International Woman's Day: What it's like being a woman in the creative industry sector
Stacey Olika tells ITV News West Country what it's like "breaking into creative industries" as a woman, and representation within those industries.
It's International Women's Day celebrating the achievements of women around the world and raising awareness of where inequalities still exist.
Two women from creatives industries in Bristol and Plymouth have spoken to ITV News West Country about what it's like carving their own way in their industries.
In the creative sector, women are woefully underrepresented - making up just 36% of the total work force across the board.
There's nine official industries within the creative sector, and the film industry fares the worst within that sector - with only 16% of directors being women.
Only 20% of social media company CEOs are woman.
For national newspaper editors its 21%, and for museum and gallery chairs its 23%.
Stacey Olika is a digital designer from Bristol. For her, being creative is easy - but the journey so far has been difficult.
She told ITV News West Country: "As women we are empowering each other and we are carving our own lanes out for each other.
"We are making sure that we have specific spaces where we can actually thrive.
"I think especially as a Black woman we are really trying to nurture spaces that we can develop, we can grow, and create that visibility for ourselves because the world doesn't create that visibility for us in the first place."
Chi Bennett tells ITV News West Country how important it is to "push yourself forward" despite what others say.
Plymouth artist, Chi Bennett, works for an organisation which is "committed to being a diverse platform for literature, theatre and spoken word."
Despite statistics, she says the arts sector in Plymouth is a good place for women.
Chi told ITV News West Country: "I think within Plymouth, there are a lot of women working within the arts sector.
"There tends to be an underrepresentation of working class people, men and people from ethnic minority backgrounds."
Chi works for Wonderzoo, and says they're trying to "break down barriers".
She said: "We work with people like Plymouth Octopus Project, racial equality council and Pride In Plymouth and we really try to create an inclusive organisation that reaches diverse audience so possibly the art world might be hard to break into as a woman but certainly we are trying to be progressive and break down those barries and make that a non-issue."
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