Thread:
Photo editors: no point in pushing stories about inequality and diversity if one can't even recognise, let alone, denounce and address the same problems in our own industry. Hearing the voices of women and minorities is achieved by actually hiring women and minorities. 1/

Diversity and equality isn’t just a bandwagon for people to hitch a ride on.
It begins at home and at work. Otherwise it is performative BS. 2/

Having voices of women and minorities truly heard is not achieved by using and tokenizing us just for story topics if not accompanied by true actions to denounce and change the same problems within the photojournalism industry by pushing for hiring more women and minorities. 3/

It is easier to feel outraged and denounce situations of injustice in which we're not part of those who benefit from it. It requires much more effort and sacrifice to even acknowledge — let alone denounce — situations of injustice in our own realm and from which we benefit. 4/

And the news and editorial industry, especially the photojournalism one, is all too happy in maintaining its white, male and heteronormative status quo unchallenged. 5/

Photo editors: no point in participating in diversity events, or lists of 'best women' photogs/creatives/etc if, when time comes to hire a photojourno to shoot your assignments, you dont hire women or minorities and don't actively challenge the status quo in your own practice. 6/

I mean, if you make lists of great female and minority photojournalists to 'keep an eye on' or if you are happy to buy the stories we self-fund, so why not assign many more of us to shoot your stories? Just keep a tally of your hires. It IS that simple. 7/

The patriarchal structures are so embedded in societal, political and work dynamics that the other day I listened to a FEMALE photojournalist say, in an interview about women in media, there aren't higher numbers of women photojournalists because you have to work outside [...] 8/

[...] in the sun and the rain, that we don't like/can't do that that, because it is a tough work, that most women don't want such job, that one has to be tough and that its a shame there aren't more women photojs because its a beautiful profession more women should consider...9/

If the problem is the unwillingness/incapacity of women to do such a job, why are women more than half of the graduates in photojournalism degrees? 10/

And if so,why are the numbers of women getting commissioned/contracted to work are still so shamefully low when editors are always happy to buy the projects that women photojournalists show them and were self initiated and self funded? Why are agencies not hiring more women? 11/

Furthermore, its a shameful false stereotype. Women have been doing hard, back breaking work for thousands of years both inside and outside the home from searching and chopping wood, walking miles to carry water, to working the fields and so on to commuting, to juggling [..] 12/

[..]several jobs, maternity, among so much more, all while putting up with the usual assholes and fighting patriarchy. Plus, most men I know work indoors sitting in a desk. So yeah, im fucking tired of women being seen not through reality but through a lens that only fits men.13/

Such harmful false stereotyping coming from women is disheartening but also an accurate illustration of the challenges we face in a society deeply biased against women to the point that women themselves believe it and perpetuate these old tropes to justify our own oppression.END