Nikon Picked 32 Men

[Destin]

am I seeing racist "humor" here? i dont know if zombiesniper slipped the word "slant" in as a slur, but it sure looks like some people are subtly taking it that way

pretty sure racist slurs are not in keeping with tpf policy, nor with tpf's ongoing existence. tread carefully.

He meant slant as in bias. Very clearly.

Why does everyone take everything back to race?

 

[Destin]

They are a private company. They can hire whoever they want, and there is no mandate for them to hire equally.

Why does anyone actually care about this? Don't you have more important things to worry about in life.. you know, the things that ACTUALLY affect you?

Seems to me the whole world has too much time on its hands to worry about things like this.

The world has never been a fair or equal place. You'll never make it one. Wasting a bunch of your energy and frustration on doing so is futile.

This is just another NYT writer trying to run with recent trends and make a name for himself.

 

[Destin]

great news for mirrorless!
DSLR's are on the way out anyway. old news.

Fake news alert

 

[limr]

am I seeing racist "humor" here? i dont know if zombiesniper slipped the word "slant" in as a slur, but it sure looks like some people are subtly taking it that way

pretty sure racist slurs are not in keeping with tpf policy, nor with tpf's ongoing existence. tread carefully.

He meant slant as in bias. Very clearly.

Why does everyone take everything back to race?

They don't. He was trying to rile people up on purpose.

 

[waday]

Why does anyone actually care about this? Don't you have more important things to worry about in life.. you know, the things that ACTUALLY affect you?

As a man, these "things" do affect me. Adversely.

They affect my wife. They affect my mother. They affect my sisters. They affect my coworkers, colleagues, neighbors, friends. They affect doctors, engineers, lawyers, mechanics, nurses.

They will affect my soon-to-be-born daughter.

I don't want my anyone to be at a disadvantage, because men can't understand basic rights and equality.

Why would you not want women to have every right and chance to succeed as someone of the opposite sex, or another gender?

 

[limr]

Not to mention the difficulties in even determining what the 'market' is. For example, if they are looking at that market of photographers who typically work for wire services, then it could look artificially skewed towards a male demographic - not because there aren't women doing that kind of work, but because they are not being given those assignments nearly as often as men are. If as many women who wanted assignments actually got those assignments more regularly and consistently (like the men are accustomed to getting), their market representation could be a lot higher than the 15% mentioned in the article.

What are you talking about?

1) What assignments are female photojournalist not getting?
2) How many women "actually" want assignments that the men are "regularly and consistently "getting?

What I was in school majoring in Communications (journalism), granted it was decades ago, but men far outnumbered women in that major. I cannot remember any females studying to be a photojournalist. Just based on sheer numbers of qualified journalists, females would be underrepresented when compared to the general population. Having worked for newspapers and wire service, what few females photogs we had on staff, (when I was at the Times we had about 16 staff photographers with one female inclusive), was assigned the same stuff the men got. She was not discriminated in any way on any assignment. The only exception I did see was when she was assigned to shoot the Academy Awards. The men were provided a Tux Rental allowance and there was no allowance for gowns. She protested, along with the most of the staff, and she was ultimately provided with the same Tux Rental Allowance as the men. So, she rented a tux and wore a man's tux to the event. She shot sports, breaking news, fires, features, et al, no different than the men. (She did look better in her tuxedo than we did in ours.)

In war zones, the percentage of women to men was significantly less than Stateside work. Reporting a war zone zone is volunteer work. Back then, females war correspondents were few and far between. Again, no discrimination as I could see and experienced. I've seen women neck high in the same $**t I was neck high in.

The 32 photographers per Nikon's Web Site:

"Meet 32 creative individuals from Asia, Middle East and Africa, and join them as they embark on an experience with the latest FX-format D850 in their respective genres of wedding, nature, commercial and sports. With their expertise in photography and videography, the D850’s technology, and Nikon’s craftsmanship, this is one DSLR ready to set a new world of limitless creative imaging possibilities."

In summary, Nikon was wrong and guilty of discrimination, by general US standards. (I can only speak of US standards, while I am sure other countries share similar equality standards.) I am confident there are plenty of exceptional women photogs shooting "wedding", "nature", "commercial" and "sports" in Asia, Middle East and Africa that Nikon could have called upon in the name of fair play and equality.

