Books Recommendation

Here are some of the books that I would recommend if someone needs to read or learn more about this topic:

Andrews, P. H. (1992). Sex and gender differences in group communication: impact on the facilitation process.

Antonicelli, P. (1985). The role of women in P. R. In E. Denig (Ed.), A Georgraphy of Public Relations Trends (pp. 407-413). Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Broom, G. M. (1982). A comparison of sex roles in public relations. Public Relations Review, 8,17-22.

Bullard, A. & Wright, D. (1993, May-June). Circumventing the glass ceiling: Women executives in American state governments. Public Administration Review,53 (3), 189-202.

Cline, C. G., Masel-Walters, L., Toth, E. L., Turk, J. V., Smith, H. T., & Johnson, N. (1986). The velvet ghetto: The impact of the increasing percentage of women in public relations and organizational communication. San Francisco:IABC Foundation.

Creedon, P. J. (1991). Public relations and "women's work": toward a feminist analysis of public relations roles. In L.A. Grunig & J. E. Grunig (Eds.), Public relations research annual (Vol. 3, pp. 67-84). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Dejan Verčič, Danny Moss, and Gary Warnaby, (2003). Perspectives on Public Relations Research. Published by Routledge.

Larissa A. Grunig, Linda Childers Hon, and Elizabeth L. Toth (2004). Women in Public Relations: How Gender Influences Practice: How gender influences practice. The Guilford Communication Series, The Guilford Press.

Richard A. Lippa, (2002), Gender Nature and Nurture (2nd Edition). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Publishers.

Breaking Through Glass Ceiling: The Success Story of Ms Lynne Franks

In this blog I' am going to introduce you to one of the most successful women in the PR industry and who has broken through the glass ceiling successfully.

Ms Lynne Franks is an author, entrepreneur and lifestyle guru which has a communication reach that stretches across the world.

Lynne Franks is one of the best-known public relations consultants in the world, a newspaper columnist, and a commentator on women's issues, sustainability, and consumer lifestyles.
She founded her first company at her kitchen table when she was twenty-one. After 20 highly successful years she sold her PR agency to focus on using her communication skills to encourage partnership between business and society. Leaving her London-based agency in 1992, Franks traveled the world interacting with multinationals, nation states NGOs and grassroots organisations.

She created the major UK event ‘What Women Want’ to draw attention to the changing position of women in society, prior to attending the Beijing women's conference in 1994; she was also in charge of UK's first women's radio station and has become a spokesperson on women's issues and socially responsible business practices.

Lynne is currently developing SEED – Sustainable Enterprise Empowerment Dynamics, a network aimed at training and empowering, particularly with regard to sustainable enterprise. SEED has also become the provider of one of the most internationally recognised women's enterprise training programmes, as well as a global network for women entrepreneurs. The SEED Handbook, The Feminine Way to Create Business is an excellent manual for any entrepreneur that teaches how to nurture and create business based on integrity, personal values and openness. This book has been translated in a number of languages.

Furthermore, Ms Lynne Franks is also the founder and president of Globalfusion, a communications consultancy specialising in ‘new marketing’ connecting people, ideas, businesses, and community

A Glass Ceiling In PR

The glass ceiling persists for women in public relations and communications management, despite increasing feminization of these fields. The Department of Labor (1991) defined the glass ceiling as; those artificial barriers based on attitudinal or organizational bias that prevents qualified individuals from advancing upward in their organization into management-level positions.

The Report highlighted the absence of women in management. It's true that women have gained ground in PR Careers, but we can still notice that the Glass Ceiling still Exists.

Women in the PR industries have been facing for many years promotional issues compared to men. Recently I read a blog on women and the issues they face working in the PR profession, the blog mentions that even though there is a dramatic rise of women working in the field of PR, a major proportion of directors and chief executives are males and they continue to seize the high ground, especially we can see this in London based PR agencies who have male employees that have worked their way up through the industry since their domination during the 1980s. This basically affirms that the roles of women are increasing at the technician levels rather than at the managerial positions in the PR industry. The main question one must ask is will this change in the future or will women continue to carry entry level jobs?

