Fewer women in upper level communications positions, report says

By: Lizandra Portal/Staff Writer

 

The Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center at FIU released the results of a national survey that found more women in junior level positions in communications, while men dominated top management positions.

The 2018 survey was distributed to the membership of 22 national professional organizations representing newspapers, digital/mobile/online, broadcast, public relations, advertising, and magazines, according to the Kopenhaver Center report.

More women said they were middle managers and in junior level positions, while men dominated top management roles. 60 percent of men described their current jobs as top management, holding positions with titles such as publisher, general manager, CEO or chief executive officer, president or chief creative officer, while only 25 percent of women did so, according to the survey.

The survey also noted that it was significant that more women, 42 percent specifically, described themselves as middle managers, classified as section editor, manager, director, supervisor, account executive, executive producer, department head, senior reporter/buyer/writer; while only 22 percent of men placed themselves in that category.

FIU alumna Oliana Torres, who works in the promotions department at CBS 4 in Doral and is now pursuing her Master’s degree in business administration at Florida Atlantic University, noted the similarities in her workplace and the survey.

“In my department, my direct boss… the promotions manager, is a woman,” Torres said. “The creative services director who is my boss’ boss is also a woman, then our news director who is in charge of the whole news department is also a woman… but then our general manager is a man.”

Women outnumbered men in spending fewer years working in their professions, reporting they were more likely to have spent 35 or fewer years there, while men, in contrast, were more likely to have more than 35 years, according to the report.

Men were more likely to report termination or layoffs as reasons for interruptions in their careers. Women reported parental leave as the reason for career interruptions.

Lillian Kopenhaver, dean emeritus of FIU and member of Student Media’s Media Board, said that gaps in a career due to maternity can have an adverse effect on women’s advancement.

“More women, because of parental obligations, mostly, do take a break in their career,” Kopenhaver said. “And unfortunately, when you take time out of a career and then go back to it you miss that period of time for promotions or for moving ahead.”

Another FIU alumna, Andrea Perdomo, told Student Media that moving up could require journalists to be mobile. Perdomo now does freelance work for WLRN, where there are many people who work at the station who are not Miami natives, according to her.

“In order to get the opportunity that you want, or to advance in your career you’re going to have to move,” Perdomo said. “You’re not really offered a lot of advancement opportunities within companies, and I think that’s something that’s happening across the board.”

Race was another issue brought up in the survey as to why some respondents felt they had been passed over for promotion opportunities. Of those respondents who said they had been bypassed for a management position because of race, 59 percent were white, and 41 percent were minorities.

The survey results have been published on the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication website. The survey was conducted in 2016 and will be conducted every two years to see how the advancement of women in communications changes or improves throughout the years, said Kopenhaver.

 

Featured image retrieved from Unsplash

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