s degree. What they don’t tell you is that in the best of cases, when you finish this entire training odyssey, you are going to enter the world of work with all your desire and energy, but soon you are going to experience firsthand the harsh reality of a profession. exciting story based on one of the greatest scourges of our society: machismo. In the worst case, this journey will begin earlier: at university or school where you will spend your life (and a good handful of euros).
Professors from prestigious creativity schools or consolidated universities, colleagues and bosses can make you live experiences like those reported in the Instagram profile #SeHaveToSay, in which we are collecting stories from women in the advertising sector.
My teacher ended up showing me my Facebook on his computer screen while telling me: ‘These photos awaken my most primal instincts.’
For example, a woman tells what happened at an advertising school in Madrid: “One day a professor asked in class how many of us had Satisfyer with the excuse that he thought it was very good for women to be sexually liberated. Another day, I don’t know why, he commented that his best sex had been with fat girls, referring to the fact that despite being fat they fucked very well.
“When I studied Advertising and Public Relations at the university I had two very violent episodes with two professors who are still part of that institution. The first was in an office where I went to talk about an exam. He ended up showing me my Facebook on his computer screen while telling me: ‘These photos awaken my most primal instincts.’ The second was with another teacher, a friend of his, who literally approached me to tell me that he had a hard time hearing me speak in class,” says Mónica, not her real name.
Another woman joins in with her testimony: “I was an intern at an agency in Barcelona. One day I went to a Halloween party with friends. The next day the club published a summary video. When I got to work, I had a message with a screenshot of the video: the exact moment in which my tits were in focus, accompanied by ‘we had a good time yesterday, huh?’ It was sent to me by a man from the same department, 15 years older and with whom my relationship until now was ‘good morning’ and ‘see you tomorrow’. I responded ‘hahaha’, I was embarrassed, I was angry with myself for having shown that cleavage in the video and I started walking quickly when I passed by him. “I never told him he was working in there.”
When you enter the job market, things don’t get better. That creative whom you admire and whom you have as a reference. The coworker you get along so well with. Your creative supervisor. The CEO you’ve seen two or three times. One of the creative directors of the agency where you work. The man from the finance department you’ve barely spoken to.
“I was 21 years old, I was an intern in the Creativity Department of an independent, small agency, with young and very innovative people. My superior was also very young and had many airs of greatness. A pair of older guys came in and from minute one my ideas were ignored unless I told them when the owner of the agency was in front of me (who always treated me well). My supervisor and the other two creatives who joined the department systematically ignored me for being a woman and young and, in addition, the supervisor made constant ‘jokes’ of contempt for the rest of the women on the team. I had to run away and on top of that feeling ashamed and guilty,” says a woman.
Celia, fictitious name, recounts what she experienced on an advertising agenda in Barcelona with one of her colleagues: “He stopped talking to me because he didn’t want to have sex with him. He even told me: ‘You are not okay with your partner because you need a penis.’ He then went to my partner to tell him things to make him leave me, among them: ‘Keep an eye on her because you’re losing her.’ “All this because I didn’t want to sleep with him.”
My supervisor and the other two creatives who joined the department systematically ignored me for being a woman and young and, in addition, the supervisor made constant ‘jokes’ of contempt for the rest of the women on the team. I had to run away and on top of that feeling ashamed and guilty
“You should have told it”
We have been deceived. And ignored, humiliated, abused, ashamed. Some, unfortunately, also raped.
You should have told it. You should have said it. You shouldn’t have shut up. You shouldn’t have allowed it. Why haven’t you stopped him or why haven’t you quit your job? Why are you silent?
Because you are afraid. Because an acquaintance of yours said it and ended up on the street. Because someone else, as they told you, said it, and they made her life impossible at the agency to make her leave. Because you have so much more to lose, you think. And that’s why you keep quiet, but nothing gets better and all that anger that you carry inside and that you don’t let out loudly in the human resources department is burning you.
Advertising and communication agencies must be safe spaces, and let’s not talk about universities or schools, which are unfortunately the beginning of a breeding ground that systematically mistreats us, that dulls our shine and reminds us at every turn that advertising is a place reserved solely and exclusively for them.
Why are you silent? Because you are afraid. Because an acquaintance of yours said it and ended up on the street. Because someone else, as they told you, said it, and they made her life impossible at the agency to make her leave. Because you have so much more to lose, you think. And that’s why you stay silent, but nothing gets better and all that anger you carry inside burns you.
The future is for our comrades to join this fight, all men who should feel challenged and not attacked. All of those who think this is bad, an injustice, a humiliation towards the colleagues with whom they work hand in hand every day. And also the brands, the advertisers, who refuse to hire agencies identified for their machismo and that these agencies look inside themselves, instead of accusing this profile of being a horde of bots, resentful employees or the evil competition that wants to sink them. .
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