SEO has long been the ‘geeky’ side of digital marketing, sharing stereotypes more in common with web developers and programmers than digital Don Drapers. However with the release of SEOMoz’s 2010 industry survey, it seems as if we might have a few things in common with the 1960s mad men.
It’s been widely reported that there has always been a clear wage gap between men and women, however the response to articles on the subject seem to be more one of “oh well, it’s getting better” than “why the f*@k does it still exist?”.
For those of you that haven’t worked in SEO, the average SEO is someone a little bit like this…
He’s between 31-40, has a university degree and earns around $50-80 thousand dollars for his 3-10 years in the industry. He’s quite likely to be working client side after either being forced into SEO because he “does the website” or simply because he was the guy making money from his bedroom through SEO.
So one would expect that in an industry like this (or at least I would) that anyone without a pair of testicals would be welcomed in with open arms (quite literally) like the only girl in the chess club.
But yet there is still a huge gap in salary across the board, with the average woman earning 13% less than a man doing the same job.
As you can see from the graph on the right (source: raw data from SEOMoz Industry Survey 2010) there is a wage gap from graduate level all the way to the highest paid positions within the industry. In fact the average woman is on 77% of the average man’s salary after 10 years experience.
Now of course you could argue that there are less women in the industry. That they are more likely to drop out of their careers due to pregnancy, however does that really excuse a wage gap in graduate level jobs?
It’s also interesting to note that despite earning less, women within search marketing are generally better educated than their male counter parts with 74% having a college degree or higher, compared to only 69% of men.
To be honest, looking through this data and the results above have made for pretty depressing analysis for me. We work in marketing and therefore have a pretty important role in defining ‘man’ and ‘woman’ when it comes to the advertising and brand activity we produce. It’s time we remembered as Faith Whittlesey once said, that “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.”
Perhaps we should be rewriting that quote now as “If Ginger Rogers did search marketing, she’d be doing it for less money and with a better education.”
Backwards and in High Heels: Is SEO Sexist?
SEO has long been the ‘geeky’ side of digital marketing, sharing stereotypes more in common with web developers and programmers than digital Don Drapers. However with the release of SEOMoz’s 2010 industry survey, it seems as if we might have a few things in common with the 1960s mad men.
It’s been widely reported that there has always been a clear wage gap between men and women, however the response to articles on the subject seem to be more one of “oh well, it’s getting better” than “why the f*@k does it still exist?”.
For those of you that haven’t worked in SEO, the average SEO is someone a little bit like this…
So one would expect that in an industry like this (or at least I would) that anyone without a pair of testicals would be welcomed in with open arms (quite literally) like the only girl in the chess club.
But yet there is still a huge gap in salary across the board, with the average woman earning 13% less than a man doing the same job.
Now of course you could argue that there are less women in the industry. That they are more likely to drop out of their careers due to pregnancy, however does that really excuse a wage gap in graduate level jobs?
It’s also interesting to note that despite earning less, women within search marketing are generally better educated than their male counter parts with 74% having a college degree or higher, compared to only 69% of men.
To be honest, looking through this data and the results above have made for pretty depressing analysis for me. We work in marketing and therefore have a pretty important role in defining ‘man’ and ‘woman’ when it comes to the advertising and brand activity we produce. It’s time we remembered as Faith Whittlesey once said, that “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.”
Perhaps we should be rewriting that quote now as “If Ginger Rogers did search marketing, she’d be doing it for less money and with a better education.”
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