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In the darkroom classes I took at the Danforth Museum School in Framingham, MA in the late 90s/early '00s, the women outnumbered the men in every class (I think I took about 10-12 sessions). In a couple of sessions, the only male was the instructor. In some, there were no males. In a class I took at RISD (also darkroom), there was one guy and 4 women, taught by a woman.
I can't say I'm completely not into gear, but the end result of the photo is not as dependent on the nitty gritty details of the film/developer combo to me. I see a large number of posts on every photo forum discussing little tiny differences between images that the VAST majority of observers would never notice or care about. I sorta see these things as the "guy" things of photography (I'll admit, I could be wrong).
But in all seriousness, I think the reason why there are generally fewer women doing photography on a "hard core" basis, is that; While it is a typically creative and artistic profession, you need to master a certain amount of logic and technique.
Photography can be very technical, especially when you get past the "pretty flowers and dogs" stage, when you start mixing in ligh theory, chemical theory, zone system and (dare I say) technical gadgets, women are put off.
It's not that they are less intelligent, it's just that IMO, they want to focus on the art aspect, that may also be why pottery, painting and drawing, and sculpturing, is more popular as art directions.
I'll give some credit if English isn't the first language of the poster, but this sounds EXTREMELY condescending to me. Yeah, I do like technical stuff and I know women are not usually encouraged to do so and to enjoy science, but it has much more of a cultural basis than anything related to true intelligence or the ability to do any of these things.
BS biology, MS forensic science, 14 years in a casework crime lab (7 in charge of the trace analysis unit) - I am a woman and I like science. I also scored perfect on the GRE logic section.
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I recently took an advanced film photography class at a local community college. This was in 2012. I'd say 70% of students in the class were females. They were all getting "dirty" in darkroom elbow deep in wash waters. There were two classes offered at this level. One of the instructor was a male, the other was a female.
Develop, stop, fix.... wait.... where's my film?
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About half the people actively working in the Photoworks dark room are women. All the people running it are women. http://www.glenechophotoworks.org/
Warning!! Handling a Hasselblad can be harmful to your financial well being!
Nothing beats a great piece of glass!
I leave the digital work for the urologists and proctologists.
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Historically women have taken more pictures than men (see below quote), and I would hazard a guess that it still continues. I do know that at almost all the family parties I show up to that "Aunt Mildred" or "Aunt Bernice" tries to round us all up for a photograph and rarely is there "Uncle Bernie" or "Uncle Earl" with the camera...
Below per WSJ. An article about Kodak....
As a result of Kodak’s efforts [to market to the “Kodak girl”, who symbolized the modern, adventurous female], women went on to become the most lucrative market segment for photography. It was that loyal contingent of “soccer moms” that funded Kodak’s inexorable rise: they took more pictures than everyone else, printed them, shared them at coffee mornings, saved them in albums and displayed them in the living room.
http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2012/02/...-five-reasons/
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i apprenticed with a woman portrait photographer who herself was trained in the 20s/30s ..
at the time that was not the norm but i think nowadays woman photographer outnumber the men
by at least 2x if not 3x...
gear conventions, websites *c that is just a guy thing, the women are doing everything else.
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And yet all but 2 or 3 comments on this thread are from men.David's original question hasn't been fully answered.
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Allan, women are very much into photography, see my above proof, the diversity of Apug does not prove anything. How one spends his/her time on the Internet is little proof of the gender make up of photography. I don't remember David's question being medium specific...
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 Originally Posted by zsas
Allan, women are very much into photography, see my above proof, the diversity of Apug does not prove anything. How one spends his/her time on the Internet is little proof of the gender make up of photography. I don't remember David's question being medium specific...
+ 1
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In the darkroom where I was I survived about 60-70 students. Less than 15 were male. I think a lot of the men embrassed digital quicker being gear-heads. I do think it is that photographing film is well a bit more romantic. I also tend to agree that they tend to be rather artistic. I also found they got a bit how should I say nervous when it got technical but in general men and women were very eager to learn which was refreshing. Most have a sparkle in their eyes.
They are doing it because they want to and not because they have to. With digital it may sometimes be a bit different.
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Originally Posted by Thomas Bertilsson
Most female photographers I know are not gear-heads, and don't worry about different films, cameras, and lenses and such. Most of them are almost entirely focused on the pictures themselves, and simply just DO.
I admire that a lot and wish I could dial back my own approach to that level of 'matter of fact' photography.
Agreed.
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