WASHINGTON, DC — At the PRovoke Media Global Summit, Gail Heimann, CEO of The Weber Shandwick Collective, led a fiery conversation with journalist and tech commentator Kara Swisher. Titled “Power and Prejudice: The State of Women in Business, Tech, and Society,” Heimann and Swisher discussed how women are faring in business, technology and society.
Heimann kicked off the conversation by highlighting the imbalance in media leadership. Although 40% of journalists globally are women, only about 24% of top editorial roles are held by women, a statistic that has barely shifted in recent years. She asked Swisher why, despite women’s visibility in the industry, leadership remains elusive.
Swisher pointed out the dangers of a homogeneous editorial team, specifically criticizing the Washington Post – currently in the news itself after owner Jeff Bezos pulled the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for US president – for its loss of female voices.
“The Washington Post has driven out so many women from the editorial section that it creates a real problem – people can’t make good decisions because they are either suck-ups or really do subscribe to the same point. And it’s not changing because of misogyny,” she said.
Swisher also referenced her critique of Twitter’s board, which at one point was composed of ten white men: “Twitter kept running into a wall as a business. You don’t create a great product if you don’t have more points of view, and that includes political diversity.”
Heimann spoke about the “Taylor Swift factor,” referring to her session at PRovokeGlobal last year with Candace Bushnell, where they discussed the rise of Swift and Beyoncé, the success of the Barbie movie and women’s soccer, which all contributed to a booming “she-conomy.”
In 2011, only 5% of the top 100 performing artists were women, but by last year, that figure had risen to 35%. “Taylor Swift has inspired a movement of younger women, she has a lot of power and influence,” said Heimann.
Swisher agreed, describing Swift as a “global phenomenon” and pointing to her business acumen: “One of my great goals is to interview her and Dolly Parton at the same time and talk only about their entrepreneurship. The way Taylor runs her business is really interesting, and the same with Rihanna and her make-up line. It’s an interesting time for female artists.”
Swisher said Swift’s success spoke to the power of understanding and connecting deeply with an audience. “When you understand your fanbase, you can do a lot with it. It will be interesting to see what she does next.”
Looking at the technology industry, Heimann noted that female representation in tech leadership has declined. In 1984, women held 35% of tech leadership roles, but that number has now fallen to 28%. None of the top five tech firms currently have a female CEO.
On whether AI might be a potential equalizer in tech, Swisher said: “No. There are a lot of women in AI and a lot of the early AI leaders, especially in robotics, were women, but it will be the same game with the same people.”
Currently, only 3% of VC funding goes to solo female founders. Swisher said male investors feel most comfortable funding people who look and think like them: “It’s the idea of hustle porn, the founder is always right, they like this idea because they never have to say they are sorry and can make terrible mistakes,” she said of male founders.
“There’s this demented idea of founder mode and the idea you have to be hardcore. It’s not a meritocracy, it’s a ‘mirror-tocracy’ – they are only comfortable with who they are comfortable with, people like them.
“It’s safe for them to keep funding each other and they’ve done well. The question is, how much better could they have done if they’d done something fresh? More important than funding is women on the cap table, with money.”
Heimann highlighted the burden of unpaid labor on women, noting that nearly half of the workforce is female, yet women take on 75% of unpaid childcare. This imbalance, she said, costs businesses $12.7 billion annually due to productivity losses.
Swisher said the issue was both economic and social: “This is obviously an important thing, and it’s an economic thing.” There may be many entrepreneurial efforts by women globally, but these tend to be smaller businesses, with many large companies still operating with outdated structures that fail to accommodate the needs of working women and mothers.
Shifting to politics, a week before the US presidential election, Heimann observed that women now make up 25% of the US Senate and 38.5% of the House, showing some progress in government representation.
However, Swisher argued that the upcoming elections reflect deep societal divides, particularly in terms of masculinity. “This election is about men – what kind of man do you want to be? You’ve got competing versions of what men are and how they should contribute to society – one is a dominant incel, and the other is not.”
Swisher suggested that the outcome of the election would depend on voter turnout, particularly from women. “It will come down to who’s going to vote more: angry men, or women who are sick and tired of being told what to do with their bodies,” she said.
Responding to a question about the possibility of returning to a “truth society” instead of a “post-truth” one, Swisher was sceptical: “We have a lot of information but not a lot of facts. The purveyors of the main social networks have backed away from any moderation, and we are seeing the decline of media outlets that were much more stringent about facts. It’s so sad.”
When asked why women in leadership, such as Finland’s female prime minister, often face resistance, Swisher said: “It’s persistent throughout history whenever you have a woman in power.” She shared her own experiences as a lesbian, noting that this has allowed her to sometimes be “a little bit more aggressive” without backlash.
However, she pointed out that leaders like Kamala Harris, Nikki Haley, and Hillary Clinton have all had to downplay their strengths to avoid alienating voters. “It’s ridiculous,” she said.
This post was originally published on here
