Book Review: Women’s Work in Public Relations

A new anthology shines a spotlight on the persistent challenges faced by women working in public relations.

Women’s Work in Public Relations is a revealing collection of data, theory, analysis, and personal stories from academia and practice. With contributions from 22 women authors, the anthology reviews the status of women within the profession in the UK and internationally.

Editors Elizabeth Brigden and Sarah Williams, both leading academics with industry experience, aim to fill a gap in the academic literature with an explicitly feminist approach. Brigden is a Principal Lecturer in Public Relations at Sheffield Hallam University, while Williams is Head of the School of Business and Law at Buckinghamshire New University.

The book covers a wide range of topics, including international comparisons of maternity provision, academia in Brazil and Spain, leading public relations in a warzone, sustaining a 40-year career as a woman, and working in public relations for the adult entertainment industry.

Contributors employ various styles, such as first-person accounts, online surveys, qualitative and quantitative research, and mixed methodology approaches. New primary data is juxtaposed with existing academic research, resulting in a collection that is both rigorous and thought-provoking.

Despite the diversity of topics, common themes emerge. Public relations is a feminised profession, yet women do not enjoy an equitable share of rewards - whether in position, respect, or status. Several contributors note that men disproportionately occupy senior management roles, and the ill-defined nature of public relations often renders women’s work “largely invisible.”

Work/life balance challenges are universally present, regardless of geography or sector.

Examples range from extreme burnout in Australia to the significant disparity in daily housework between men and women in Turkey. The double bind of greater domestic expectations and the ‘always on’ nature of public relations practice compounds these challenges.

Several chapters explicitly state that public relations is perceived as “women’s work” and is thus undervalued. Discrimination appears in various forms, from being patronised by managers to sexual assault.

The book also reveals differences.

The shadow of the ‘Ab Fab’ or Bridget Jones view of public relations as glamorous and riotous looms large over women’s experiences in UK chapters, but not necessarily elsewhere. In Spain and Turkey, gender expectations differ significantly from the assumptions of gender equality common in the UK and the US. Legal positions on women’s employment rights also vary.

The range and rigour of evidence in Women’s Work compel readers to consider the complexity of these issues. Some testimonies suggest that women are not always allies of other women in the industry.

By examining these issues through multiple lenses, the editors underscore a unifying theme: being a woman creates additional challenges for practitioners, regardless of context or circumstance.

Women’s Work in Public Relations tells an important story of the gender disparities in recognition, compensation, and work-life balance that continue to shape the professional experiences of female practitioners.

Women’s Work in Public Relations
Edited by Elizabeth Bridgen and Sarah Wiliams
Emerald Publishing, 2024

Woman in PR: A Personal Reflection

Having been in public relations for almost two decades, the testimony in this book resonated with me on several levels.

As a mother of three children, the constant need to balance work and home life is the most obvious, and it never ends (though this isn’t exclusive to mothers of course). Every working woman I know is an accomplished plate spinner.

You can’t leave public relations at the door at 5pm, and if you want to advance and add value, it’s still important to attend networking and training events out of hours. That is a constant magician’s trick to pull off.

I’m too young for the Ab Fab era, and I don’t live in London, so I’ve thankfully avoided the work hard/play hard excesses which some testify to here.

But I started my career before social media even existed, and I’ve seen how the profession has become potentially a 24-hour one, whatever sector you work in. When I started out, public relations practice was an intellectual challenge, with time and creativity spent on effective ways to get your campaign into newspapers, radio or TV, and the payoff being access to a huge audience if you did.

In today’s fragmented media landscape and 24-hour social media environment, focus in work and free time outside of work are harder to get.  

I am very grateful to live in a country where equality is enshrined in law – though I am clear-eyed about what still needs to be achieved.

A theme that also resonated with me is that public relations is often seen as a bit ‘fluffy’ and intangible. Virtually every practitioner I’ve ever met mentions this perception, and I don’t know if it’s linked to the profession's majority female character.

Public relations has to address this perception, and tackling some of the gender inequalities highlighted in this book could be an important part of the way forward.

About Claire Munro

Claire Munro Chart.PR, CMktr is an award-winning communications professional and manager with more than 15 years of experience in Scotland’s environment and housing sectors.

She has served on the Committee of CIPR Scotland and holds the CIPR Diploma in Internal Communications and the AMEC International Certificate in Measurement and Evaluation. Claire is both a Chartered PR and a Chartered Marketer.