Success is genderless
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Sony and Reef Check celebrated the DVD release of Surf’s Up at Malibu Bluffs Park in Malibu, Calif., on Oct. 6.
Fox celebrated the DVD release of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on Oct. 2 with a “Surfing in New York” event in New York.
CBS and Paramount hosted a release party for the first season DVD of Jericho with cast and crew members at Crimson in Hollywood.
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By Marcy Magiera -- Video Business, 3/24/2006
MARCH 24 | When I first became editor of Video Business in 1998, several women whom I respected in the industry congratulated me by noting their pleasure that a woman would be handed the responsibility for day to day operations of the magazine.
While it’s true that no woman had held the post of editor before, I remember answering that I didn’t believe gender had ever been a particular benefit or hindrance in my career. It didn’t seem at all relevant to my promotion.
The same sentiment runs through our Women Elite of 2006 feature, with executive after executive noting that they’ve always felt they had a fair shot at attaining their goals; that the challenges they face relate to their jobs, not their gender; that individuals are responsible for their own success; that the qualities that make them successful—hard work, efficiency, decisiveness, candor, collaboration—are universal.
Believing this—in fact, living it—is absolutely essential to success, in the home entertainment industry or anywhere else.
Nevertheless, statistics show that our Women Elite are more unique than they would have people believe.
A 2003 Annenberg Center for Public Policy report on women leaders in communication companies found that within Fortune 500 companies, women on average held just 15% of executive leadership positions, despite the fact that they made up 40% of all people employed in the communications industries and 41% of management positions.
In the world of Fortune 500 companies and beyond, women in 2004 still earned just 76¢ for every dollar earned by men, according to the 9to5, National Assn. of Working Women’s Profile of Working Women 2004. Also according to the report, over a lifetime, the average 25-year-old woman who works until age 65 will earn $523,000 less than the average man.
However true in the abstract, these statistics need not apply to every woman in the workforce, and our Women Elite are perfect examples of that.
The 25 profiles in this issue are intended to do more than flatter the recipients.
Ideally, they will encourage the thousands of other women working at all levels of the home entertainment industry to achieve their goals and refuse to be defined by the statistics, even though we all must remain conscious of them.
Among the most inspirational qualities of our Women Elite are their willingness to trust the people they work with, to spread praise, to empower the members of their team—both female and male—with information and let them loose to achieve their own success.
It’s a good reminder about the right way to do business, regardless of gender, so that we all succeed.
