### **My experience with gender equality**
I started my career 16 years ago and although I had some great achievements, developed resilience, leadership, did meaningful projects and met many people I take for life, there were always some "banana peels" in the way. Things that made me slip, defocus. Small, sometimes hard to spot bias were constantly there, deviating from what mattered (the work), making me question my worth, making me feel confused, distressed, drained and sometimes insomniac.
So want to share a few personal examples, without any particular order…
I’ve been told not to go to the meeting of the project I was working on because there was already “too many people in the room”. Then I was told to go to the meeting to “beautify” the room.
I’ve been told I should go to the meeting but stay quiet as I was hired to do, not to think.
I’ve been denied by an agency owner to submit my own project to an industry award focused on recognising individuals behind the work. It was not a budget issue, submission was free; it was not a confidentiality issue either - maybe it was an ego thing? a bit of selfishness? demonstration of some sort of power and control? And with that, a good opportunity of fair recognition in the early stages of my career died.
I was once moved away from a famous beer account in which I was performing well because there was no “cultural fit” (I was the only female and foreigner in a very male and British led account) - I was also told the reason behind this decision was clients were “lads” and wanted to talk about rugby. I was placed on a baby formula milk account instead- more fit of course and less exposure to my not so ideal gender and English accent. Why would a baby formula milk be a better fit than beer if I never had babies, knew nothing about breastfeeding issues but did have a beer or two in my life? Again, that stereotype of women's main role in society: being a mum, knowing almost magically about maternal things and babies.
While still in that famous beer account, I was punished with less interesting and less creative tasks by a male manager after having performed very well and received positive feedback in a creative workshop with clients . Of course, no more leading workshops and getting any type of external visibility - suddenly I had to do more internal work in the agency.
I’ve been told I had to “reinvent the industry” and “transform the agency culture with innovation” to be officially promoted to a role I was already doing, while male peers were getting promoted just by doing their jobs.
Oh there is another good one! When I was still in Brazil, I was made redundant in an agency that was cutting costs. That’s fine and common in the advertising world. What I didn’t expect to be so common though is to have 2 male peers (both married) asking for my phone number to help me. I thought it was help to spread my CV, find another job, but no, it was to take advantage on my momentary vulnerability and ask me out on a date in very odd ways. Great timing!
There was also some minor things such as been deeply thanked for “building slides” for my male friend’s strategy when actually it was the other way around.
These situations are often disguised with humour, smiles and other sorts of positiveness.
I always thought I was still exceptionally lucky not to be sexually or morally harassed in much heavier ways. I also never talked much about any of that because I thought it was too small, just some bad days…I always had friends with much darker stories, 'real issues', so what the above could add to the gender conversation? My sense of perspective used to think this wasn’t bad enough.
But I changed my mind. The fact is that it’s not about how many times we experience these things, how dark the story is, whether you need real professional help to deal with the issue or if it's something more manageable that will simply and quietly be 'somatised' to your internal organs in forms of gastritis, insomnia and panic attacks.
All these stories, big or small, just show that there is still a lot to fight for, a lot to unlearn and rethink, in the everyday life. Although I see some progress, gender equality is definitely not yet achieved and we need to be constantly vigilant. And with that goes so much of our energy, so much of our lives, so much of the pleasure away. We often need to spend more time navigating these situations than doing the work.
But we are here, tired but standing. Still working. Still fighting. Speaking up. Protecting our rights to exist in the workplace with dignity and fairness. Being wonderful professionals and leaders while creating more space and safety to all other women and girls to come.