Global Women’s Causes: Is Everyone Paying Attention?
No doubt there will be many a blog post this week singing the deserved praises of the comprehensive coverage the New York Times Magazine gave women’s rights – with much note going to the new book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. While there is nothing new about what women around the globe have been capable of and are doing, either on their own or with the help of many incredible organizations, it is certainly exciting. Indeed, the very fact that the topic is getting this level of mass media attention may be most culturally noteworthy. Does this mean we’ll actually see more significant progress with regard to global women’s causes soon?
Here’s hoping. And, to wit, in his interview with Hillary Clinton within this most recent issue of the NYT Magazine, Mark Landler posed a telling question that I believe has broad implications:
Lander’s Question for Clinton: “I’ve been at more than a few women’s events with you overseas where the men in the audience drift off to their Blackberrys or into a snooze after a few minutes. How do you change the mind-set, not just overseas but at home and in this building [The White House], that tends to view women’s issues as a pink ghetto?”
Clinton: “By making the arguments that I am making here – that so-called women’s issues are stability issues, security issues, equity issues.”
Clinton goes on to cite World Bank and related research that has found, time and again, that where women are mistreated/denied equal rights, there is instability that serves as “an incubator of extremism.”
***
In other words, Clinton seems to be saying that – in order to keep women’s causes from sinking into that pink ghetto – she has to make it less about gender and more about the human interest angle that is best (which seems to be represented by women fairly often). Gender is indeed a helpful shorthand, and a good way to quickly express/categorize the human values surrounding stability, security and equity. But, the broader population – for whom these issues are AS important – will more likely pay attention when they are framed differently, and in ways that are more accessible to the Blackberry wielding, snoozing men in the room.
I have my own favorite lens on women’s global causes in World Pulse Media – a media organization I advised early on in its formation, and that has taken real steps to make their work not just about women/for women, but for all people – right from the start. The World Pulse tone and approach has attracted a solid gender mix of astounding people who both participate in and advise the organization. (Kudos, my friends!)
Anyway – this much larger women’s cause and women’s economy issue deserves this growing attention, but the underlying question remains: how to get men more engaged/participatory? And, that question can apply just as much to the obviously less culturally significant marketing realm too.
I’ve written about this a bit here and on HuffingtonPost, and have been talking with a lot of men these past couple of years about how they’d become more willing to “take on” the idea of marketing to women. They’ve mainly responded just as Clinton suggested – that the idea is to talk about this sector in terms of “emerging powerful market” and go over the stats/numbers initially. Once you’ve gotten men in the room in that way, Blackberrys will be turned off, and eyes will remain wide open. Even given that the women’s market is by no means still an “emerging” one, it’s the psychology of making this stuff matter to people that needs some attention. When all is said and done, the idea is to convince an entire audience to better serve ways of buying that just happen to be well-represented by female consumers.
But back to Clinton’s point and something a tad more important than buying and selling goods or services: the idea is to convince an entire audience to participate in the global improvement of things like stability, security and equity – all of which just happen to represent things that are extra important to women.
