Is the world of photography particularly sexist?
Photographer Marie Docher.
Paris, September 2020. RFI / Olivier Favier
Text by: Olivier Favier
5 mins
In 2020, the overwhelming majority of photographers working in the professional world are men.
The income gap between men and women is twice the national average.
“People think the art world is progressive, but that's wrong!
», Says photographer Marie Docher.
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“
Marie, you're exaggerating!
"We are in 2014 and Marie Docher hears herself repeating this sentence, during a banal evening with friends, while she evokes the under-representation of women in photography, especially in the world of art, galleries, museums, festivals.
“
I went home to check.
I knew I was right.
"
Marie Docher is a professional photographer since 2001. Testimonies and experiences, she has accumulated over the years.
But from January to March 2014, she engaged in meticulous investigative work.
"
You have to count for women to count
", repeats the new activist.
The result is clear: 80% of the photographers published, shown and edited are men.
Under male pseudonym
Putting figures on a situation that revolted her proved decisive.
“
I saw that the images we had of the world, and this is even more true in photojournalism, were the product of a homogeneous group: Western men.
It was not for me to exclude anyone, but on the contrary to open up to other perceptions, to have a critical look at our systems of representation.
"
In April 2014, she created a blog, “Atlantes et Caryatides, culture, plastic arts and public funds.
»She published the results of her investigation there and began to comment on current events in photography.
She does this by taking on a male identity.
“
There was a kind of explosion, several people used this word, reading the observation I made.
Because everyone believed it was made by a man.
"
In her private discussions, if she takes up her arguments, she is sometimes answered that "
she had better go read Vincent David
", in other words herself under a pseudonym.
It challenges the directors of major festivals: Jean-François Leroy in Perpignan, Gilles Favier in Sète, Ulrich Lebeuf in Toulouse.
The answers are scathing.
"
A crap file remains a crap file
", replies the first to justify the under-representation of women in its programming, when the second asserts that "
the best feminist subjects are made by men
".
On social networks, insults and threats rain down, followed by screenshots.
"
Neither seen nor known
"
A discordant voice is heard, that of Jean-Luc Monterosso who, in October 2015, on the occasion of the exhibitions at the Musée d'Orsay and the Orangerie “Who's afraid of women photographers?
», Welcomes at the European House of Photography which he directs, a meeting entitled« Neither seen nor known?
How do women make a career (or not) in photography?
"
"
A few months ago, I received an email from the Atlantes et Cariatides association which was surprised that at the European House of Photography we have so few monographic exhibitions of women
", he recalls in this occasion.
“
There was quite a countdown […] I had a reaction at first a little annoyed and surprised.
[…] I found it a bit cold and our team is largely female.
He gives a formal answer.
Over time I realize that it was a bit off the mark.
"
A little later, he rereads the message and begins to count in turn, to arrive at the same result.
“
It's quite paradoxical in the end, because it is practically only women who program in the world of photography.
“Five years later, management positions are still very predominantly occupied by men.
The share of women
In November 2018, Marie Docher and other photographers read, on the occasion of Paris Photo, a manifesto entitled
La Part des femmes
: “
Look at us.
Take your time.
[…] Listen to us.
It's time
”La Part des femmes is also and above all a collective with a site that continues the work of criticism and documentation.
In February 2020, Marie Docher published a colorful article entitled
My cock and my box, the end of a virilist myth
.
More academic, but no less well-argued,
the sociological study by photographer and researcher Irène Jonas
appears in May, commissioned by the collective with the support of the Ministry of Culture.
On September 9, 2020, MP Céline Calvez published her report on the
Place of Women in the Media in Times of Crisis
.
During the confinement, for the photographers, "
the rare orders placed [were] almost exclusively to men
".
In general, the differences in income, in a globally insecure profession, remain 40% - twice the national average.
In such a context, Marie Docher continues her fight tirelessly, without exaggerating.
►
To (re) listen: “7 billion neighbors”:
“
Is art gendered
?
"
►
To go further:
The website of the collective
La Part des femmes
The
Atlantean and Caryatids
blog
The Factory of Representations
The site
visuelles.art what the genre does to art
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