There’s a new social media trend doing the rounds, reclaiming the term Women in SPAM: Social, Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing. Part tongue-in-cheek, part cultural reframing, it’s about taking ownership of a label that was often dismissed or trivialised and reframing it as a source of influence, creativity and commercial power. It’s a reminder that the industries shaping culture, reputation and public conversation have long been driven by talented women, even if they haven’t always been recognised for it.
The gendering of professions is certainly nothing new. In fact, it’s probably one of the oldest social norms. Entire industries and career paths have historically been coded as either masculine or feminine, often with very real implications for how seriously they’re taken, how well they’re paid and how much authority they’re afforded.
Communications is an interesting example in this because it oscillates between those perceptions constantly. Depending on both the era and the specific discipline within the field, communications has at different times been seen as either strategic and influential or frivolous and performative, powerful or fluffy, executive or decorative.
A lot of us will recognise versions of the same tired memes. The “social media girlies” interrupting the hardworking colleagues (most of the time depicted as men) with the “real jobs” to ask them to pose for a reel while everyone else tries to get work done. Or the TikTok choreography stereotype with women in content creation dancing around the office while the “serious business ©” happens elsewhere.
While these jokes might look harmless enough on the surface, they reveal something deeper about how communications work is still perceived, where creative and visible work, particularly when associated with women, is often treated as inherently less strategic, less technical or less commercially valuable than roles seen as more operational or analytical.
But interestingly, these trends are also coexisting with a very different evolution of communications and marketing at the moment. Particularly during Covid when many businesses had no choice but to realise the existential importance of clear internal communications, reputation management and digital engagement, and now again with the rise of AI, communications has started undergoing another identity shift.
Industry data from organisations like the CIPR and PRCA shows our sector slowly moving from a clear female majority towards something much closer to gender parity, with male representation steadily increasing in recent years. Alongside this demographic change, we now suddenly have job titles like “Brand Engineer”, “Reputation Architect” or “Narrative Strategist” popping up everywhere. Titles that feel deliberately designed to signal complexity, gravitas, influence and commercial value. And to probably no one’s surprise, the more men seem to join comms the more these new titles appear.
All of this points toward something important, something that is news to absolutely no one working in communications: words matter.
Visibility cannot happen without language. After all, you cannot meaningfully identify, discuss or mobilise around something that has no collective term attached to it.
That’s what makes the emergence of Women in SPAM feel so significant. Coined by Manchester-based OG Woman in SPAM Laura Cameron, the term started gaining traction online a few weeks ago and has already struck a chord with women across communications and creative industries around the world. Just like Women in STEM emerged to make visible the gender disparities, barriers and achievements within science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Women in SPAM now has the potential to do something similar for communications fields.
Not because women in comms are invisible, far from it, but because visibility alone is not the same thing as recognition. The latest PRCA census shows this quite starkly: women make up 53% of the PR and communications workforce overall, yet men still outnumber women in every salary band above £80,000, which says a lot about who continues to hold the most influence once seniority, strategy and commercial power enter the conversation.
A collective term creates identity. It creates community. It gives people a way to recognise themselves as part of something bigger, and that recognition is often the first step towards collective power. And importantly, in this case it’s doing so without making us smaller. While the terms #marketinggirlies and #commsgirlies absolutely served a purpose as a first point of collective identification within the industry for many of us, there’s something fitting about the shift towards finally referring to ourselves as women instead: more expansive, more grounded and harder to dismiss.
Even the echo to actual spam feels oddly fitting, like a little self-aware reclaiming of the realities of communications work with a touch of whimsy thrown in too. Because whether it’s on socials, billboards, pitching to media or keeping projects, clients and deadlines in line, a huge amount of our work does involve following up, nudging, circling back and keeping momentum alive. We are, in many ways, the professional follow-uppers of the corporate world, project-managing chaos, deadlines, approvals and competing priorities into something coherent and impactful. Intentional spamming? Maybe sometimes. But strategically and impactfully, and always in service of getting stuff done.
Personally, one of my favourite things about this trend is also the cultural references being used to illustrate it. The imagery currently surrounding Women in SPAM as a concept across socials is, for once, not rooted in condescension but in aspiration. Most of the posts currently discussing this topic are depicting the female powerhouses of 90s and 00s TV that shaped the collective imagination of what a career in influence and persuasion could look like for so many of us growing up back then: Samantha Jones, C.J. Cregg, Andie Anderson, Peggy Olson, Olivia Pope, Miranda Priestly. Characters who absolutely dominated in high-pressure, male-dominated spaces while still holding space for femininity – and not the sanitised, palatable version of femininity either but the real thing: sharp, emotionally intelligent, ambitious, complex, powerful.
Recently, London-based SPAM pro Sophie Curr wrote a great piece for PR Week saying she hopes the term is here to stay. I couldn’t agree more. I want to see so much more of this. More celebration of communications as strategic work. More recognition of the women shaping culture, reputation, public discourse and business outcomes every single day. More ownership of the influence this industry actually holds and a stronger delineation for our collective.
But I also don’t think we can leave it up to chance or the algorithm gods to decide whether this trend sticks. If anyone understands the power of organised momentum, it’s communications professionals. If we want Women in SPAM to follow in the footsteps of Women in STEM, we’ll have to build it into existence ourselves.
Luckily for us, building brands up is kind of our thing. So let’s get to work.
