I have a regular client whose office is right near the charging bull statue on Broadway. It was a delightful change last week to see the tourists lined up to take their photo with the 50-inch bronze sculpture popularly referred to as “The Defiant or Fearless Girl”. Better still were all the little girls who proudly stood next to her with their hands on their hips mimicking the strength of the statue’s pose.
I love that the CEO’s of State Street Global Advisors thought to do this. I was glad to find out that the artist who made the sculpture is a woman. There are unfortunately many examples of feminist initiatives, such as Getty’s “Lean in” collection that tries to change how professional women are visually represented in stock photography but still contracts mostly men to make those images.
This month, Women’s History Month, I am harping on the idea that it’s crucial to have both genders equally creating the visual narrative about our global society.
State Street has been praised for their bold move to install the statue facing off with the Charging Bull on the eve of International Women’s Day. But they have also been criticized for not walking their talk. According to Emily Peck’s article on Huffington Post, “Why The Fearless Girl Statue Is Kinda Bull” State Street itself has only 27%* (3 out of 11) of board seats filled by women but two years ago it was only 2 women.
Personally, I love the statue and the sentiment. We can criticize State Street for not being perfect, we can criticize the fact that the statue is of a girl rather than a grown woman or we can join them in bringing awareness to the issue. Change has to start somewhere.
The world of investment banking is foreign to me. But the numbers and percentages ring true with regard to gender diversity within areas of the photography industry. Below are the percentages of professional female photographers represented by each of the following camera manufacturers.
1. Canon – Explorers of Light
20% Women (There 32 men and 8 women.)
2. Fuji -X-Photographers
8% Women (There are 446 men and 41 women.)
3. Nikon – Ambassadors
29% women (There are 17 men and 7 women.)
4. Olympus –Visionaries
25% Women (There are 9 men and 3 women.)
5. Sony – Artisans + Associate Artisans
16% Women (There are only 6 Sony Artisan men and 3 women but Sony has another level of Artisans called Associate Artisans and there are 31 men and 4 women in this level – 33.3% and 11.4%.)
When a photographer is represented by one of these industry leaders it provides them with a professional platform, added credibility, equipment, name recognition and sometimes financial support for projects they are working on. The gender imbalance is not representative of the where the industry is now. Currently, there are many more women working professionally in the field of photography and visual storytelling.
Just as the defiant girl statue standing off against the charging bull, represents the future of Wall Street, this defiant girl would love to see the leaders in the camera industry work towards increasing the number of professional women who they represent and whose careers they help to support.
This is why I am so proud to be working with Adorama to launch the #womenwithcameras campaign. The program aims to provide events, workshops and online publishing opportunities for female photographers and filmmakers. At Adorama, we are committed to encouraging diversity within the industry. Change starts with one step.
See a list of our Women’s History Month Events here.
Cover image by Dorie Hagler
* Correction (3/16/2017): In the first version of this article posted on 3/15/2015, we incorrectly quoted that State Street had only 11% of its board seats filled by women. The correct statistic is 27%.
