Creative women in Peru: outliers in a machismo world

Gender segregation begins early and is reinforced within the workplace. Advertising creative departments appear to have extreme gender segregation with women representing just 20% of all those working within creative departments worldwide. Yet, creativity does not depend on gender. Thus, the underrepresentation of women is particularly troubling. In Peru women comprise 3% to 10.4% of all people working in advertising creative, which suggests the situation for creative women in Peru is dire. In order to understand this phenomenon, and with the hope of finding solutions, this study uses in-depth interviews to explore the experiences of Peruvian women working in advertising creative departments. The study investigates three primary aspects of Peruvian creative women's experiences. First, it looks at relationships with colleagues and clients. Second, work/life balance is explored. Third, the study examines how the environment within creative departments constrains creative women's employment and advancement opportunities. Findings suggest that Peruvian creative departments are strongly machismo environments where discrimination and gender segregation are staunchly entrenched. This machismo environment creates challenging relationships between creative women and their colleagues and clients, it negatively impacts creative women's work/life balance and it leads to severely constrained hiring, promotion and retention of creative women in Peruvian advertising agencies. The discussion closes with suggestions to help creative women succeed in Peruvian creative departments.