Alex Holder: Feminist Icon
Eight years ago I (along with Daryl, my then joint CD) gave a job to a placement team. They got their first-ever ad into the The One Show, while their next got four D&AD entries. So they turned out to be pretty good.
Fast forward a few years: they left, and the female half of the duo, a young lady called Alex Holder, got a succession of jobs in better agencies than ours, found a new creative partner, and ended up in Mother London (via W&K). Her work has continued to be excellent, but so have the extra-curricular projects that find her in the national press on a far more regular basis than anyone else I know.
Which leads me to the most recent stop on her journey to make my initial faith in her look incredibly wise…
A couple of weeks ago she emailed me to explain about Project Bush (love that pun), an initiative to get young women to feel more normal about their muffs instead of being browbeaten into thinking that they had to emulate the more extreme topiary of porn stars. This noble initiative resulted in 95 ladies going to Mother London to have their vajayjays photographed for an upcoming exhibition (here is one woman’s experience). It was also covered in all sorts of media, including The Guardian, and The Telegraph.
But just as I was being quite impressed with that, a second, larger, more significant movement began.
Make Them Pay seeks to highlight the inequality that still exists between male and female pay. The idea is that women should ask men who do the same job as them what they earn and confront the bosses who perpetuate sexual inequality in remuneration. This has brought the issue out into the open to such an extent that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has given his support to the campaign, possibly leading to a change in the law.
That seems like a pretty useful couple of days in the office.
Hats off to Alex (and Elle UK, who joined forces with ad agencies to see what could be done in the name of feminism (although they have nothing to do with Project Bush)).
This is what Feminism looks like in 2013. If you’re wondering if you can make a difference to any issue that pisses you off, be inspired to do something.
If you’re interested in what Alex does next, follow her on Twitter.
Make them pay’s a nice idea, but the site doesn’t actually work. ie. If you put in that you’re a senior manager in engineering, earning £3,000 a year (unlikely), it still says your female colleagues earn less than you.
Great.
If you’re interested, right now I’m reading ‘Save The Cat’ by Blake Snyder. It’s like Fred Flintstone wrote a book on writing screenplays (recommendation from Neil Christie of W&K).
It’s kind of brilliant and shit at the same time.
Thank you Ben.
Credit also to the other head behind these projects, the strategist Katie MacKay. She’s the ultimate brainy feminist.
I find this subject fascinating.
I have two questions for Alex and I don’t mean them to be offensive so please don’t take them that way.
Since women find wealth attractive in men and men aren’t fussed about wealth in women, aren’t men naturally more motivated to earn money? And could this be the cause of the disparity.
Secondly, if I, as a man, earn less than another man doing the same job, what am I supposed to do about it?
The disparity between men and woman in earnings is really a massive red herring. The issue that should be addressed is income disparity in class.
Is she fit?
At my last two agencies i’ve worked with female creatives who share the same job title as myself who were on more money than me.
In my current agency, one of my fellow female creatives is on about 30k more. I know this because she told me.
And yes, we’re at the same level.