How to break the glass ceiling in newsrooms, audiovisual companies and on film sets? It is to this problem that For Women in the Media provides answers and tools since its creation in 2013 by journalist Françoise Laborde. The association has managed to develop a network of nearly two hundred women working in the sector and developed two essential charters, good conduct against harassment and sexist behaviour in media companies, signed in March 2019 with the Ministry of Culture and a second, in 2022, on parity, with a toolkit for companies to change their parity practices.
PFDM is also at the origin of several studies to measure parity in the media and fight against discriminatory practices towards women, who in these trades, move less to positions of responsibility, suffer from a lack of visibility on the antennas, feel less legitimate and are victims of harassment. The Diversity and Inclusion Barometer in the Culture and Media Sectors, published last December, provides an update on the remaining progress in this area, as explained Laurence Bachman, honorary president of PFDM, former director of fiction for France 2, producer and director.
The association Pour les Femmes dans les Médias (PFDM), of which you are honorary president, was created in 2013. With what objective?
The association was created by the journalist Françoise Laborde, whom I knew when I was director of fiction for France 2, and who asked me to join her. She wanted a number of women media leaders and journalists to come together with the primary goal of helping women in front of and behind the camera to assert themselves and be more present. We started by being about ten, then about twenty, thirty to be today two hundred to meet to exchange. We organized awards, presented inspiring women’s trophies, and then reflected on interventions on the theme of women’s place in the media.
Then #MeToo arrived six years ago and shook everyone up. We started working on our first charter against sexual harassment and sexist behaviour in media companies. This charter was signed in 2019 with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Gender Equality with eighty people from all media companies. We then started to work on parity by taking up the mantra of sista collective ' for women to matter, they must be counted ".
What tools do you put in place within your association to change attitudes?
In parallel with the charter «Parity mode d'emploi», we give advice, help for reflection for the referents, whether they are internal or external to the company. It has to be a subject that the editors have to take up, that it becomes everyday. There may also be the posting of messages such as “you are not alone” or “if you are harassed, go see so-and-so…” A leader told me that she had set up anonymous boards to make people talk and the board was covered with messages. We must therefore work on shame, on not daring to say.
Four years ago, Catherine Schöfer, one of the fourteen Vice-Presidents, had the idea to launch a mentoring program, which we immediately approved because it is our wealth and our duty to transmit, there is no sense to exist if we do not transmit what we have learned from a professional point of view. This program is made extremely seriously with a selection of candidates, meetings, interviews, but also workshops on topics such as AI for women or leadership Mentees have a minimum of 5 to 6 years of professional experience as it is in our DNA to help future women leaders. We are in our fourth year with already sixty women mentees and twenty new this year.
Since 1er March 2020, companies with at least 50 employees are required to publish their «Index of Professional Equality». Do you think this tool is relevant?
It reveals problems but it remains insufficient, too synthetic. We led three years ago our study on parity in fiction, then the one on parity in the media last year. We realized that in all these sectors, women are confined to administrative roles and that, as soon as there is a technical work as a sound engineer, there are no more women, like the whole of French society. We see this in companies: in the media, as soon as you are operational, there are many women but the bosses are still men, in the management committees or executive committees. Nothing is taken for granted, things are moving, but we must always apologize a little for defending ourselves with conviction and passion.
Nothing is taken for granted,
things are moving,
but one must always
a little apologize
to defend oneself
with conviction and passion
You have set up the Diversity and Inclusion Barometer in the Culture and Media sectors, published last December. What does it reveal?
First, 79% of respondents see discrimination in the media and culture sector, which shows that a huge amount of work is not being done. We’re at the same point as we were seven or eight years ago: when you see in the barometer that 35% of victims don’t speak, I want to tell you that everything remains to be done. We also see that 68% of women want tools to promote diversity and act inclusively.
Then, nearly 90% of women from diverse backgrounds were victims of sexism in their workplace, so we can talk about double punishment for them. Discrimination remains a taboo subject since 31% of victims of discrimination are silent and men much more than women. This remains surprising as everyone agrees that diversity is something very rewarding within a company.
Finally, men do not have the same perception of discriminatory issues: 57% think that men and women cannot benefit from the same professional opportunities compared to 85% of women. The same goes for the recruitment process, since 70% of women feel that the recruitment process is not transparent and fair for 49% of men. Finally, on the possibility of expressing oneself during meetings, 62% of women think they do not have the same opportunities against 32% of men. Speaking is something that should be learned at school because men’s empowerment is also done through it. Women always question their legitimacy to speak. So there is still a lot to do on parity even though tools have emerged over the past four years.
We talk about women in the media but there are also women invited to the media, who represent only 20% of the experts invited to comment on the news, with a shorter speaking time compared to men...
I remember all the debates during the health crisis, where women were present on sets but at times of less listening or «some» newspapers showing only men. We can’t do things without women! Some media are working on this issue such as TF1 for example, which has launched a large training committee for women experts. Moreover, I am inspired by this reflection: we always set up committees of women experts and never committees of men experts, as if men were, ex officio, experts.
What is striking—and we see this very clearly through mentorship—are women, regardless of their generation, who say that they do not dare to do this or that, that they would never speak up or ask for a raise. I have the impression that between my generation and women of 30 or 40 years, nothing happened on our legitimacy, we are all the same. When we discuss our hesitations, it is always violence to put us forward.
Precisely, could #MeToo change the game with this freedom of speech?
If I look back on myself, I can tell myself that I have worked hard and managed to build my career. However, I did not realize the paternalism of the time. No one believed in us and yet, as good students, we had to chart our path without ever stopping, with our personal and professional injunctions. But in hindsight, I tell myself that I could have done differently and I feel today the violence that I did not believe in at the time. Today, things have changed: we can ask questions, or even change jobs if we wish. In short, we can still breathe a little more.
In this, #MeToo was an explosion, which first allowed to reveal scandalous things that were dead. Young women today are different, they have another relationship to work, do not let anything go. We can no longer live the same way and unfortunately, maybe it took this thunderbolt for things to move from the inside.
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