The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has been detrimental to so many aspects of people’s lives. But perhaps nowhere has it had such a deep rooted and damaging impact as on women’s careers, and the gender pay gap.

Research from the Fawcett Society revealed that one third of working women have lost work or hours because of pandemic-related childcare issues. Working mothers are 47% more likely to lose their jobs during the pandemic, with an astonishing revelation announcing that women in their mid-30s will most likely never see equal pay unless work is done right now to tackle the gender pay gap.

To highlight the urgent attention that needs to be paid to the Gender Pay Gap, Rebecca Rowntree, freelance Creative Director and Host of the This Way Up podcast has launched a manifesto film, ‘We Are Not a Stereotype’. The minute long film features 38 women from across the design and creative industries, each framed in the Zoom box which has become such a signifier of the ongoing pandemic.

The women featured include Havas London’s CCO Vicki Maguire, Founder of the Dots Pip Jamieson and Laura Jordan Bambach, President and CCO of Grey London and Co-Founder of SheSays. There’s even a cameo from BITE’s own Nicola Kemp alongside her daughter. The words spoken over the imagery are voiced by the actor Roisin O’Mahony, including the call to arms, “let’s be seen, let’s be heard, so we can be a force to be reckoned with.”

The film’s aim is to create a greater awareness of the unique challenges that women face as well as highlighting the gender inequality that is still so pervasive in the workplace. Women are being encouraged to share their own stories using a specially designed Instagram filter that replicates the look of the film.

Rowntree said of the film: “I wrote this manifesto to create a new conversation around the gender pay gap, to dismantle damaging stereotypes and make womens’ careers more visible in the public eye. This is only the beginning and I hope to empower many women in the year to come by giving them a platform to share their stories through This Way Up.”

Films like this are a reminder of the unifying power of a collective voice. That when women speak as one, their voices cannot be silenced. It demonstrates that, by sharing individual stories, women can demonstrate that “we are not the difficult one, the emotional one or the bossy one.” They’re simply the ones with a story to tell and a narrative to shift.