Gender Is Not A “Women’s Issue”
In my research and interactions with people (mainly male people) I meet at conferences, I have found it fascinating how my word choice either opens up or stymies a conversation on marketing to women. If I use that particular phrase (“marketing to women”), men often assume what I’m talking about has nothing to do with them. They know it exists and is an important business topic, but.. ehhhh.. it just isn’t something they, personally, want to get into.
That’s like just deciding not to engage with economics or calculus in college because it has nothing to do with you (I definitely tried that route). How else will you get comfortable with something that is so integral to the human interactions and consumer understanding you need as a marketer? You’ve got to wholeheartedly step into unfamiliar territory! But, I know, in the case of this aforementioned specific market segment, it will help your business so much you won’t know what hit you.
Now, it is true. The word “women” sometimes has negative, or at least uncomfortable connotations for men in a business setting. Start talking about it as gender trends, perhaps, and it is slightly more well-received. But, gender has so often become a term used when discussing women that the two very differently defined words have become synonymous.
Gender issues shouldn’t only be “for women” and neither should marketing to women. How do we keep up the exploration and development of these topics if a lot of people get put off by the simple words that name them? Argh.
There’s a lot to mull over, and, rest assured, I’m on the case. In the meantime, I came across this article by Akor Ojoma on the AllAfrica site, specifically about gender issues in Nigeria and it seemed to explain at least a part of the universal problem well. Here’s a clip:
In the words of Hajiya Halima Ben Umar, Project Manager, Population Council: “Gender equality does not necessarily mean equal numbers of men and women or boys in all activities neither does it necessarily refer to treating men or women or boys and girls exactly the same. It rather signifies an aspiration to work towards a society in which neither women or men suffer from poverty in its many forms and a situation where women and men, boys and girls have equal conditions for realizing their full human rights and potential to contribute to national, political, economic, social and cultural development and to benefit from the results. It is therefore the equal valuing by society of both the similarities and differences between women and men and the varying roles they play.”
So when we hear of gender issues they are the problems that stem from the way women and men have been socially constructed, they are commonly shared experiences and therefore brought about by structural / societal cause and are recognized as undesirable and unjust.
“Gender studies” isn’t a woman’s thing and neither is it just an academic subject. Rather, it should be much more embedded in the general business conversation, otherwise men will keep putting marketing to women in some “initiative” corner and women will think that just shows their male colleagues “don’t get it” and don’t want to.
Feel free to leave the words gender or woman/women out of it. Just get the job done.
