This is the third edition of our special publication, Women in The Media. Being a business-to-business title, we rely on media professionals to share their ideas, their issues, and their knowledge with other readers in media world.
We are fortunate that we never battle to find contributors, for which we are grateful, but of course there is a rate of attrition. Contributions not filed, emails not answered, promises not kept. It’s part of the job. So, we tend to over commission to ensure we’re never short of content.
Not this time around.
Our first issue of Women in The Media in 2021 was 40 pages. In 2022, we rose to 58. And this year, we’re up to 70 pages of inspiring and provocative stories from South African women. It makes me wish we still printed our magazines. What a satisfying ‘thwack’ Women in The Media would make hitting our desks or coffee tables!
What was interesting in this year’s contribution’s is how many women in media still battle with imposter syndrome. It’s a story Gillian Rightford covered brilliantly in our 2022 edition.
What’s changing is that we are aware of it, and fighting those tendencies. Many women in senior positions are taking steps to ensure younger women climbing the ladder are not beset by nagging doubts that they’re not good enough.
That mentoring and sponsorship is instilled in many companies now is a positive step. Many contributors in this issue write on how senior figures – women and men – helped them forge their career paths with confidence. At the same time, they recognise the women who came before them, the women who actually cleared those paths, scything their way through the sexism, sexual harassment, the put-downs, the old boys’ club…
I had a newspaper editor once tell me that if I wanted to be an editor, I should head on out to women’s magazines. And that was in the mid-1990s.
What we didn’t want this magazine to be was a litany of moans about how unfair it all is… How many issues we still face, how high the glass ceiling remains.
And that, it’s not.
The stories are powerful, personal and inspirational. They resonate with passion and knowledge and hope.
Thank you to every single woman who shared their stories with us for this issue.
Be assured, you are SEEN.
The Media
Got to love it.
Glenda
CLICK ON THE COVER TO READ WOMEN IN THE MEDIA
