Hi! my name is Megan Hunsicker I am a senior PR major here at Marist, I am also the Vice President of Chapter Development. I have interned at two companies. The first is The Brooks Group which is a small PR agency located in the city, and the second is Jackrabbit Toys, which is a boutique toy company based in Princeton, New Jersey. Both of the CEO's, as well as all of the employees, are all females.
I do feel that a gender gap exists in PR, if you take a moment today to look around in your PR classes you will notice that the majority of the students are females. Like what Alexis said in her post, I have found when I am applying for internships all of the other candidates are females, even after I got the internship, all the other past and current interns were female.
With that said I do feel that the gender gap is most prominent in certain PR sectors. For example in the female dominated agency, The Brooks Group, their clients are in the fashion and makeup industry as well as celebrity chefs from the food network and interior decorators. One of the main reasons why I was so eager and excited to intern with The Brooks group was because I really liked the clients they worked with.
I think that in the more art or talent related sectors you will find are dominated by women, however in the entertainment, sports, finance and even some health care sectors, are more heavily populated by men. Not to be gender biased or to generalize, but I think it also has to do with what interests each gender, most men are more interested in sports then fashion.
I can not wait to see what everyone else has to say!
Meghan,
ReplyDeleteYou raise some interesting points about what some have called women's "Balkanization" of the PR field. It's seems to make sense that some sectors, like fashion, would be dominated by women who are more familiar with fashion and fashion products. However, what about other sectors?
See my post about this,
Mark