Creative agencies can be catalysts for change, if only they choose to be
Viktoria Saxby may be an unknown face to most, as she often stays behind the scenes. From working with the UN on gender equality issues in countries like the DR Congo, Mali and the Ukraine to training the Swedish Armed Forces in diversity, gender equality and leadership, she’s now set her eyes on a new mission: to make the creative industry a catalyst for change.
Recently, we had the pleasure of inviting her to B-Reel to talk about the structures of inequality and how unconscious biases shape the way we act and the work we do.
First things first, who are you and what do you do?
My name is Viktoria Saxby and I have been working with gender and masculinity issues for the past 25 years. It’s a job that has taken me to all kinds of places and situations around the world, including now to B-Reel.
What made you get involved with this line of work?
The short answer is that I wanted to save the world, by working to eradicate poverty and ensure peace and development. It only took about a week of my International Development Studies at UCLA to understand that the best way to do that is by championing equality. From there I worked with gang members in LA for five years, which is when I noticed how masculinity norms can be incredibly damaging to men and boys.
As many gender stereotypes cause problems that wouldn’t even have needed to be problems in the first place, I wanted to change attitudes and norms around gender. I understood that it could be the solution to many of the issues we all face, including economic and social sustainability and in protecting the environment.
What drives you?
Gender norms tend to be destructive as they often cause shame and unnecessary suffering. I want to change that. By focusing less on the problems and more on solutions and on modernizing social norms, I think we can get there.
One big factor in this is unconscious biases, which are preconceived ideas and ways of thinking that dictate how we perceive the world and the choices we make. My talks and trainings are predominantly about unconscious biases, as they are often at the root of why progress is so slow. We’ve all grown up in societies in which some people are privileged on account of their gender, race, sexuality or age which makes it difficult to spot problems as we consider them “normal”. We still see men as typical leaders and associate words like CEO, doctor or president with men, as these are positions historically mostly held by men.
It’s difficult to be what you can’t see, but becoming more aware of the structures and norms that tell us what to be and what to think is a necessary step to be able to do something about them.
What does that have to do with the creative industries?
The creative industries have a lot of power in producing and reproducing norms, which means that they greatly impact culture. For example, men in film take up 70 % of speaking time, which hardly makes it a surprise that when women in decision-making situations speak more than 25 % of the time, they are perceived to dominate and take over the room. By changing the way we portray people, we can change how we perceive things in our daily lives.
I’d say the creative industries have a lot of responsibility to counter current norms of what we perceive as “normal” by being more representative and inclusive. What roles do we assign to boys and girls, who’s active and who’s passive? What stories do we tell and to whom? Are ethnic, sexual and gender identity minorities given space and if so, how? These are questions that we have to be better at answering.
“Perception becomes reality.”
Creative agencies can be catalysts for change, but they have to choose to be. It’s easy to portray the world, with its norms and biases, as we know it, but it makes all of us better if we make the effort to see past our own unconscious biases and the current “reality” that they create and keep in place. If agencies and brands start portraying a more inclusive and representative reality, society will, in turn, reflect this change. Perception becomes reality.
If we all have unconscious biases, what can I do to challenge them?
Acknowledge that you’re probably biased yourself. Start out by educating yourself; look at the facts, statistics and research. Blind auditions have been proven to help eliminate gender bias in symphony orchestras and it was only when Facebook started adopting gender neutral assessments that women’s code was considered equally good (or better) than the men’s.
This shows that leaders, even those who believe themselves to be unbiased, must realize that they too make decisions based on factors that they are not always entirely aware of. When you’ve started becoming more aware, you will notice how men and women are portrayed differently, and you’ll want to do something about it.
What is the future of issues on equality and diversity?
I think it will be an absolute necessity to become more aware of these issues, in order to be better at telling stories that more people can resonate with. Advertising and popular culture is increasingly driven by values as consumers become more aware — a single slip-up in a campaign can ruin a brand. The best way to avoid this is for advertisers to also be aware and make it a natural part of the process to see the work from these perspectives.
Viktoria Saxby is a communications and gender equality expert, and the founder of HopeComms and TakeTwo (with Creative Director Christina Knight). Her book “The new man: about boys, men and the end of the battle of the sexes” is being released in March of 2019.
