Who Is A Better Photographer, A Man Or A Woman?

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day, and it said:

Men tend to start businesses to be the “boss,” and their aim is for their businesses to grow as big as possible. Women start businesses to be personally challenged and to integrate work and family, and they want to stay at a size where they personally can oversee all aspects of the business.Who Is A Better Photographer, A Man Or A Woman

Right there you can start to see the difference in expectations and outcomes.

Men start businesses to see how big they can build them. Women build them more as an escape from the hectic life of a 9 to 5 job so that they can incorporate work and family into a more meaningful life.

And of course that leads to  one more thing. Men will build the business to maximize income. Women will settle for enough income to be happy (however she defines it).

So it got me to thinking about photographers and whether it was true in the photography field as well.

I found this great editorial on the subject over at Fstoppers – Photography: Is It Still A Man’s World?

In the article, Lee states that according to the National Endowment for the Arts Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005 report put out in 2008, women make up 42.8% of all professional photographers. Not bad, right? But when you look a little closer, you’ll find that demographics show 60% of photographers under 35 are women. Meaning proportionately women haven’t come into the photography field until recently.

So from just those statistics, overall women are definitely penetrating the photography industry. But according to the WSJ, men will build more successful, higher income businesses than women. Does that hold true in photography?

Need help on the direction of your Photography Business?

According to the NEA’s report, the median income for male photographers is $35,500. The median income for a female photographer? $16,300.

Yep. It definitely holds true.

When it comes to shooting, men and women look at things differently. And that’s only to be expected. But the same holds true from person to person, man or woman. Photography is art. And art is created from within. How you look at a situation and how you choose to express it is all based on how you approach your art form.

Both men and women can be true artists in every sense of the word. Both can move to the top of the industry. Both can make successful careers. Both have the opportunity to take it as far as they can go.

But statistics show by far women “get stuck” more on the details than men.

So the question isn’t whether men or women are better at photography, the question becomes are men or women better at the business of photography?

Because without the business side of things, if all you do is make enough to barely survive, you’re much better off getting a job and skipping the “photography business” altogether.

What do you think? Need help on the direction of your Photography Business?