Interesting article on sexism in photography.

Phil V said:
My son was bought a mug the other Christmas by his ‘colleagues’ and line manager (several women in their 50’s, he was in his mid 20’s) the slogan on the mug ‘best bum in the world’ o_O
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Quite agree (this is completely inappropriate) Phil ... while the working environment should be relaxed where possible ... there should (IMO) be strict lines between what is professional and what is personal relationships.

I can’t think of any workplace where a group of older men would think that was an appropriate gift for a young female colleague. In fact I can’t think of a situation where all the men wouldn’t have been reprimanded. :police:
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Hmmmm ... you've not been reading the news from Westminster over the last few weeks then?

Why is a ‘dirty old man’ a disgusting thing but a ‘cougar’ is a badge of honour in modern society?
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I'm not sure it is ... but then theres always been different terms depending on your status. Its only a step from "cougar" to "milf"; and equally its a small step from "sugar daddy" to "dirty old man". A woman who dates a lot is a slut; a man who dates a lot is a stud. All depends your point of view. Any predatory behaviour is bad in my book from males or females.

Back to the "sexism" topic (in its wider sense) what is interesting is that in many ways as there has become more equality; it turns out men and women act in similar way. So we're all just humans with power or with a lack of power.

(PS. yes I know I said I wouldn't comment again ... I changed my mind okay!). :)
 
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Eloise said:
(PS. yes I know I said I wouldn't comment again ... I changed my mind okay!). :)
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That's OK, it's expected from women. ;)

:coat:
 
cambsno said:
Two wrongs don't make a right though, although I do find it strange why people will not go for the best. In all the recruitment I have done (and it must be over 50 by now) it has always been the best person for the job - these days there is so much pressure in the commercial world that by not going for the best person you are setting yourself to fail (and possibly lose your own job!).

Now there are caveats - it can be hard to determine between candidates so naturally personal rapport will come into it. So even with the best intentions we will warm to certain types of people and if you are working closely together that is an important requirement. I know that I was successful in interview once despite being weaker in certain skills, because the line manager thought I would fit in better and just preferred to work with me based on rapport. I believe that the other person was similar (I,e white middle age male) so no issue of discrimination but it could look like that?
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Some people don't even get to the interview stage, because they have a foreign sounding name or are the wrong gender. You might not do it, and I'm sure its not as prevalent as it was, but don't kid yourself it doesn't still happen.
 
jakeblu said:
Some people don't even get to the interview stage, because they have a foreign sounding name or are the wrong gender. You might not do it, and I'm sure its not as prevalent as it was, but don't kid yourself it doesn't still happen.
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And as I posted much earlier, the better and larger employers don’t only train staff in ‘unconscious bias’ before they get to interview people but at the written application stage strip out all personal details from applications, so a panel gets to read completely anonymised evidence.
 
From my own experience there is no sexism in my trade.
It's all male. (most of them are probably sexist)
So, photography could be better, but it's not the worst.

On the news today - Sarah Clarke is the First female Black Rod...
 
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Eloise said:
YES ... AND THAT IS SEXISM You call it profiling, but it is making assumptions based on someones gender (or colour or general appearance).

The statements you and David are making are just reinforcing the assumptions you and others already hold; and they are the kind of statements which make women feel unwanted. Its like the argument that The Sun only prints what its readers want to read ... it does to a certain extent, but in reading that their (sometimes negative) views are reinforced. A self perpetuating thought. I believe psychologists would call it normalising thinking.

As I commented to David above ... the situation also happens when a male / female couple walk in together ... its the man the salesman often directs attention to even when the woman is the one actually interested in the camera.

Please not, I'm not suggesting it happens all the time, but it does happen enough that it is still an issue.

(On the cheerful side it does mean salesmen are less likely to crawl all over you with the hard sell :)

I think you lost part of your sentence there so I've completed it with what I assume you were saying.

