Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis and Collision Hub TV

I can't even breath..... I'm so excited about tonight. 

Academy Award-winning actor Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is in Little Rock today to discuss the role of media in gender portrayal. Collision Hub TV will be there. While the statistics are bad across the board, we still struggle in the automotive industry. 

Every time I turn on Speed or Spike TV's Powerblock, I'm forced to see images of women with no knowledge of anything automotive hosting car shows. I walk trade shows and women in bikinis try to sell me wiper blades or headlamps.  Yes.... I'm over sensitive to the issue and I know it bothers me more then others. I just know what it's like to stand in a shop with my toolbox and talent and all anyone ever sees is the chick on posters taped to the wall and inside the toolboxes of my male peers. Then shop owners give me a laundry list of why they can't hire one of the women we've given a WIN scholarship to. 

So is there a solution? It's our responsibility to attract women to an industry that respects them in word and action. So, here's what I do. Collision Hub has always refused to accept sponsorships from companies that have run questionable ads or produced calendars of women. When I see someone in the collision repair industry run one of these ads or bring "booth babes" to a trade show I discuss it with them in person and send a note to their home office. I return trade magazines to editors with notes on the advertisements that I find offensive to women in our industry. 

You can do it to. Imagine offices flooded with our sticky notes! Imagine CEO's reading letters about a shop no longer using a product over an ad the marketing department released. We owe it to the future of our industry to have a trade press and work environment that focuses on the talents and contributions of women in the industry. This is why we do the Girl Scout project, Tools for Success and why we'll keep doing it year after year.