For Men Only

[cowanw]

In the 1910's there were 3500 professional female photographers in the USA; many owned the studios.
In the 1920's 45% of Camera club participants were female.

[Chris Nielsen]

I can't believe this thread, honestly. Who gives a rats ass what gender someone is when they are out making art? I know people of both genders who love tech stuff, just as I know people of both genders who are not.

Lets all get out there and make art and welcome everyone and anyone who is interested in shooting, film especially.

[perkeleellinen]

I thought David's original question was interesting enough but then the thread has produced some very dubious assertions based on partial observations that seem to be focused upon work or study environments. I think people are good at spotting things that confirm their beliefs and good at ignoring things that refute them.

This is probably why the myth that men = empirical/technical, women = irrational/artistic persists.

For the record, I'm a man who quit chemistry at school as early as possible because it was too hard (chickened out), I shoot only with natural light and I've just washed up and put our boy to bed. My wife's at work and earlier she did some work toward her maths degree.

[sly]

I also offer one huge reason why many believe women have little interest in learning the technical aspects - from an early age in school, girls are usually pushed towards the house stuff and boys are pushed towards the scientific and outside stuff. Studies have shown that this leads towards both sexes believing that girls don't understand the technical parts as well (just read an article yesterday, in fact). In school, boys are usually the ones who speak up, not the girls. Girls are taught to be quiet and listen. Boys are taught that being raucous is fine. Women who are used to being around groups of men can usually dish it out as well as take it, and will stand up for themselves (as we're seeing here). Just because you think women are shying away from the technical stuff by not posting relentlessly about it, doesn't mean we don't like the technical part. More women do need to be pushed towards science in school - any of you with girls had better be thinking about this, too. It takes overcoming a social bias, though. And apparently a world-wide one.

Amen. I have two grand daughters. I've been paying attention in the toy stores. "Science" themed toys have pictures of boys on them, or maybe a boy doing the activity and a girl watching. There are some "girl" versions of popular toys that encourage science and engineering skills - they are coloured pink and purple, feature flowers or kittens, and are dumbed down (ie fewer moving parts).
Hard to believe these attitudes are still so pervasive and insidious.

[batwister]

Leaving the gear (or 'junk') point alone for a sec, there might be more notable women in photography than homosexual men...?

A point of interest however; Minor White (the homosexual man and great photographer) said film is "seemingly inert yet pregnant with possibilities".

In my experience, women like getting things done, men like thinking about getting things done - hence male dominated forums full of pontificating.

[winger]

Amen. I have two grand daughters. I've been paying attention in the toy stores. "Science" themed toys have pictures of boys on them, or maybe a boy doing the activity and a girl watching. There are some "girl" versions of popular toys that encourage science and engineering skills - they are coloured pink and purple, feature flowers or kittens, and are dumbed down (ie fewer moving parts).
Hard to believe these attitudes are still so pervasive and insidious.

Yes! I have a 3 year old son and two nieces. Most of the "boy" toys need putting together or are designed for that to be the fun part (blocks, Legos, small motorized things) - very gadget oriented. The "girl" toys have flowers, fashion, pink, princesses and are already to use - no putting together. They came out with a Lego something aimed at girls and it's PINK. I do believe a girl complained about it being pink, too.
As a child, I played with my brother's Legos, climbed trees, and rode my bike all over town - I've never been a "girly girl". But I felt a fair amount of pressure from my female cousins and some classmates to want to play with Barbie dolls.

There's a lot of this issue that's really got more to do with nurture than nature - and I don't think many people realize that.

[BrianShaw]

Amen. I have two grand daughters. I've been paying attention in the toy stores. "Science" themed toys have pictures of boys on them, or maybe a boy doing the activity and a girl watching. There are some "girl" versions of popular toys that encourage science and engineering skills - they are coloured pink and purple, feature flowers or kittens, and are dumbed down (ie fewer moving parts).
Hard to believe these attitudes are still so pervasive and insidious.

I work in a cutting-edge high-tech science-and-technology environment and can assure you that depite those stereotypes the number of women in science and technology is quite large in number. And, believe me, none of them just got there on their good looks... they are just as hard working and competent as the men. If one looks at the scientist/engineer popualtion of my company by age it is clear that the older folks are mostly men. As the older folks retire and are replaced there is much greater gender and racial diversity. Sure, part of that is programmed by "selective HR practices" but in general anyone hired really has the skills to do the job. What really makes life hard is when folks count numbers of women, minorities, etc and talk about that instead of talking about skills, experience, and technology (as JBrunner pointed out earlier).

[Alan W]

And now on to gun shows-I've never been to one myself but can't help wondering if they're full of men.

[Greg Davis]

No, they aren't.

[Vaughn]

You all need to go out and make images, use that equipment !

Did it! Got a late start (yacking here in the morning, then stopped by the darkroom to start the prep for pouring some carbon tissue tonight), but did get out and make two exposures of one image (4x10). First one at f64 for 30 minutes and the other at F45 for a hour. Wandered around during the exposures, laid down for a while on the forest floor listening to the rain (not much coming down to the ground) with the sound of the creek and the ocean in the far background.

Light was flucuating a little. I was going to do make another image -- full frame 8x10, but as it was already 4:30 when I finished the last one, the light would have died before I got enough light on the film. I'll develop the film tonight (got a couple sheets of 8x10 of my boys at the beach a couple days ago to do, too). Then I need to decide if I want to try to print tonight also -- but might just save that for tomorrow.

One of the reasons I quit the US Forest Service was because advancement possibilities dropped considerably due to court-ordered (well-deserved, too) preference toward women. Thank the goddess for that! I loved being out in the wilderness building trails, etc, but was not looking forward to moving more into office work.