I wasn't intending to suggest your statement was wrong - what I was saying was that statements like that perpetuate the "sexist" myth that only (or predominately) men are interested in photography. I'm not suggesting that YOU personally feel that way; but it is a background thought which perpetuates and so influences people. I'm not saying that the answer is that 50% of all photographers should be female - as this thread has said perhaps there legitimately is a (say) 60/40 split in male/female interest in photography - but you cannot dismiss the fact that there is a sexist undertone in the photographic industry (which is what the original linked article was saying).
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If you had read my post I said that if (based on that scenario) women seemed to be more into cameras then men I would approach the woman first, so I am not looking at making a woman feel unwanted. You could change the male female thing to anything. If people with glasses liked cameras more I would approach them first. Oh, and I was assuming that these were separate people and not walking in together.
 
There can be no reason why either sex can be more accomplished due to their gender alone. In some quarters there is favouritism, we all lose because of this.
Whenever or wherever I encounter sexism, I'm dissapointed, embarassed and at a loss. We see it constantly in sport, from the BBC, Sky sports etc, it's a disgrace yet seems to be acceptable!
cheers
tony
 
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Durbs said:
Just backing up slightly - do you not think it's rather pertinent that the DIET coke ads were primarily targeted at women? Whereas full-fat coke is more neutral.

Coca Cola: Google Image Search
Diet Coke: Google Image Search
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Which makes sense based on people I know. The women I know are more likely to be diet or health conscious than the men I know so aiming that messsge makes sense based on that.
 
Durbs said:
Just backing up slightly - do you not think it's rather pertinent that the DIET coke ads were primarily targeted at women? Whereas full-fat coke is more neutral.

Coca Cola: Google Image Search
Diet Coke: Google Image Search
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Equality doesn't mean men and women are identical in everything. We should treat each other properly and fairly, but not always the same.
 
ancient_mariner said:
And in some areas that will almost certainly cause an outcry.
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Haha yes. It's an inescapable fact of life that sometimes gets overlooked.

True story. My wife works in cosmetics, and some of them are bluddy expensive. Couples often come in, and she will always approach the woman even though the man will sometimes pay - she is the real customer. Anyway, a couple came in and, long story short, she chose £700 of stuff. He goes to pay, and then it transpires that they're not a couple after all, but brother and sister, and he wanted a duplicate set for his wife.

£1400 later, and everyone was happy. Did anyone do wrong?
 
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Most of the posts on this thread are highlighting the role of bias (unconscious or not) at the recruitment stage. That's a well known problem and a lot of industries have training on unconscious bias and use blind shortlisting techniques to reduce its effect.

The major problem that still needs to be addressed is that of privilege. How do you represent a society where not everyone has the social and family network of people in the industry to call on, the educational disparity, the financial disparity, the unconscious bias against them.... A lot of the intern jobs of the past at the big media organisations are vanishing because they've noticed the problems they cause - unpaid internships in a large city can only really be funded by a certain section of society, so that section dominates and the breadth of knowledge and experience diminishes.

University programs and entry level jobs are becoming quite representative of the population as a whole, the higher you get up the food chain, the more homogenised the industry becomes.
 
Faldrax said:
I have a friend who works as an HR director, who within the past year had to tell the other interviewer he could not ask that specific question to a candidate.
We were all a bit surprised when she told us, but it appears that photography is a shining example of equality compared to the shipping industry!
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I'm in the shipping industry. Have been for nigh on 20 years. It's massively dominated in the male direction. Doesn't bother me at all. I'm good at what I do, and my current employer new that before I was interviewed.
I wouldn't, however, recommend any female wanting to work in a "PC" environment, to choose it as a career choice. :D
 
st599 said:
1) Having models on lighting stands
2) Having dodgy blokes trying to take their photo
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Why are men who wish to take photographs of attractive women (who chose their career, and are paid for it), perceived as dodgy?
I don't understand that, especially in terms of trade shows.
 
viv1969 said:
Why are men who wish to take photographs of attractive women (who chose their career, and are paid for it), perceived as dodgy?
I don't understand that, especially in terms of trade shows.
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Why do you need a model on a stand? I've seen them flogging HDMI leads. It's crass and something the female attendees at shows I've been to complain vociferously about.

