Re: A question most men will be afraid to answer

OK Walter, more info about me..Production Coordinator for a Corporate Media production department in a company with all male employees but myself. It is a staff position. I actually kind of like working with all guys, it can be fun. I have had several positions where I was the only female. Have worked in several areas of media production for about 15 years and have varying skill levels in the different mediums. I have a lot of training but little working experience in what I really want to do.

I respect you immensely, but you seem to have your head in the sand, yet only for the right reasons. You think most others have your same mentality. I believe you that you pay equally, but you are not privy to the fact that not everyone thinks like you, even if they don't realize what they are doing. If women are paid nearly as well as men in production salaries, I have been given some bad information. I believe this is one of the worst industries to have a discrepency in pay between the sexes. I was taught that in one area of communications, marketing, women actually have made less than 40% of what men did(this information was about 6 years ago in a textbook, but does illustrate a point). Now, part of this is when women have the same experience and skill as men but are not promoted as well. That may be bigger factor than discrepency in salaries for the same position.

What difference does it make that there are entire production departments that are male? I can point you to several advertising agencies right in Atlanta that are completely female. There are probably dozens if not hundreds of ad agencies and production companies in the U.S. that are completely female.
The difference is...I sometimes feel as if I'm vying to be the one token female in a group or the few jobs that females are seriously considered for, as opposed to having as many opportunities as the guys. And if there are hundreds of all female agencies, there are thousands of all male agancies, and that does make a difference.

And what point does it prove when you say they are completely male? It doesn't matter if you're male or female. Good ideas and good service win accounts.
If you get more chances off the bat you grow more and do more and you can have more success. In many situations, women have to be able to blow the guys out of the water just to get in the door. You would probably know "the point" if you worked your ass off in production school and did twice as much and were twice as good and still got passed up for positions by the guys who played hackey sack through most of the program.

If you're not comfortable with male dominated departments or clients, don't work for them. The best word in my day to day operations is "no" to client I simply don't want to work for.
This is the attitude that scares me and is terribly discouraging. It's sort of like saying, "If you don't like everything about our government, move to another country".

Statements made to me: "You are right, we don't have any females featured in our film competition. We should start a whole new one for women". No. Consider women for your competition. "You want to network? Go to Women In Film". No. I don't want to go to the female group, I want to go to whichever group has the most influential and skilled industry people.

I sound more whiney than I actually am...It is just that I feel it is truly a factor, and the better I know how to work around this, the more successful I will be.