South Africa, Aug. 27 -- I've read that stat block about six times now and I still don't know whether it's a good news story or a bad one. Maybe that's the point. Three different measures of progress, moving at three completely different speeds, and we tend to only talk about the one that's easiest to put in a slide.

So before another round of purple graphics and "proud to celebrate the women of..." posts lands in your feed today, I want to ask something less comfortable. What if the post is the easy part?

Agencies are genuinely good at proving campaign effectiveness for clients. We build entire decks around it. We are nowhere near as rigorous about proving the effectiveness of the systems that decide who actually gets to make the work ...