‘It's not about practising equality, it's about practising equity’

It’s 2023. Women are breaking glass ceilings, achieving success in every industry and showing the world that women are just as good as men in whatever they do. This International Women’s Day, exchange4media hosted an intriguing panel discussion with women leaders from the advertising and media world.

On the panel were Divya Karani, CEO, Media, dentsu India; Prithi Murthy, President, Group M Nexus, and Anisha Iyer, CEO, OMD India. The discussion was moderated by e4m Editor Naziya Alvi Rahman.

As part of the discussion on ‘Women Leaders Raising The Bar: The Unseen Barriers’, the three leaders spoke on a host of issues, including boardroom discrimination and subconscious bias.

Karani spoke about existing discrimination. “There is a conscious and subconscious discrimination. The subconscious is so insidious, that it creeps up in you (Naziya Alvi), in me, in Prithi and in Anisha. You know, we are so used to over the years, in doing all that we do and a little more, that it just happens automatically unless and until you're very conscious and then you risk the thing of being called a feminist.”

The panel then discussed how there has been a change from the early days in their career about being a woman with a career. Prithi Murthy chimes in, “The experiences at least in the last five years are slightly different. The consciousness about this is much, much higher. But the real challenges of women on the floor, largely at the middle level, continue to exist. Leadership will cross the hurdle but if you're a middle manager and going through transitions in life, things are challenging. I think organizations are mature today, to take transition initiatives for employees. We are more conscious about listening to the women employees, at least in GroupM, and we put around workable solutions for them to make this more meaningful in the transition phases. So, there is a shift, there's definitely a shift.”

Anisha Iyer spoke about how both men and women in positions of power need to make a conscious effort in giving women in the organization the proper support they need to succeed. “I fully acknowledge the views that there are more of us than few of us as opposed to a few years ago, but I think it's still far and few. One of the things that we need to do better is create more of us, because there are still women who are in the seven to nine-year or seven to twelve-year window in their career, and a lot of them still question ‘Do I put my career or family first?’ ‘How do I balance things?’ Work-life balance suddenly becomes a question.”

Sharing her experiences over the years, Divya Karani said: “It's not about practising equality, it's about practising equity. There is a huge difference between equality and equity. That is what is the goal of the day, and rigorously holding yourself accountable to that. This is what is needed.”