So I decided to dig a little deeper into some of the Year in Pictures slideshows and examine them not just by the gender of the photographers, but by the gender of the people *in* the photographs as well. [Thread!]
We have a lot of conversations about why it's important that the photojournalism community be truly diverse, and what the material costs are of having a historically homogenous group of photographers in charge of how we see the world.
That's pretty obvious, I think: the more kinds of people we have telling stories, the more rich and nuanced and true the stories are likely to be. That's true for all forms of storytelling: journalism and filmmaking and history textbooks, and definitely photography.
But another real problem is that when you have one group of people overwhelmingly in charge of storytelling (and I'll hone in on gender specifically here) — the stories of the other half of the population are pretty clearly undercovered. Let's look at the data!
I took a look at the @ReutersPictures 2018 Year in Pictures (reut.rs/2P3kxRN) because 15/100 of those photographers were taken by women — and women represent roughly 15% of the photojournalism community. It's a perfect microcosm of how the world consumes news photography.
And then I took a look at the @womenphotograph 2018 Year in Pictures (bit.ly/2B4joEE), where 100/100 photographers are women or non-binary. I'm not arguing that the photo community should be 100% women, but it's an interesting counterpoint our very homogenous reality.
I categorized each photo in one of four ways:
1. Men centered as the subject. (M)
2. Women centered as the subject. (F)
3. No human subject, or indeterminate. (X)
4. Both men and women more or less equally represented. (B)
1. Men centered as the subject. (M)
2. Women centered as the subject. (F)
3. No human subject, or indeterminate. (X)
4. Both men and women more or less equally represented. (B)
The data is hilariously perfect: 
So in the Reuters slideshow, with 87 images that clearly show people, men were centered as the primary (usually only) subject 64% of the time, and women 26% of the time. In the Women Photograph slideshow, out of 86 images, men were centered 29% of the time, and women 62%.
Not all women photogs cover women or "women's issues," nor should they be confined to those stories. But this makes it clear that whether it's because of access, or interest, or comfort, or any number of other reasons: women are more likely to photograph women than men are.
By continuing to perpetuate a news photography community that is 85 percent men, we're also making sure that women's stories continue to be told less.
And you can imagine all of the repercussions that follow: less visibility means less representation, less power, less authority. If women's stories matter less, women themselves matter less. So we need to change that, pronto.