Interestingly enough, Nikon's highlighted 32 male photographers from "Asia, Middle East and Africa", yet Nikon included four photographers from Australia which is not part of Asia, Middle East or Africa.

I was referring to the experiences described by female photographers, as reported in the article:

"She said she had worked for paternalistic editors who did not want to send a woman into harm’s way by giving her dangerous assignments. Other women have said they had to overcome sexual harassment, insular networks of men, and being pigeonholed into specific stories.

“Every opportunity I ever got at newspapers, I was fighting for and picking up the scraps of when my male colleagues turned them down,” Ms. Lyttle said."

I didn't say women got no assignments, but my point was that we don't know how many they might have gotten had they not run into attitudes such as expressed above. And if they did, what kind of representation would there be in the market - just 15% or would it be more equitable?

The lack of women in college classes: is that because they didn't want to be photojournalists? Or because they wanted to be but weren't accepted into the program? Or were discouraged from joining the program. We don't know.

We don't know. And that is my whole point. It's useless to talk about the "market" in a precise way unless we know the factors that affect that market. To say "Well, they picked men because of their target market" is spurious and ignores the fact that their market might not be what they think it is.

 

[limr]

They are a private company. They can hire whoever they want, and there is no mandate for them to hire equally.

Why does anyone actually care about this? Don't you have more important things to worry about in life.. you know, the things that ACTUALLY affect you?

It's not up to you to decide what is important to other people. And yes, this does ACTUALLY affect people, so why shouldn't they worry about it? Even in just the narrowest sense, representation in the media = exposure = potential new work assignments or business.

Seems to me the whole world has too much time on its hands to worry about things like this.

The world has never been a fair or equal place. You'll never make it one. Wasting a bunch of your energy and frustration on doing so is futile.

Y'know what? Not even going to bother. Some things are worth it. This isn't.

 

[runnah]

I will say this. On my team I have a young 20 something female photographer who I am hesitant to send out alone to some of the places that we work.

Is it me being sexist or do I not want to send a young attractive woman out to a dangerous job site in a large city at night with thousands of dollars worth of gear. Her getting robbed is probably the best case scenario.

 

[Gary A.]

Not to mention the difficulties in even determining what the 'market' is. For example, if they are looking at that market of photographers who typically work for wire services, then it could look artificially skewed towards a male demographic - not because there aren't women doing that kind of work, but because they are not being given those assignments nearly as often as men are. If as many women who wanted assignments actually got those assignments more regularly and consistently (like the men are accustomed to getting), their market representation could be a lot higher than the 15% mentioned in the article.

What are you talking about?

1) What assignments are female photojournalist not getting?
2) How many women "actually" want assignments that the men are "regularly and consistently "getting?

What I was in school majoring in Communications (journalism), granted it was decades ago, but men far outnumbered women in that major. I cannot remember any females studying to be a photojournalist. Just based on sheer numbers of qualified journalists, females would be underrepresented when compared to the general population. Having worked for newspapers and wire service, what few females photogs we had on staff, (when I was at the Times we had about 16 staff photographers with one female inclusive), was assigned the same stuff the men got. She was not discriminated in any way on any assignment. The only exception I did see was when she was assigned to shoot the Academy Awards. The men were provided a Tux Rental allowance and there was no allowance for gowns. She protested, along with the most of the staff, and she was ultimately provided with the same Tux Rental Allowance as the men. So, she rented a tux and wore a man's tux to the event. She shot sports, breaking news, fires, features, et al, no different than the men. (She did look better in her tuxedo than we did in ours.)

In war zones, the percentage of women to men was significantly less than Stateside work. Reporting a war zone zone is volunteer work. Back then, females war correspondents were few and far between. Again, no discrimination as I could see and experienced. I've seen women neck high in the same $**t I was neck high in.

The 32 photographers per Nikon's Web Site:

"Meet 32 creative individuals from Asia, Middle East and Africa, and join them as they embark on an experience with the latest FX-format D850 in their respective genres of wedding, nature, commercial and sports. With their expertise in photography and videography, the D850’s technology, and Nikon’s craftsmanship, this is one DSLR ready to set a new world of limitless creative imaging possibilities."