The “glass ceiling” is playing an important role in the advancement of women in PR. Interestingly; there are relatively few important names of women in the PR industry. The names that I found who successfully broke through the glass ceiling was Margery Kraus, Marilynn Deane Mendell, and Kristen Grimm. I' am sure there is quite a few more names of women who made it finally by breaking through the glass ceiling, but this are some of the names that I found and also their success stories are interesting. I believe the reason why we can't find a lot of other women's names that have been successful in breaking the glass ceiling is due to the fact that men worked for a longer period in the work force, and this gave them the opportunity to improve and excel. Moreover the existence of the glass ceiling is preventing women to advance into managerial positions in their organizations. Will women be able to break through the “glass ceiling” finally and help in the advancement of PR? Will more women leave a legacy in the PR industry?

I think one day hopefully women will surmount the issues of the “glass ceiling”. The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that by 2005 women are predicted to compose nearly half of the total U.S labor force, and they are not only more likely to work for pay, they are also spending more time at work then they used to before. Organizations no longer have the right to offer low wages and refuse to promote women due to the idea that they require costly programs, which include maternity and sick leave, flexible hours and child care. Women today rather focus on their careers, they no longer want to get married and have kids at a young age. Women today have higher education and work experience; which should qualify them and secure top managerial positions.

Gender Gap

I found several studies that indicate although the number of women practicing public relations has increased dramatically since the 1980s, but still women all over the globe do not receive the same salaries as men with the same educational background experience.

The gender gap means women are paid less and fewer reach top corporate positions in the PR field. I have written emails to some female executives in communications asking for comments. Their comments were that the reason why women don't want to comment on their salaries is because they fear of being drummed out. Women know if they even comment, much less complain, they will be branded as a bitch or whiner, or worse, a troublemaker that should be gotten rid of. As for the pay gap in PR, there's no doubt that women are seen as lesser or not "long distance runners" by the men in charge, regardless of how these men may act outwardly.

Though women are dominating the industry numerically, men still earn more than women. If looking at America men earn $20,000 on average more than women. Jim Hutton, Associate Professor of Marketing and Communications at Fairleigh Dickinson University, argues that the salary gap is justified because men often have more experience than women, they work longer hours, and tend to work in corporate PR, an area that pays more.

Also, a current survey in PR Week showed the average age of males in the industry is 37.1 whereas females were 32.4. The male population in PR is older, so that means that they would definitely have more experience then women, and as we know with any job the more you have experience the more likely you would get paid more. What really tends to happen to women is that most women at some point in their lives have to concentrate not only on their career development but also on their families and family life, while men tend to focus more on their careers.

However, according to Kathy Lewton, CEO of the Public Relations Society Association (PRSA), statistical tests show that gender still makes significant impact on salary though she couldn’t determine the percentage difference.

As I was looking at these studies, the issue of salary inequality between men and women in communications is not new news. What is so disturbing is that it is the same news that I have read now has been for the last 20 plus years, yes even I' am sure their has been an improvement in the salaries but still women don't get paid equally as their male colleagues. The other concerning point is how few top corporate or organizational positions are held by women (in the PR Week Survey, for example, less than one third of the top posts were held by women.

Even though now women dominate the public relations profession the difference in the average salary of males compared to female employees is statistically significant. We are dealing with far deeper issue and no easy solutions to the problem of inequality between men and women in pay and responsibility.

I hope to see in the future encouraging signs as strong women take over as heads of agencies and at younger ages achieve top corporate positions. If we are to see significant advances, agencies must take on a leading role in paying what the job is worth instead of differentiating between the male and female gender.

The table below is from PR Week's salary survey, this survey was conducted in 2002. This table includes factors such as age, experience level, education level, average hours per week, years in current positions, and finally years spent in the PR profession for both of the genders male and female.

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