Jean Grow is a constant advocate for hearing the voices of underrepresented people in advertising. Here are her thoughts on inappropriate advances, “These acts are assaults, they’re acts of power and assault against women.”
Last Monday, I rolled out my first series of panel discussions featuring women business owners mentioned in my book, Surrounded by Awesome Women: Unlocking a New Model of Women’s Success in Business and Entrepreneurship for the Next Decade. During the first discussion, we delved into the value of mentorship, dealing with adversity as your business grows, and giving yourself grace when you cannot do it all. Over the course of the conversation, how women must pivot their business because of inappropriate behavior by clients was mentioned.
A few days later, I moderated a different panel of women business owners. We discussed steps companies could take to ensure adequate policies regarding equal pay and family leave were being utlized allowing women to feel respected at work. As dignity and respect were mentioned repeatedly, several women in the room mentioned how they had experienced inappropriate advances and physical assaults by a few male counterparts over the years. These instances occurred both in a company setting and while running their own businesses.
The business owners listened to how other women grappled with the same predicament they had. They were exasperated about how, with no human resource department to assist a new women-owned business, they must walk away from these clients. Everyone wanted the same answer, how can women grow businesses when there are no checks and balances in place to ensure basic human resource infractions, such as inapproprate touching and assaults, do not occur?
In both of these panels, there was one similarity, one women business owner agreed to sit on both of them. This woman is a constant advocate for hearing the voices of underrepresented people in advertising. Her name is Jean Grow and she embodies courage. Below is her story.
Jean’s Career as an Artists’ Rep
While writing this book, Jean Grow was introduced to me because she created a neighborhood book club to talk about racism. Jean had recently taken advantage of an early retirement offer after a twenty-year career as a professor and, in the last year, co-director of Marquette University’s Institute for Women’s Leadership. I was excited to get to meet Jean, who was pivoting to diversity, equity, and inclusion work, focused on the advertising industry where she had some unfinished business. As she experienced roadblocks because she is a woman, Jean aims to create a different scenario.
Jean’s Career as an Artists’ Rep
In the 1980s, Jean entered the established, male-dominated advertising world selling artists’ photography, film, and illustration to advertising agencies. She grew her business with illustrators on both coasts, providing access to the Midwest market, while based out of Chicago. She recalled, “Literally every single client that I ever had, every art director or creative director who I ever worked with, was a white male.” Jean recalled when dealing with men in the advertising industry, she normalized the unspoken rules about some “inappropriate behavior.”
Although this behavior clearly did not extend to all her clients, Jean persevered and continued to build her business. She didn’t want to listen to people who told her she shouldn’t try and that all of the work should go to the men. Jean knew people with great talent with whom she would work. Her unpleasant experiences dealing with some men were not uncommon. She decided she would just have to deal with it when men tried to grab her and make sure they didn’t: “Why didn’t I have the right to get that business as much as anybody else?”
A key client for Jean was a design firm, responsible for roughly 30 to 40 percent of her business. Jean worked with one of the partners who was a very “famous” designer. She recalled, “He was kind of known to be a lecherous human. He was always, always grabbing (someone), everybody knew what he did. That’s the other thing, like this stuff is not shocking, it is ‘normal.’”
She had worked with this client for about four years, and he gave her a lot of work: “He was my best client. And over the years I had learned how to handle him. I knew where to stand in a room so that I could protect myself. I always knew where the doors were. I knew when to end the conversation. I learned how to manage dealing with him when I had to deal with him, and still get work out of him.”
One day, Jean met him for lunch, and, at the end of lunch, he put a hotel room key on the table between their two cups of coffee. She sat there stunned: “It was really a depressing moment.”
When she saw the key, Jean knew she had to walk away from the business, four years of work, which she had so diligently built. She recalled, “Obviously in that moment, you realize that you have to make a decision. So, obviously, I got up and walked away.”
After the depression and shock wore off, Jean was furious. She never dealt with this client or his company again. “He never called to give me work again and then, you know, it was pointless for me to pursue it. There are unspoken rules and I, I knew full well what the next step was if I wanted more work.”
Jean had been groomed by this man, or possibly by the industry. Not only Jean was groomed, but so was her family. He had “pretended to be friends with my husband as well. We knew his family, and the children.” Jean knows the behavior she had to tolerate then still goes on, though it is less common.
Jean’s Defense in Defense of Women
A year later, Jean closed up her business and moved from Chicago, taking a corporate job in another state. A few years later, she pursued her PhD in mass communication and her research agenda always focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her last big project focused on interviewing critical women and men who were instrumental in the Time’s Up revelations in the advertising industry.
Jean explained her feelings about what women often have to tolerate in the workplace being rooted in sexism:
“It is not about being inappropriate and they would only do it with people they don’t know. This whole idea that it’s always a woman’s fault or you look some way, or they would not have done it if they had known your family. That is the biggest lie. These acts are assaults, they’re acts of power and assault against women. It is not because you look good or you’re attracting them. It’s like blaming women for rape because they wear short dresses.”
As a professor, Jean challenged her students to see the world of advertising more honestly. For some, that was a welcome message. They describe Jean as one who “makes a lasting impact on your life” and others who use such incredible words as dedicated, passionate, motivational, honest, and inspirational. One even called her a “rare jewel.” I can sure see why.
Jean is now the founder and chief truth teller at Grow, a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) consultancy found online under her name, Jean Grow. As Grow targets small to midsize advertising agencies and marketing firms, she continues to fight for equity for women as she pushes for increased diversity and inclusion across the industry. Jean is one of our heroes.
Information taken from my book, Surrounded by Awesome Women: Unlocking a New Model of Women’s Success in Business and Entrepreneurship for the Next Decade by Sheila Long and published by New Degree Press.
Sexual-harassment happens. Institutional betrayal happens. Institutional courage is the solution. Pulling back the curtain on these issues is hard work but by acknowledging them, we no longer walk in darkness and, in doing so, empower others to make similar choices. Let’s build the momentum and help women own their courage. Please reach out to discuss next steps for a book club, onsite discussion, or presentation after reading my book.
