With International Women’s Day just around the corner, we can expect a surplus of marketing from businesses all around the world boasting about how they support women. It’s a great day for empowerment and it seems every person on the planet is on board with supporting their female employees and women in general. And then the day passes, and no more is shared. Women are no longer empowered or supported in the same way. We return to our day to day lives and are expected to act as if that one day was enough.
Working in digital marketing, especially SEO, there is a massive gender gap that everyone is aware of. In a study completed by Moz in 2020, over 650 SEO’s were surveyed and less than 30% of participants were women.
Whilst our industry is slowly getting more inclusive for women, we know it’s not perfect. If it was, we wouldn’t need communities like Women in Tech SEO, who are here to empower, teach and elevate the careers of women.
We constantly see women left out of conference line ups, lists and generally being offered fewer opportunities. These biases we see in the industry are spoken about so often and are slowly improving. But there are issues that for some reason aren’t spoken about.
I work for an SEO agency and I think it’s absolutely wild how much sexism women get from clients. Sometimes it’s blatantly obvious, but more often than not it’s brushed off as just another difficult client. It’s really hard to explain this sexism to your male colleagues because they don’t have it happen to them.
Women have been conditioned to not even call it what it is, sexism. We’re afraid of crying wolf, being spoken down to or even being accused of bullying. Someone can talk to us like dirt, but if we ask if they would do the same to a man, we are the ones in the wrong.
So sexism from clients just happens and we can’t say anything. We’re less than 30% of the people in our industry, a lot of our managers are male and we aren’t given the tools to evidence it. That’s where this blog post actually starts. Over 350 words in, but it’s time to actually say something. I would like to share some anonymous stories I have been sent, and give you tools and templates to better support yourself, your staff members or to be a better ally to your colleagues.
Examples of sexism from clients:
I spoke to dozens of people in our industry and gathered their stories; so many of them were so similar. These are from people of all ages and experience levels. I have edited these stories slightly for clarity and to ensure anonymity.
“We had this client who would behave very differently when you were one on one with them. I worked on this project as the lead and have male team members supporting me. I was their decision-maker and point of contact.
I like to keep my team involved and would invite them to meetings, when my male team members were, the client would actively listen and be very reserved. But when they were talking to me they would use this as an opportunity to rant and rave, explain how they were unhappy with us and they would fabricate problems. It made me feel like a school getting told off.
If they spoke to one of my male team members about the same topics, there would be no problems. Or at least they actively listen.
The same happened in email too, I’d send them a report and they’d have complaints and issues (which is fine), I would address them and handle the situation professionally. The client would keep escalating and getting aggressive. It got so bad that a male manager had to intervene, which once they did, the client apparently never had a problem? “
“I was leading on a client and working with several colleagues, the client was ok ish, but for some reason whenever I sent them an email, they wouldd not respond to me but to my male colleague.
They also kept removing me from email chains.”
“My agency landed this new client and I had sent them a welcome email, with a quick intro and to arrange a call with them. The client immediately phoned our contracts team to complain and told them that I was not senior enough to be working on their project. I am a senior specialist…“
“I had this client, he phoned me constantly. He would bring external frustrations to the call and blame me for them. He would scream at me for not completing, already completed pieces of work, and he would really get me down.
If I tried to end the call or just protect myself from his abuse, he would call me mardy, or say don’t get huffy and complain that I am unable to take criticism.
A male manager was the one who suggested this might be down to sexism. They asked me what I wanted to do, and took me off of the campaign. It went to a male account manager, who presented all of my completed work and strategy with no changes, the client loved it.”
I have so many more examples I could share but this article would go on forever if I did so. It’s genuinely awful.
Always make your manager aware
If you have a client who is been sexist towards you. I’d recommend speaking to someone you work with who can support you, whether it’s your manager, a big boss, HR or someone else. Your employers need to be aware and they can support you with these situations.
How can agencies better protect their female members of staff from sexist clients?
It’s hard to protect your female members of staff. You can’t just drop a client because they’re sexist unless you have substantial evidence. Contracts stop you from doing that and that’s hard for an employee to understand.
