Comments on: What’s Your Gender?

By: What Should Our Next Project Be?

What Should Our Next Project Be? — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:48:16 +0000

[...] don’t forget to check out the results from the last poll: What’s Your Gender? I watched the numbers throughout the entire poll and the shares stayed the same: 33% female, 67% [...]

By: 13. What I learned about photography this week — Lilahpops :: Plunging into Photography

Tue, 20 May 2008 22:54:10 +0000

[...] What’s your gender? [...]

By: laanba

laanba — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:29:00 +0000

I have never noticed a bias on your website. I think that if you had one I would pick up on it, at least subconsciously, and not visit as much. I never thought about whether bloggers are male or female although looking at my feed reader I see now that a majority of the sites I follow are written by men. However I run a Flickr group that routinely has local meet-ups and there are usually more women than men in attendance.

One thing that will turn me off very quickly is if you start writing articles directed towards women.
“10 ways to improve your photography with things from your purse.” LOL. Well not that, but you get the idea. Keep up the good content, as has been your hallmark, and everyone will be happy.

This IS a very interesting discussion and I look forward to reading more comments.

By: Small fry (Louise)

Small fry (Louise) — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:26:26 +0000

Brian, I love this site for the way it doesn’t discriminate against me as a new photographer. I certainly don’t feel in any way excluded or discriminated against because of being female. Now, if the site had a predilection for ‘artistic female nudes’ then I might get bored really fast.

The point of gender equality is to take gender out of the decision-making process when weighing value. If your contacts, collaborators and readers are predominantly male, then so what? This is a site dedicated to photography and - thankfully - creativity, skill and artistic vision are not dependent upon the contents of someone’s underwear. Nor their skin colour, ethnic origin or their mobility.

Carry on as you are with a site that is intelligent, inclusive and informative. Please, please, don’t get sucked into tokenism.

By: Antoine Khater

Antoine Khater — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:01:40 +0000

Funny you should bring that up !

I NEVER thought about gender when thinking photography nor when reading your blog.

I admit I have thought however how a women can handle a gear that weight as much as a 1D with a long lens. But it was more from a physical perspective

By: Cody Redmon

Cody Redmon — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:19:59 +0000

This is a great discussion and I’m glad to see it taking place. For those who don’t know me, I’m a member of the Fine Art Photoblog and first presented this topic to the others for discussion. It looks like the thought of “boys club” has passed through the minds of some of our readers and that was my initial fear. Personally, I’d love to see an even playing field across the board, but I also agree with others in that those who do not step forward can’t rightly be considered. So, my only question is where’s the next Imogen Cunningham or Sally Mann?

By: Chica

Chica — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:48:28 +0000

Art is genderless I say. As far as like looking at a fine art image, you don’t say to yourself, I wonder if a guy did this, or a woman did this one. It’s who did this, and how can I see more of their work. You just keep doing what your doing Brian.

By: Brian Auer

Brian Auer — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:01:46 +0000

Wow, it’s great to see so many ladies dropping comments on this one! This is turning out to be an interesting discussion with many people voicing similar thoughts on the topic of “gender on the Internet”. I’m also kind of surprised to see that nearly 1/3 of the readers are female — that number has been fairly constant as the poll goes on.

Let me also say a few things so that there are no assumptions or implications. When we decide to bring on new photographers to the photoblog, entries will be judged only on artistic merit. I’m all for equal opportunity, but I don’t support “reverse discrimination” (meaning no extra points for being a minority). The equal opportunity will be in the form of everybody having the ability to submit a portfolio for review as equals. Sure I’ll be encouraging a few female photographers to throw their portfolio in the mix, but I’ll also be encouraging some male photographers whose work I equally enjoy.

One other thought on the outcome of the first round of Fine Art Photobloggers… the intent wasn’t to create a “boys only club” — it just happened that way. If you look back at the original 30 entries, I believe we only had 2 females present their portfolios (maybe 1 or 2 others — some of the internatinal names are a bit tricky for me to figure out). If we had 15 women in the mix, I’d expect that several of the finalists would be female. But that wasn’t the case.

Great discussions gang! Keep it going!

By: Song Keat

Song Keat — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:42:53 +0000

regarding the pic… is kinda stereotype the alien! because it was the shortest among all… xD

By: Steph

Steph — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:27:17 +0000

I don’t think your articles (or site overall) are too male oriented. I think if it weren’t for your photo and name on the posts, I’d be hard pressed to say whether the author was male or female (you really can’t assume anything online). That being said, I do think that males tend to focus more on the technical aspects of photography and maybe that is why your site seems to draw more male input.

Like others, I don’t hold any gender bias on much of anything - books, articles, blogs, art. I don’t make a point of seeking out content written from the female perspective even though I am female. Honestly, I don’t even notice or wonder about the gender of who creates what. It’s really not what’s important - engaging content can come from anyone, anywhere.