By Ann Marie Kerwin for Ad Age. Originally published August, 2016.
LET’S TALK ABOUT “difficult” women. Let’s talk about why women get labeled “difficult.” Let’s talk about what topics (sex, money, power) women talk about that make men uncomfortable. Let’s talk about what good girls do, and what good girls don’t.
And let’s note that women are fully grown humans with opinions and bank accounts and sex lives and not “girls,” and therefore should no longer be expected to follow outdated do’s and don’ts.
Let’s talk about Cindy Gallop.
Have you heard of Cindy? Of course you have.
Cindy Gallop is a former ad agency executive—and we’re not talking VP at some fly-by-night shop, but more on that in a bit.
Cindy Gallop is the woman who took over much of the chatter in Cannes with her tweets excoriating VaynerMedia and Thrillist for a party invite demanding that women send their pictures before they would be approved as a guest.
Cindy Gallop is the woman who started a website designed to sexually “reeducate, rehabilitate, and reorient” a younger generation raised on porn, this after she started dating men her junior and was disturbed by their proclivities. The name of that site is MakeLoveNotPorn.com. And if you think the name is striking, consider that Cindy Gallop stood up at a Ted talk in 2009 and, among other things, said this: “Actually no, thank you very much, I would much rather you didn’t come on my face.”
And Cindy Gallop is the woman who some would say got Saatchi & Saatchi Chairman Kevin Roberts ousted. Of course, Mr. Roberts ousted himself with his own action and words. But maybe his declaration that the gender debate in the ad industry “is fucking over” would have just been a tempest in a teapot if it hadn’t been for Cindy Gallop throwing the discussion over to her 46,000-plus Twitter followers, among them brand and agency heavyweights like Pepsico’s Brad Jakeman, DDB’s Wendy Clark and JPMorgan Chase’s Kristin Lemkau.
Cindy Gallop is the woman who tagged Saatchi in a tweet after Mr. Roberts resigned to say that she was available to fill that role, and just so there was no issue of gender parity, she’d take the same annual salary of $4.1 million.
Cindy Gallop is a communicator, an extraordinarily compelling and direct communicator, who’s got a very clear message for the mostly white men sitting atop the advertising industry and overseeing the majority of creative departments: You need to start listening to people other than other white men if you want to own the future.
Maybe that makes you uncomfortable?
As Cindy Gallop would say, GET OVER IT.
Hooked? Thought so. Head over to Ad Age to read the rest of this amazing profile on MLNP founder, Cindy Gallop!