Whilst a client can drop an agency with no reason needed, we can’t do the same back. We can only stop acting for a client with good reason and on reasonable notice, or with the client’s consent. If we say the reason is sexism, we have to have proof or we can get in legal trouble.
I don’t know the ins and outs of that. I’m an SEO not a lawyer. But it puts our employers in an awkward position. I do believe most businesses would like to just bin these people off but they can’t.
They can however give us the tools to evidence these occurrences. I’ve put together some templated responses you can do or give your employees to better protect them.
For openly sexist clients:
If you believe that your client is likely to act in an inappropriate manner during a call, you could record the call for evidence, however, you MUST state that your call is recorded. I recommend OBS screen recording software to do this. I personally have had to do this, more than once, I normally phrase it to sound like I refer back to the call to make notes and to stay organised.
They always say it’s fine and if they’re arseholes on the call, I’ve got it on tape. If they know they are being recorded they tend to be better behaved.
Subtle Sexism from Clients
This is the worst kind in my opinion because it’s hard to get the evidence you need to be able to take action and sometimes to get support. I’ve put together some advice and templates of what you could do. These are based off of the stories I have been sent.
The project lead is being ignored in favour of a male colleague.
This situation is awkward for all members of the staff involved. For the male team member, it is recommended for them to address the situation. No matter how much for female colleague tries the client won’t take her word above yours. In an email you could say:
“Good Morning/Afternoon
In regards to your question, I’m not able to make decisions like this for your campaign as I am not the lead on this. Please, can you send your questions to your account manager @”name” (cc’d).
Thanks
Name”
It’s short, it’s sweet and it says stop ignoring the project lead, you dick. Maybe it doesn’t call them a dick…
If the client ignores this whilst continuing to contact the wrong person, and if the male team member is feel particularly spicy, they could even send a follow up:
“Good Morning/Afternoon,
I hope you are well,
I have forwarded your question/request to the project lead, @”name”
Can I ask, is there a reason that you are directing your questions to me rather than xxx?
Thanks
Name”
This is a chance for us to potentially catch the client out for their prejudiced behaviour. Or makes them feel awkward and forces them to speak to the right person.
It’s easy to be a little more confrontational in email, and you can still remain professional. It’s a completely different ballpark when a woman is being ignored in meetings.
In meeting with male team members:
Every woman in SEO who regularly has meetings will like have been ignored or spoken over by a client. If you are a man and are seeing this happen you should help. You won’t be thought of as a knight in shining armour, it’s ok to stand up for a woman in front of other men. It doesn’t look you are fixing things for them
Be an ally, whilst your colleague is been ignored you should take the opportunity to say something like “The *project leads name* was actually making a really good point there, please could you finish it?”.
Backing them up and showing that this woman has authority here, is going to do more than you answering the client yourself.
Should you need to end the call due to sexism
This one is specifically for women. You are not hired to be treated badly by a client. On the occasions when a client may be completely ignoring you, speaking down to you or making you feel crap, you are entitled to end that call.
People who work in call centres, don’t put up with abuse on calls. Why should we? We’re all people here and are worth so much more than being spoken down to.
First I’d recommend turning the screen recorder and saying “what you are saying is not appropriate, I am now recording this conversation. If you would like this meeting to continue, we need to get back on track and talk about SEO.
If you are going to continue with this, I am going to terminate this conversation”
Recording the conversation will only protect you further and you have made the situation clear. It is then up to the client on how they proceed. If they continue, hang up. Send an email, stating the same that the call was counter-productive and inappropriate. You will continue the call when they speak to you appropriately.
What next?
Use these templates, change them around as much you need and make them fit your business. Every occasion of sexism is different but have some basic tools, publicly available to support your team. It will make them feel less alone in this and create a safer working environment for your team.
Tell me in the comments, on Twitter or by email if you have any additional resources that you’d like to add to this. If they’re appropriate I will link to them.
Empower women all year round. Not just on International Women’s Day
