PR Girls and PR Boys
An interesting discussion took place in one of my classes the other day with regards to the number of females in public relations. I don’t remember how the conversation started, but it is one that I have heard before.
In our class of 25 public relations students, four of them are male. As any PR student knows, this isn’t uncommon. If anything, four is a little high. Still, I always wonder why this is.
Recent statistics show that 70% of PR practitioners are female. This is up from 50.1% in 1980 and 41% in 1979. Based on those numbers, the trend is obvious. One could argue that this increase has occurred in many sectors over the past forty years and is not restricted to public relations. Still, 70% is quite high.
For forty minutes, students in my class argued over the various reasons why females make up the bulk of public relations practitioners.