Men in PR

As a male in PR, being in a dominantly woman career was not my original intent. Public relations drew me in because it was a unique career path and not just some everyday 9-5 desk job.

That being said, statistics show that PR is more heavily weighted towards women than men in terms of employment.

According to PR Daily, out of the 21,000 members in PRSA, around 73 percent were women. Interestingly enough, upper management positions in PR seem to lean more in favor of males, with 80 percent of those jobs occupied by men. And let’s not forget the comparison of salaries between men and women. While women earn a median salary of $66,467, men dominate this category with a median salary of $93,494. That is a huge discrepancy, in which most would view it as unfair.

So what does it mean to be a male in an industry that is predominately female? How do men make a name for themselves when there is an abundance of women to do the job?

I believe that men are desperately needed in PR because they can provide a different outlook to approach things. While women are more emotionally driven, men are driven by empowerment and the thirst to win. Men are naturally competitors, meaning they will stop at nothing to win.

In PR, it is important to have both the emotional factor and the competitive factor to be able to get the job done. Clients of PR professionals have the mindset to win over their audiences through emotion, but ultimately want to win them over by persuasion. Men bring an element to PR that is strong and persuasive, complementing a woman’s ability to persuade with emotion.

-Christian Franklin