In summary, Nikon was wrong and guilty of discrimination, by general US standards. (I can only speak of US standards, while I am sure other countries share similar equality standards.) I am confident there are plenty of exceptional women photogs shooting "wedding", "nature", "commercial" and "sports" in Asia, Middle East and Africa that Nikon could have called upon in the name of fair play and equality.

Interestingly enough, Nikon's highlighted 32 male photographers from "Asia, Middle East and Africa", yet Nikon included four photographers from Australia which is not part of Asia, Middle East or Africa.

I was referring to the experiences described by female photographers, as reported in the article:

"She said she had worked for paternalistic editors who did not want to send a woman into harm’s way by giving her dangerous assignments. Other women have said they had to overcome sexual harassment, insular networks of men, and being pigeonholed into specific stories.

“Every opportunity I ever got at newspapers, I was fighting for and picking up the scraps of when my male colleagues turned them down,” Ms. Lyttle said."

I didn't say women got no assignments, but my point was that we don't know how many they might have gotten had they not run into attitudes such as expressed above. And if they did, what kind of representation would there be in the market - just 15% or would it be more equitable?

The lack of women in college classes: is that because they didn't want to be photojournalists? Or because they wanted to be but weren't accepted into the program? Or were discouraged from joining the program. We don't know.

We don't know. And that is my whole point. It's useless to talk about the "market in a precise way unless we know the factors that affect that market. To say "Well, they picked men because of their target market" is spurious and ignores the fact that their market might not be what they think it is.

I missed the last article and didn't read what Sara Krulwich wrote. The management of the papers where Krulwich worked was much different than the management of where I worked. When I worked at the Times, we had one black photographer, one Latino photographer and one Asian/female photographer. We were all treated equally, the exception being longevity. The photogs near retirement, were given preferential treatment. The ol' farts were semi-retired, were given the easy stuff, no out-of-town assignments, they worked 9-5 and lounged around doing crossword puzzles in ink. I was hired during a time of transition at the Times. The ol' farts were making way for a new generation of young a$$holes, (as the older crowd affectionately called us). Roughly during the same time as Krulwich started her journalistic adventure. I suspect the same 'time-of-transition' was industry-wide, slowly occurring across the country as the All White Boy club of newspapers was being uprooted by a new generation. When I first started, the ol' farts still wore ties, sport coats and some even donned fedoras as their daily working uniform. The young a$$holes wore blue jeans and running shoes.

Most, if not all of the full-time journalism professors had no real journalism experience and I doubt if the gender discrimination of the newspaper's Boy's Club ever filtered-down and infected professors and college administrators who never worked in the field. I never heard from fellow students of any discrimination policy based on gender. In the School of Communications, I'd say a 50% or more were females, in journalism less than half were females. In photojournalism, none. These numbers/percentages were pretty much reflected at the companies where I worked. But, I only worked for California companies and things are different here than in other parts of the US.

Where I worked, we were all equals, all considered to be professionals. Assignments were given out, more-or-less, on a rotational basis and weekend/night work was also rotated. So if you had a weekend, you're shooting sports. If the president comes to town on a Wednesday and you're working Wednesday, you're shooting the president. If nothing is scheduled for you, then you're given a feature to research and shoot.

 

[Destin]

Why does anyone actually care about this? Don't you have more important things to worry about in life.. you know, the things that ACTUALLY affect you?

As a man, these "things" do affect me. Adversely.

They affect my wife. They affect my mother. They affect my sisters. They affect my coworkers, colleagues, neighbors, friends. They affect doctors, engineers, lawyers, mechanics, nurses.

They will affect my soon-to-be-born daughter.

I don't want my anyone to be at a disadvantage, because men can't understand basic rights and equality.

Why would you not want women to have every right and chance to succeed as someone of the opposite sex, or another gender?

We just had a female come very close to becoming president of the US. We have female politicians. Female doctors, lawyers, and police officers. Females are allowed to work in any career they would like without restriction, at least in most countries. Women can vote. They can go to war.

The actions of a private company's advertising campaign have no detrimental effect on the average woman, or any of the women in your life.

Women achieved equality long ago, at least in the US. Does everyone believe this should be the case? Of course not.. but people are allowed to believe whatever they want. And if they own a company, they can run that company according to their beliefs if they so choose.

The world will never be a perfectly fair and equal place. Ever. No matter what.

 

[Gary A.]

