Women, Brands and Closing the Gender Gap - Getty Images' Lean In Collection

"For the last four years this has been true: the top three search terms that clients are using on Getty Images are woman, family and business in that order." - Pamela Grossman, Director of Visual Trends at Getty Images. This is very powerful information for strategic business marketing, but it means even more on a societal level. Pamela and Jessica Bennett, Contributing Editor for Lean In, recently discussed how visual media has often portrayed women at this year's Cannes Lions Festival.

Women are often sexualized or placed in less influential supporting roles within visual media. More specifically, Jessica points out how this happens within stock photography. Perceptions about gender and power are fortunately changing though, and this duo highlight some of the important ways this is happening within the video above. And this doesn't just include females. Men are also being represented by brands in new ways - especially by portraying dads who are emotional, affectionate and nurturing rather than playing authority roles or as "just the guys who get to play around with [their] kids" as Pamela points out. Because of this shift, Getty Images has started the Lean In Collection: described as, "a library of images devoted to the powerful depiction of women, girls and the people who support them." This was a join effort by Getty along with Sheryl Sandberg, founder of LeanIn.Org's women’s empowerment nonprofit. "The collection features over 2,500 images of female leadership in contemporary work and life" and a portion of the proceeds will help support grants for images of female empowerment along the LeanIn.Org mission, according to their website.

You can view the collection here and learn more about the grant program here.