Among 146 nations analyzed, we are behind neighbors like Argentina (33), Guyana (35) and Peru (37)
Melissa Vogel is one of the ten women honored by PROPMARK in the Especial Lideranas Femininas, a project created on account of Women’s Day, celebrated this Wednesday (8). She is CEO of Kantar Ibope Media and current president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). She has over 20 years of experience.
She began her career as an intern at an association called Escritrio do Rdio. I joined Kantar Ibope Media as an operations assistant at the time, I was still Ibope Media and, later, I had the opportunity to go through the most diverse areas of the company, he says.
Melissa says she took on her first management position at the age of 25. At 32, she was invited to the general management of the Kantar Ibope Media operation in Panama. This step was very challenging and I made the decision to go precisely to have a broader experience of what being the main manager of a company is, and no longer just a head of area, she comments.
When she returned, she continued with a career, which, according to her, she can call non-linear, which allowed her to play leadership roles in the most different areas and disciplines, from operations to marketing, including product in the local, regional Latam and Global spheres. When it comes to prejudice, she says she always treats machismo in a broader sphere. She doesn’t like to focus on explicit cases of prejudice, harassment, lack of respect or unequal treatment.
Context is not individual, it is systemic and structural. In this way, I find it difficult for a woman who has not gone through situations resulting from this structural machismo. Like most women, I’ve been through some of them, which cannot be minimized or normalized in everyday life.
I exemplify these situations through mansplaining or bropriating, when women are interrupted in their speech by men, who insist on explaining in a didactic way or repeating what was previously said by them, appropriating the content. These are examples of structural behaviors that need to be overcome if we want gender equality, he argues.
She claims to cite these examples here, as they are commonplace situations, however, prejudice against women goes much further, in a sexist society. I believe that awareness and self-criticism about these and other behaviors become fundamental so that, on a daily basis, we remember that the agenda cannot leave the agenda, so that we can act to influence it with questions, breaking paradigms, bringing examples and themes to discuss.
The executive recalls that today Brazil occupies the 94th position in the ranking of gender inequality of the World Economic Forum. Among 146 nations analyzed, we are behind neighbors like Argentina (33), Guyana (35) and Peru (37). She comments that data on women in the Brazilian labor market show inequality.
In a broad concept of work, with different hiring formats, remuneration, sectors of activity and working hours, according to data from the Target Group Index, 54% of women between 18 and 65 years old work for pay. Women make up 53% of the Brazilian population, however, in this economically active range, they represent 47% of the workforce. Compared to 20-year data, women accounted for 43% of all workers in the country. A 4% increase in two decades, he says.
For her, it would even be valid to celebrate the increase in the number of women in the job market, but the balance with the male universe is still far away. Women are the ones who adapt the most to different work formats, with 47% defining themselves as self-employed. Men correspond to 38%. While this model can bring independence by adapting to the women’s journey, it is also a limiting factor for payroll benefits and labor rights issues, she reckons.
The emergence of hybrid work models, which allow women to reconcile multiple shifts, creating possibilities and alternatives, is also more accepted among women 30%, compared to men 22%, he adds.
According to Melissa, all elements combined lead women to have shorter paid hours than men. While 81% of men work more than 30 hours a week for pay, only 66% of women are paid for the same period.
Unfortunately, we still live in a social system in which the value of work is primarily measured by time on the job. We cannot forget that women’s working hours go on for endless hours before going out and when they get home, remember. It also reflects that the factor that most distances men and women in the work environment is individual income power.
