On Fri, 7 Jun 1996, Judy Seigel wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 6 Jun 1996, Pollmeier Klaus wrote:
> > adresses file that give some idea of the numeric relation between women and men
> > who contacted me during the last 5 years and got the marking "beeing interested
> > in alt.processes": 855 names of which are 144 female. That is 17%. 84% of these
> > adresses are from Germany, so this number may not be relevant to other
> > countries. Also, I don't know the relation of female to male photographers in
> > general, so I can't say this is above or below average.
>
> Here's some purely anecdotal "evidence" of gender differences in process
> preferences: Our undergraduate photo majors have been, in most years,
> more than half female. (Which is not to say not that any particular
> student is more than half female, you understand, but that more than half
> the student body is female.) I believe the ratios are about the same in
> most undergraduate photo departments in this country. What happens to
> all these women photographers after school I cannot say.....
>
> In any event, my "non-silver" course is required for photo majors. When I
> first began teaching, maybe 12 years ago, the boys arrived kicking and
> screaming -- they just wanted to be in their darkrooms making c-prints.
> They brightened up a bit when we got to vandyke brown, because that seemed
> more like "real" photography, but gum was an uphill struggle. Sometimes
> they admitted (at the last minute) that once they'd actually done it they
> liked it, but usually just a sigh of relief when the ordeal was over.
>
> The girls were far more likely to be enthusiastic to begin with and to
> exploit the creative reach of all the processes in a freewheeling way.
> And with a few exceptions, only the girls *loved* gum. Until a few years
> ago, that is. I'm certain there's been a change in the air. Now the boys
> are just as likely as the girls to be eager for gum, to consider it the
> crowning achievement and challenge. Of course this can be partly because
> I know much more about gum now; since they start where I am, they're
> miraculously improved. (Sometimes I think I should do a recall on the
> early models.) But I sense other, cultural factors at work. The *idea* of
> gum is much more appealing. When I bring in books of pictorialist works
> students really study them. Etc.
>
> And face it Klaus, Ginger's remarks about "pastel colors" are probably only
> semi-joking. They're probably true. "Real men" don't do pastel. At least not
> in the States...
>
> Judy
>