Gender Pay Gap: Part One

Wow. Are we ready to share this with you?

It’s been a long journey behind the scenes to bring our concept for a podcast to life. It’s a process we started way back in mid-2017 with applications for funding to the Arts Council. As with everything we create, it was vitally important that a young, diverse team were involved in the making of it and that they were paid properly for their involvement. For whatever reason, the Arts Council turned us down repeatedly, so last year we invested in a field recording kit and started to interview people for what has become a two-part episode on one of the most glaring and common inequalities in the job market, the gender pay gap.

A partnership with the University of Salford, through Audio for Media lecturer Simon Connor introduced us to three brilliant young producers with whom we’ve made these episodes. Ben Ovington and Fuchsia Summerfield have been with our editor-turned-host Alec in the studio and in the field to help with recording and the daunting task of editing down almost 12 hours of audio into these two, 30-minute episodes. Calvin Lanz has contributed another layer of edits, our originally composed soundtrack and mastered each episode. These three are set to remain our podcast team as we move to produce a six-episode first series in the coming months.

Our investigation into the gender pay gap was sparked last year by an email from Hannah Rottger, a student of Alec’s at the time. It intensified with Ruby Goss’ brilliant ‘Mind the Gap’ piece, which went to prove that there was a lot to be done before women were likely to see genuine equality in the workplace.

The intention of our move into podcasting, is to provide a space where we can dive deeper into the key issues in the world of creative work, empowering our listeners to make informed choices about their careers. We want to do this right, so don’t expect episodes consisting of single interviews, we pride ourselves on dynamic storytelling and presenting a range of perspectives. In this first episode, you’ll hear from Ruby Goss, Pip Jamieson, Abraham Asefaw, Madeline Grant, Imriel Morgan, Kirstie O’Mahony, Ellen Ling and Melanie Levick-Parkin. All in just over half an hour. Click the player below to take a listen, or search for ‘The Ladder’ on your favourite podcast app.

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The Ladder is brought to you by Squarespace who you can enjoy a 20% discount off any first time purchase with the code: INTERN and by Podcast.co who are a brilliant new Manchester-based startup who have everything you need to start telling your own stories in audio.