Addressing the gender pain gap with Laura Jordan Bambach of SheSays

You will have heard of the gender pay gap - and one campaign group is now urging HR and leaders to be aware of the gender pain gap. SheSays, the non-profit organisation championing gender equality, is urging employers to 'Believe Their Pain' in a nationwide advertising and awareness campaign that found 83% of women and non-binary people hide their pain at work.

She Says is a non-profit organisation championing gender equality in the creative industries, and partnered with JCDecaux Community Channel to launch the nationwide ‘Believe Their Pain’ campaign to raise awareness of the thousands of women and non-binary people who are living with hidden illnesses and disabilities in the creative industry.

What is the gender pain gap?

Laura Jordan Bambach, who co-founded SheSays explains: "There is a gender pain gap, which is when women talk to professionals, and they are not taken as seriously as when their male counterparts do. And so, that obviously causes a lot of issues in terms of physical pain, but it is the same for hidden pain and hidden disability.

The research by SheSays is to “really drive home the fact that it exists in this space as well and actually, some of the statistics that came out of the survey which is we started with the survey of our network."

From the SheSays research, it’s been found that 62% hide pain due to fear of judgement and prejudice at work and 52% believe it could limit promotion or opportunities at work if employers found out they were in pain – either physical or mental. In fact, mental health and neurodiverse were the highest conditions that people were hiding.

Introducing SheSays

The story of SheSays is one of camaraderie and the need to drive change, particularly in the creative industries. It’s one that HR can learn from, with key elements of community and also the research in the gender pain gap.

She says began in 2007, after Laura and co-founder Ale kept meeting at industry events and discussing the lack of support for women in creative industries. “We were talking about the lack of female and now female and non-binary talent that was coming through the industry, even into the interview stage. We also discussed how someone can be dismissed as less experienced or less confident as they actually are. We thought we should set something up to try to both improve that funnel of young talent into the industry and make sure we are helping women progress in their careers and getting women all the way up to leadership positions in the industry.”

Quite an ambitious goal, she agrees. Their first plan was to bring groups of like-minded women together, “there was no place for peer mentoring or education for inspiration for women in the creative industry” but plans evolved (as they do) and after Ale moved to the US and began to bring women together there, things really began to launch.

There are now chapters in different cities, with around 70,000 members worldwide.