Men / Women and Photography

The equipment along with the technical aspects of photography are an important component to my enjoyment of this hobby of mine, however the subject and the resultant images are the true motivation behind my involvement. Guess I'm bisexual, better go tell my wife. ;-)

>The last time I told a woman I am a photogrpher she said, "That's wonderful, pick up your meal at the next window<

 

Haha, Glen. You must've just told her she was pretty and you wanted to take her picture??

 

Funny.

I'm sure you could make the case that it's related to our evolution but I think that it's much more to do with social conditioning which changes over time. My wife, a languages graduate who was a child in the 'forties, would probably ask 'what photos' but my daughter, now in her thirties and with a son of her own, was never one for dolls and is an electronics engineer. Her first question would likely be 'what camera'.

 

It would be interesting to ask this question in another thirty years and see what answers you get.

It's conditioning. What do little boys and girls play with? Boys play with mechanical things and girls play with dolls. It all starts there.

It's a question of what someone knows about. Good photographers are likely to talk about images and things like that and the technology is just a trivial aspect of the work. But most people are not good photographers and they never get beyond the technical problem phase. It's a little difficult to express oneself with drawing if a person can't hold a pen etc.

 

Gender affects the interest of a person in two ways: 1) through the differences in biology, brain etc., and 2) through the environment. It doesn't start with the environment, but the biology. Little children are already very very different before they have a chance to realize the gender difference. But no doubt the environment shapes us a great deal especially in school. What can be done? Should something be done? I don't think you can change the way a person thinks nor should it be tried. Changes need to come from within.

 

I think it's a complement if someone asks me what is in the photo and the worst is when someone says "You must have a really nice camera." It can't get any worse than that.

"David M wrote -

It's conditioning. What do little boys and girls play with? Boys play with mechanical things and girls play with dolls. It all starts there."

 

David, sorry, but I think it's heredity not environment.

 

A long, long time ago (think cave people) the man had to go out and hunt. Remember eating was a pretty big deal. Women had to cook whatever was brought home.

 

If you were successful, everyone wanted to know what kind of spear was used. If you were a woman, you wanted to know what it was (how to cook it). Hence the emphasis on tools by men and results by women.

 

(Disclaimer: No offense intended to cave people, men, women, hunters, cooks or successful people. :-))

I think it is even simpler than hunter/gatherer differences... it comes down to child-bearing - the man just had to make the baby - the woman had to live with the consequences for nine months at a minimum. Talk about the difference between the implement and the method.... Certainly out of this fundamental difference, tons of social engineering has happened over the past multi-millennia to enforce and encode the acceptance of this distinction. There are lots of men who will care about the why of something, and lots of women who care about the how, but that is not the norm.

 

to get back to the photography subject here, I think I get more of "what film/paper/chemicals did you use" or "what lens/aperture" from women, and more "what brand of camera" from men. Then again, most of the women photographers I know are diehard photo geeks, so they still want to get technical, but they're not as hung up on if it is a Nikon or a Leica.

there are enough women now in photography that generalizations about male/female differences don't tell us much. you would need to do a scientific poll of photographers to see if there really is a difference as suggested in the original post. kinda like another thread going on over whether having strong feelings about your camera means you are a "toolhead" instead of a real photographer. good cocktail party banter, but not much more enlightening than that. altho i do find the "the camera is a tool and nothing more" approach a little puritanical. as if no pleasure should be derived from the process. a bit like having sex only to make babies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I really feel you should get a copy of Mr.& Mrs. Pease (James: just for the record, SHE contributed grately to the book). You would find all the data, stats, psicological and bio researches you need. I think and sincerily believe we are different (that does not mean we do not deserve equal opportunities). Of course you can not apply that to every single human being, but that is the average.

Males have different abilities than women. But I unfortunately think we, as males, on photography grounds, are loosing: You can learn tecniques, but cannot invent creativity.

I just accept it and take it easy. I like what I do, even if I'm not as creative as a woman, and i'm happy when I can have a little smile on the face of a friend looking at my work or of my parents looking at my children on a piece of paper.

Our differences (apart from the obvious biological ones) are mainly from being brought up to fit our parent's model of how we should be.

(Also other influences like school and peer group etc.)

 

I cannot believe for a second that men and women have ANY intrinsic, hard wired differences when reading maps, piloting aircraft, creativity, photography, mending engines, hearing faint sounds, multi-tasking or any of the other pop-psychological/Mars Men, Venusian Wimmin 'differences' that are talked up on sucky TV programmes just to sell some idiot's latest book/course/video/philosophy/religion.

 

(Actually I take back the 'idiot' remark, these fraudsters are admirable in their ability to hoover money out of the gullible.)

 

Both of my daughters needed to be convinced at similar ages (around 11 years) that their girlfriends were wrong and that girls COULD be good at mathematics & science.

 

Once they 'clicked' that what they were good at was entirely up to them and not others (including us parents) they both gravitated towards subjects they enjoyed rather than what they 'should' enjoy.

 

My eldest is 20 and a 2nd year undergraduate in History and my youngest is 12 years old and has a real passion for meteorology, science and maths.

 

I thought our society had got over telling men and women what they 'should' be good at.

Hi, I am a beginner in Photography, and I am not a philosopher.

 

Photography can be shared, used, and enjoyed by both men and women, simultaneously, or separately. But that is not something everone in the world can access, try buying a camera in Ireland.....I know what steryotypes the world has created for me and others, my interest in photography is not helped or hindered by that. Of course it is not possible to avoid the usual scenarios in life, but I guess that as long as you know what works and what dosen't, then that's fine. That is a fairly abstract view.

 

To be more specific;

 

People may believe in the genetic inheritance of male vs. female traits and the environmantal/conditioning gene. Others may believe that we are mice in a mouse organ, and that the world is flat. I am not about to rant about my own beliefs, which are very simple.

 

Some people get heated by a Nikon vs. Canon debate, whilst others find optical science more intereting than current affairs. Why is it that the worlds best chess players are usually male? I don't know, but I guess operant conditioning has someting to do with it. Why do women wear make-up? I don't know, but chances are I wouldn't wear it.

 

Society has evolved to aid us un formulating our differences, it is a socio-economic phenomenon created by the worlds business leaders.

You go to war for oil and you put oil in your salad dressing.

 

 

 

Men tend to 'covet' each others camera gear.

 

Women tend to analyse the subject and the photo.

 

It is the differences in life that create change and development,

but alas it is also the differences in life that stop us talking.

Hi Trevor. Please, try to be more open minded and give a second look at the scientific and statistic data being released every second day by now. It will make life much easier for all of us to accept our limits, enphasize our abilities and optimize our complementarities. As I said, its is not a rule that applies to every one of us, but surely the majority. And if it's not being discussed freely and with serenity, it's just beacuse of rock-hard, conservative positions like yours. photography would produce much better work with 4 hands!

Seems more like yours is the rock hard conservative position, Marco. Trevor is the one who's proposing a less role-based view of men and women.

I grew up in the sixties being told and instructed that way. I wanted to think that way. My doctrine was that of IDENTICAL beings. but I've always been confronted with realities diverging from it. sometimes positively, somestimes not. Finally somebody has the guts to speak up and say that nobody is identical nor inferior to nobody. Simply different, and what's much more, complementary.

I really have no preconcepts, I simply see what's around me. Take it for what it is: a simple male opinion.

Sticking to photos, I love to learn from others work, and when is from a woman's, I can "feel" the different approach to it.

I might be wrong, but that's the way I feel it now.