*sigh*

 

[terri]

We just had a female come very close to becoming president of the US. We have female politicians. Female doctors, lawyers, and police officers. Females are allowed to work in any career they would like without restriction, at least in most countries. Women can vote. They can go to war.

The actions of a private company's advertising campaign have no detrimental effect on the average woman, or any of the women in your life.

Women achieved equality long ago, at least in the US. Does everyone believe this should be the case? Of course not.. but people are allowed to believe whatever they want. And if they own a company, they can run that company according to their beliefs if they so choose.

The world will never be a perfectly fair and equal place. Ever. No matter what.

There's so much that's wrong with your post, it's difficult to focus on one single thing. But I did highlight your (to me) most odious comment.

Think about why you (unthinkingly) worded your sentence that way. "Females are allowed..."

Women achieved equality long ago, at least in the US. Except in equal pay for equal work - for starters.

The world will never be a perfectly fair and equal place. Ever. No matter what. Yeah, and in 100 years we'll all be dead. Fatalistic thinking like this basically guarantees nothing will change. It also allows those who perhaps don't want things to change to shrug it off. "It doesn't affect me; therefore, it cannot be important."

You're wrong.

 

[terri]

I will say this. On my team I have a young 20 something female photographer who I am hesitant to send out alone to some of the places that we work.

Is it me being sexist or do I not want to send a young attractive woman out to a dangerous job site in a large city at night with thousands of dollars worth of gear. Her getting robbed is probably the best case scenario.

Are they aware of the risks? Did they accept certain risks when they were hired - like any other employee?

If you're worried about the *equipment,* then perhaps sending a 2-person team out would be better in these circumstances, regardless of gender. Your implication that a woman could get raped as well as robbed doesn't mean a man couldn't get beaten as well as robbed. Either is unacceptable - I agree you should think about protecting your staff, minus the gender bias.

 

[cherylynne1]

When trying to determine whether or not something is sexist, I just turn it around.

If 32 women has been selected, don't you think that would have been a little strange? "What was this, a retreat just for women? Is there going to be one for men? Couldn't they find a single qualified man?"

We've become used to the idea that when a man speaks, it's a message for everyone, but when a woman speaks, she's only speaking to other women. That, I think, is the underlying issue with Nikon. They assumed that a man's perspective would be interesting to everyone, while a woman's perspective would only be interesting to women. The point of the article is to say that many people would be interested in hearing both perspectives.

 

[Destin]

We just had a female come very close to becoming president of the US. We have female politicians. Female doctors, lawyers, and police officers. Females are allowed to work in any career they would like without restriction, at least in most countries. Women can vote. They can go to war.

The actions of a private company's advertising campaign have no detrimental effect on the average woman, or any of the women in your life.

Women achieved equality long ago, at least in the US. Does everyone believe this should be the case? Of course not.. but people are allowed to believe whatever they want. And if they own a company, they can run that company according to their beliefs if they so choose.

The world will never be a perfectly fair and equal place. Ever. No matter what.

There's so much that's wrong with your post, it's difficult to focus on one single thing. But I did highlight your (to me) most odious comment.

Think about why you (unthinkingly) worded your sentence that way. "Females are allowed..."

Women achieved equality long ago, at least in the US. Except in equal pay for equal work - for starters.

The world will never be a perfectly fair and equal place. Ever. No matter what. Yeah, and in 100 years we'll all be dead. Fatalistic thinking like this basically guarantees nothing will change. It also allows those who perhaps don't want things to change to shrug it off. "It doesn't affect me; therefore, it cannot be important."

You're wrong.

... oh don't play if off like I used the word "allowed" in a negative way. I won't sit here and argue semantics.

Name one thing in our (western) society a female is unable to do that a male can do. Seriously.. the doors are all open to females in western society. There are no careers off limits to females. They have every opportunity to advance themselves in the same way males do. My doctor is a female. There are female police officers, paramedics, and firefighters I interact with daily. I have a friend who is a female and in the army. If a female wants to be something there is nothing stopping her.

This is a prime example of the PC/equality police just wanting to stir the pot and make a big deal out of soemthing that is essentially a non-issue.

If you want to talk about female inequality let's at least talk about eastern or middle eastern countries where they still don't have the right to vote or go to college in many places, much less have a career. Now there's a fight I can get behind all day!

But telling me that females aren't equal to males in modern western society is laughable. Seriously.