Women and Photography

i71jskz5xu42pb

AnCatDubh wrote: »

I've just been reading a piece over on burn magazine where David Alan Harvey ponders that the Magnum agency has a disproportionate ratio of men to women in their photographer 'stock'.

It's not just photography, in pretty much everything (bar giving birth) men seem to dominate in terms of the top level. Off the top of my head: Music, Literature, Comedy, Drama, Business - all male dominated. Even areas that would have been traditionally female dominated are dominated by men - how many world famous female chefs can you name?

Why that is I've no idea.

AnCatDubh

Frederick Wooden Sentinel wrote: »

It's not just photography, in pretty much everything (bar giving birth) men seem to dominate in terms of the top level.

But this is the thing that I think many people aren't getting in this thread. From the opening post on this thread - David Alan Harvey from his years of experience at giving advanced workshops maintains that generally it is those of the female gender which are more creative and better equipped for being on the cutting edge - yet - that is very slow to translate into those that he sees coming through the doors of the Magnum agency and that he sees at the top levels (not that it doesn't happen - its just more likely that the male gender eventually comes up trumps).

So his pondering is that women (in general) are probably better equipped creatively and are more capable of getting to and operating at the bleeding edge of photography (all this in his own personal experience) but it doesn't appear to follow through to those that pursue the art.

Really what's biting me in all of this is that i'm wondering is the art (photography) actually worse off by this order of things?

All of this doesn't suggest that there aren't or can't be really great male photographers. Of course there can.

Silverfish

Its pretty simple.

When people get married and have kids, who in the majority of cases gives up their career, and returns to it when it has moved on long past their prior knowledge and ability?

It's usually females. And it's really not just with photography, there's a marked decline in females over 25 on average in many careers.


I'd say photography is worse off in the sense that there's less people than started out in general.

AnCatDubh

sineadw wrote: »

For what it's worth, I have a theory that's probably not going to go down very well about the gender imbalance here. Hear me out though :

Something I've noticed (a PERSONAL observation!!) on a lot of boards meets is that photographers tend to be quite a shy, socially awkward bunch. Not all, mind. But you can really see why some of them enjoy being on the sidelines at events, almost hiding behind their cameras. I've had this conversation with several other boardsies. I've just finished an interesting book which discussed the prevalence of extremely mild to moderate autistic tendencies in IT professionals. Its been discussed here many times how many of us here are also IT professionals. There is also a 5-1 ratio of males to females diagnosed with autism and its spectrum. Which is oddly enough, quite close to the poll results here. Maybe there's a correlation there? Maybe it IS that women tend to be more social and not need sites like this to interact? I don't mean men and women in general, just the more socially awkward ones.

Just wanted to throw that one in the mix. I'm not saying I believe it (so don't start jumping down my throat for diagnosing everyone here as autistic! - I don't mean that!) - its just something I've been thinking about and mulling over the last few days.

That is an amazing piece of theorising Sinead which i guess is so complex that it possibly is a study for someone's phd. Definite food for thought.

i71jskz5xu42pb

sineadw wrote: »

I'm not saying I believe it (so don't start jumping down my throat for diagnosing everyone here as autistic! - I don't mean that!) - its just something I've been thinking about and mulling over the last few days.

I'm an excellent driver.

elven

Oh dear. If anything was going to bring out the sweeping statements, it'd be this...

Women don't tend to spend the same amount of money on gear as men do, so their work, in general, does not often hit the lime-light.

Um, do you even have the slightest inclination of how to begin going about proving that could be anywhere near true? And even given the remotest possibility of it being factual, it's something of an ENORMOUS leap to go from "women don't spend on gear" to "women don't become famous photographers". When does the cost of your equipment have a bearing on how well you do?

and then there's this little gem:

women in general almost have a set style the all follow

I think it's the same as saying "photographers in general have a set style they all follow". It's difficult not to get ranty about that one.

I do think it's an interesting subject to consider, and discuss, but ffs think about what you're actually basing these broad generalisations on.

In my years of photographing which are not hugely numerous but enough to have seen the transition from film to mostly digital in the amateur realm, I've noticed a new type of photographer developing - the mum who starts off just wanting snapshots of her kids but ends up getting into photography in a more general way when she realises how she can be creative with it - or then even uses her experience with kids and connection with other parents to start doing it in a professional sense.

The availability of cheaper digital slrs has opened up the market to people like that who wouldn't have had the inclination to spend the time and money required when film+processing was involved.* But again, this is only a tiny section of photographers out there. You could give any particular scenario and come up with at least 10-20 examples to back it up as a standard of some sort, such is the huge number of people who name photography as their hobby or profession these days.

At the end of the day, we are social creatures and we fall into the pack mentality very easily. This means that when we gravitate towards others and start interacting in groups, we begin to adapt our behaviour to fit in with the group and this is where so many of the similar styles come from. When you tie that in with the common case of many women coming together in social groups maybe because they have similar lifestyles, inevitably gender gets held up as a major factor in their style.

There's no single answer here. It feels an awful lot like staring at clouds and looking for animal shapes...

*of course, there are going to be plenty of women who WERE into it anyway when this was true