If I'm buying lighting, I'm interested in it's visual spectrum, it's power output, it's robustness.... Not the model standing around doing nothing.

As for dodgy, if you attend the NEC show, I'm sure you'll understand the stereotype. Wearing all their camera gear, swarming to create scrum conditions around any young female, massive zoom lens shooting at ISO 64000, bickering amongst themselves, no interest in the equipment or techniques being displayed, just after a photo with a hint of flesh tone in it.
 
It amazes me when stands at shows of scientific equipment use pretty models to occupy the stands: "OK, so tell me about the performance of your freeze dryer" "Sorry, but I don't know anything".

Normally I pooh-pohh most claims of sexism, but I recently watched a video demonstrating the 'cool new' features of Windows 10 Creators edition. They had 2 guys who were involved in generating the software and 2 girls whose role was to ask leading questions and then stand open-mouthed in 'amazement' at the wonderful things the software could do. Really? Nuts. No wonder they say the tech industry has a problem with sexism.
 
I have many male and female artists I love to isten to in the music world, to suggest one is better than the other because of their sex is ridiculous, I feel it has to be the same with photography. I thought real artists appreciated each other for what they produce regardless of their sex! If there are more men than women photographers perhaps it's for different reasons, seems a shame though.
cheers
 
flavio said:
I have many male and female artists I love to isten to in the music world, to suggest one is better than the other because of their sex is ridiculous, I feel it has to be the same with photography. I thought real artists appreciated each other for what they produce regardless of their sex! If there are more men than women photographers perhaps it's for different reasons, seems a shame though.
cheers
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But men and women generally do things differently, including making music and writing stories. Generally, though not absolutely, I prefer books written by men and music performed by men: that's not suggesting women can't write or make music as well as men, but they bring their own way of doing things. And that's as it should be. And I should be allowed my preference without being considered sexist for it.

As for photographers, I doubt I could tell a photo taken by a woman from one taken by a man.
 
What an interesting thread this is. I had deliberately kept quiet about my gender on here, but lately I have wondered why, and thought it was time to open up.

So, I'm female... I kept it quiet because I didn't want it to make a difference. Now I realise, it probably won't.

I went along to a camera club with a couple of (male) friends from another club, as we were thinking of changing clubs. Mid conversation, the Chairman broke off and said 'excuse me, but I need to tell the men about the competitions'... I was astounded.

I now understand most women were there because they were accompanying their men. He had assumed I was the partner of one of my male friends and therefore they were the photographers, not me. Very, very wrong. We laughed about it in the pub afterwards.

I went on to win the first competition I entered with a triptych of an American truck. The shock when they discovered it was my photo - so funny. I didn't even think about the subject I submitted, but even one of the women said she had thought it was a man's photo. I also came second with a triptych of flowers... and went home with a smile on my face.

I don't think it's sexist to have 'general' preferences. I agree you can often tell if a book has been written by a man or a woman.

Mostly I think TP is a place where people are treated with respect and gender is irrelevant. Thanks everyone (y)
 
Bebop said:
What an interesting thread this is. I had deliberately kept quiet about my gender on here, but lately I have wondered why, and thought it was time to open up.

So, I'm female... I kept it quiet because I didn't want it to make a difference. Now I realise, it probably won't.
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And that's great. :D
 
I don't know about people being treated with respect, but I think the vast majority of people are courteous, considerate and polite on here, unless the banter gets out of hand or a comment is taken the wrong way. I like the bit above about a photo of a truck being perceived as a 'man's photo'! What's a woman's photo going to be of then, a sweet little kitten or a 'chocolate box lid' thatched cottage with roses round the door'? Does this perhaps say more about the average age group of some camera clubs... or is that being 'ageist' ? :confused: Then again, to be honest, I get a bit tired of 'ist' type labels; when it comes to photography it's the end result that should be looked at and commented on, not the person that took it, regardless of age, gender, mobility, race, religion, length of hair, choice of clothing, body decorations, accent and all those other things that humans may get intentionally, unintentionally or subliminally 'judged' on. That's what I like about photography, the subject matter is as wide as the known universe, and I don't think it should matter who took the photo because a good photo speaks for itself... and that's all that needs to be said. (y)
 
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Personally @Bebop I feel there’s not enough women on forums, I’d like to see a more even balance so we could talk some more about photography rather than gear.
 
