The gender gap: does it exist in fashion?
In today’s day and age, many would agree that the myth of the gender gap is far from reality in modern society. With the feminism movement pushing for equal rights and pay for women in the workplace, women have many opportunities available at their disposal and yet the gender gap is still a debated topic in many industries, especially at management level.
Fashion: a gay man’s profession
In fashion and beauty, being a female dominated area, one would seemingly think that women would be paving the way in exemplary career moves but this is not the case, accordingly to reporter Eric Wilson for the New York Times. In now days, writes Eric, fashion “is a gay many’s profession” and women, although making up majority of the fashion consumers, face barriers in career advancement in the creative side.
Men’s average salaries are increasing while women’s are decreasing
Does this argument have any merit? Research conducted by Meetingsnet.com found that the salary gap has grown even wider from 2003 to 2005. Where average salary for males in executive management grew from $99,327 in 2003 to $109,042 in 2005, female counterparts’ salary has decreased from $75,129 in 2003 to $71,561 in 2005.
Research from Fortune also showed that from their top 25 best compensated male executives, the highest earning male topped at $350.7 million annually, whilst from the top 25 female executives, the highest earning woman earned a mere $38.6 million. A gap of $312.1 million.
Men have a quicker rise to stardom
In Eric’s article, knitwear designer Liz Collins quotes “There are some really deep-seated tensions and resentment that has existed for a long time about gender in fashion and who gets things. A lot of those things are not necessarily real, or true, and they may be just suspicions. But you can look at certain examples of people who have had a faster rise to stardom, and the percentage of gay men is higher.”
Men receive more recognition and more publicity
Although difficult to prove true, many females designers believe that several of their male counterparts have been presented with more industry awards and been given more prominent coverage in the media. “The Council of Fashion Designers of America, a trade group that vets those who apply for membership, is made up of 121 women and 156 men. Since 1986 its annual Perry Ellis awards for young talent have been given to 8 women and 29 men (20 of them openly gay),” writes Eric.
Women prioritise their life at home over their career
However, some of the differences in career outcomes for men and women results from different lifestyle choices for each gender. “Women still prioritise getting married and having babies,” says influential fashion designer Norma Kamali. “There are fewer women willing to give up the time that is required for this kind of career. It’s about passion, about being so focused that nothing could distract you.”
Men are more objective, Women are more empathetic
Designer Michael Vollbracht, believes that gay men are simply better at designing for women because their design visions are formed by the fantasy of the ideal women, whereas female designers tend to focus on practicality and are “trapped by their own views of themselves”. However, female designers are quick to argue back that if men are more objective in their designs, women were definitely more empathetic. “I wear my own clothes,” says business owner Dana Buchman. “I have lived the life of my customer.”
Women face barriers that men just don’t face
Jeanine Prime, author of a study on women in the workplace by Catalyst in Eric’s article, says ”We can’t explain the gender gap away by differences in qualifications, ambitions or success strategies. A lot of it still has to do with the perception that women don’t have the right leadership stuff. There are a lot of barriers that men just don’t face.”
Men and women face different lifestyle pressures
For many men, including gay men, it is easier to prioritise their career. They have the pressure of being seen as the ‘bread-maker’ in the family. Naturally, they are determined to advance in their career faster to secure an easy lifestyle for their loved ones. Women, on the other hand, although they can focus all of their energy on their career should they wish to, majority de-prioritise their work once they have had children wanting to become good mothers, and thus there are less women entering management level positions as their careers progress.
Is it a fair comparison? Does it really exist?
Although it is easy to compare pay levels and see a drastic dissimilarities between genders, Is this a fair comparison given the difference in proportions of number of people continually determined advance for each gender?
What are your thoughts?
This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 3:26 PM and is filed under Career, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 21st, 2009 at 5:10 AM
Thanks for a great article. This is a very tough topic and it’s great to see that some one is looking into it. I have no firm opinion one way or the other yet but it’d defintiely something I need to approach soon.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:12 AM
Hi Ladiee – I am really glad you enjoyed the article – it is a tough topic in fashion and other industries. I hear many women speaking about the facts that the women at the top do not get paid as much as men in similar roles – but there are many factors that needs to be taken into account to analyse this. Regardless of your stance on it, I think it’s important to understand both sides of the argument. Thanks for visiting my blog!
November 21st, 2009 at 5:00 PM
I am really happy to see this being brought out because it is something that really chafes at me as a customer of fashion and as a designer. I am a woman and now a small business owner,I am striving to build a quality label for myself.
I think it is not a question of if the gap exists as much as it is a question of why, and this article did a wonderful job of discussing that.
It gets me in a hot rage when I hear gay men saying that they are better at designing and knowing what women want better than women themselves. I find it deeply,deeply degrading that this is said with so much flippancy, because it is a complete slap in the face to women. Let’s imagine for a moment that we are talking about an imaginary booming market of exclusively African American clothing( clothing made for and marketed towards African Americans ) and let’s say that there are more Caucasians designing for this market and making money at it and let’s also imagine that there are some incredibly talented African American desigers trying to become recognized and appreciated in this market. Can you imagine the outrage in the African American community and all across the media if Caucasian designers started arrogantly proclaiming that they knew better than black people what black people want!? And rightly so would they be outraged. I admire black people for the way they stick together and stand up for themselves and I firmly believe that women should follow this example and be far less tolerant of such blatant disrespect, maybe if we did it wouldn’t happen so much.
As for gay men not being trapped by thier perception of themselves in designing, who says? After all, they are only human, and who would be more trapped by a limiting perception of women? Gay MEN, or Women themselves who know what it is like to walk through this world as a woman. Gay men will never know what that is like. Secondly,it reflects a deep predjudiced view on the part of gay men who say this, about what it is to BE a woman. I LOVE being a woman thank you very much, and I don’t need some gay man with ridiculous fantasies about what he imagines my life to be like, dictating to me that I should wear S+M bondage gear( for example ) Being a woman is not a bad thing and I don’t need or want a man telling me what I should look like, gay or straight. That is a dangerous path and in a world as morally bankrupt as the one we are living in, women are fools if they accept without reservation the view of someone who may or may not have their best interest at heart, as to what they should wear.
I know for a fact that other women feel exactly as I do because we talk about it. I do not hate gay designers, one of my favorites is Marc Jacobs, but that is because I pick and choose what fits my personal flights of fancy and imagination based on my desires as a woman( and how enjoyable these flight are )
This whole issue of the gender gap in fashion really is summed up by one old phrase we have all heard, “Ask the fox to watch the henhouse”.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Hi Leah – thanks for your comment – the gender gap tends to be a hot topic in many corporate industries but not so much in fashion. But there is a lot going on behind the curtains that most people don’t even realise. And you are very right – it is very disrespectful for men to say they can design better for women than women themselves. Perhaps they are good at a particular style, but it is not likely they will ever fully understand what it is like to be a woman.
I think consumers now days don’t care whether a designer is gay, straight, men, women, black, white. They buy brands that they like. But the media has the power to influence their choices as they make particular brands more popular than others and if they are selecting designers based on their gender or even sexual orientation, then that turns into an unfair playing fields for our sister designers such as yourself.
May 17th, 2010 at 7:57 PM
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