After 100 Years celebrating women internationally, are Men and Women Treated Equally in the PR Field?

By Roberto Araujo

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the International Women’s Day. Our field of public relations is practically filled with great women of all ages, races and sexual orientations. In fact, according to PRSA , 70% of PR professionals are women. Yes, this figure is an excellent indicator of the female dominance, but why is there still a gap between men and women salaries in public relations and other female dominated fields?In an article “In PR, Women Outnumber Men But Men Still Earn More” posted by Media Bistro, show how there are many inequalities and in fact 80 percent of the top management is male. Meanwhile, the same article points out that “some [women] are making a concerted effort to recruit men.” This is definitely interesting considering female empowerment is still on the rise; however, this shows that there’s still some resistance and it comes from “her” side.Another recent study posted on Guardian.co.uk shows that the gap increases from a lower level PR position to a more managerial position from 3% - 21% per gap.The Bureau of Labor and Statistics revealed some interesting data on women in the workplace. Here are the highlights:

• By 2018, the number of women age 65 to 74 in the civilian labor force is projected to increase more than the number of women in any other age group.
• In 2010, over 66 percent of women in the labor force had either attended some college or graduated with a degree.

• In 2009, only a few countries (notably Canada and Sweden) had higher labor force participation rates for women than the United States.
• In 2010, more women were employed in the education and health services industry than in any other industry; in the 1960s, manufacturing employed the most women.
• Women working as personal financial advisors earn 58 percent of what men earn—lower than the overall ratio of women’s to men’s earnings (81 percent).
• When they were 23 years old, about 23 percent of young women held a bachelor’s degree (or higher), compared with about 14 percent of young men.
• Single women spend about 25 percent of their annual expenditures on shelter.

It is still evident that the differences of salaries among men and women are shrinking, yet still not equal. Much more effort and support from feminist groups and non-feminist women will be needed to close this unfair gap. Today, being Women’s Day, we should recognize and appreciate the efforts made by exemplar women in history as Susan B. Anthony, Mother Theresa, or even the women who recently marched at the Egyptian protest, those in the military and our own mothers.