Each year, we put our heads together as a Group to figure out how we deal with this years Women’s day. I say deal with because we are conscious of not making this “fake celebration”, we are aware that there is so much work we need to do as Yellow Sub, we are aware that as the creative and tech industries we’re yet to speak of equality.

And so for this reason, we find a lot of #IWD posts that appear on our feeds on Internationdal Women’s Day are mostly “just for the sake of it”  and not very impactful. Here at Yellow Sub Creative, we don’t need just one day to celebrate the awesome women in our team, we do it all the time! 

This year instead, we wanted to highlight the gender disparities in the industry and remind ourselves why representation matters. And put this blog together for further reading and resources.

“Today’s statistics are mind-blowing. For example, 70% of graphic design students at London’s premier arts university, Central Saint Martins, are women, while only 30% of the curriculum features female designers. The professional design landscape is even more shockingly asymmetric, as only .1% of creative agencies are founded by women.

The number of agencies with female creative directors (about 3%) also constitutes an abysmal minority. Considering that Americans are exposed to potentially thousands of advertisements every day and women drive 70 to 80% of consumer purchases, male-dominant creative agencies are missing a huge opportunity.”

Forbes / Why We Need More Female-Led Creative Agencies (And How To Build Them)

“Here’s the big news: the numbers have accelerated from 12% to 27% in 2022, so they have over doubled in six years, moving at a rate of 2-3% a year. At this rate, we may reach 50:50 by 2030.”

Ali Hanan, Founder and CEO of Creative Equals

63% of graphic design students are women; yet only 17% are Creative Directors. Within that 17%, there is little to no diversity. We really ought to ask ourselves why there is such few creative leaders that are women and BIPOC.

Women in tech tells us a worse story. 72% of women in tech have worked at a company where bro culture is pervasive. That average includes 83% of women in sales, 80% of women in marketing, and 63% of women in IT/engineering.

We could go on, but you get the picture.

Further reading on women and tech here: https://www.trustradius.com/buyer-blog/women-in-tech-report

While we were doing the research, we came across this wonderful resource on women in design.

An enlightenment project exploring the impact of women in design. It also aims to raise awareness of an ongoing gender imbalance in the design industry.

Before wrap up we’d like to mention some things we’re doing to make change for good that you could do too

• DEI training for leadership teams
• Reassessing hiring strategy
• Staying educated
• Raising awareness

Are you doing something impactful that we should add to the list? Let us know!