Phil V said:
Personally @Bebop I feel there’s not enough women on forums, I’d like to see a more even balance so we could talk some more about photography rather than gear.
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Isn’t that sexist to assume women don’t like talking about gear?
 
Eloise said:
Isn’t that sexist to assume women don’t like talking about gear?
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No. I never suggested women don’t like talking about gear. I do believe that male photographers are more likely to be gearheads, that’s not sexist, it’s an observation based on years of evidence. My Mrs shoots as much as I do, and even though I’d not describe myself as a gearhead, in comparison to her I am, she’s much more interested in results than equipment or settings.
 
This is just the sort of thing I meant about 'ist' labels. The pendulum swings from one extreme to another and then 'perpetrator' (however witting or unwitting) becomes the 'oppressed minority', then it swings back again, and each time it swings it can cause injury and damage to things in its path. As I said, let the photograph speak for itself. If people want to know how a photo has been taken, by whom, and with what, then they can look at the details supplied with the image or ask. In the end, other than to satisfy mild curiosity, does it actually matter who took the bloody thing or with what?!
 
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Eloise said:
Sorry I intended my comment to come across as tongue in cheek and I failed.
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I usually use an emoticon such as ;) in an effort to defuse a potential lynching (sometimes unsuccessfully!). :D

However, they say there's many a true word spoken in jest and, if nothing else, I think this probably shows how sensitive and uncomfortable the gender topic is becoming. So before we all spend the rest of our lives navel gazing and forming focus groups to dictate how we speak to our fellow humans lest we unintentionally offend anyone, why don't we just carry on as best we can and apologise to anyone we upset on the way whilst being ourselves? On the other hand, we can wait until the technology becomes available and submit ourselves to become androids who are programmed never to say the wrong thing, ever... and what a bloody boring world that would probably be! :(
 
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He he - the trouble is @Phil V the equipment section is probably the one I visit most :eek::D but I know I'm probably a bit odd, and I agree that generally men are more interested in technical things than women. Perhaps the women who participate in the forums are more likely to be those that enjoy the technical side of photography?

Many years ago I used to teach physics to 11-18 year olds. It was fascinating to watch the difference in the 14 year olds during practical sessions. Whether nurture over the years might make a difference, I'm not sure, but I think there is a fundamental difference in the sexes.... we just have to embrace our similarities and differences and teach our kids that anything is possible.

@Mr Badger - You are right, I have seen a few heated discussions on here. I avoid them... like a girl :LOL: Also you are correct about the age of the people in the camera club. There are lots more women in it now, which helps.
 
Wilson has shot for the industry’s top magazines, including Allure, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and international editions of Elle, Esquire, GQ, Vogue, and Glamour. American Express, Opening Ceremony, and HBO have used her work as well.

“It’s really very sexist if you’re not a white man,” she says.
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For someone who is discriminated against because of her gender and appearance, she seems to have worked for some extremely prestigious publications and companies.

Although photography remains slightly male-dominated — the National Endowment for the Arts estimates that 55.2 percent of photographers are men — women are peppered throughout its history.
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It would be interesting to know whether the remaining 44.8% who are women photographers included those who were possibly taking career breaks to have children.
 
Interesting article.
I was surprised that a company like Nikon would try to alienate 50% of the population with their PR campaign a few months ago.
 
Nikon have a particularly gifted skill for screwing up their PR and marketing messages.
 
ancient_mariner said:
For someone who is discriminated against because of her gender and appearance, she seems to have worked for some extremely prestigious publications and companies.
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At whatever level you work at you can face discrimination.
It would be interesting to know whether the remaining 44.8% who are women photographers included those who were possibly taking career breaks to have children.
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Interesting how you then ignore the next comment...
“not only do more men work as photographers than women, but women only earn 74 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make.“​
 
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