A female friend who spent the first ~40 years of her life as a man has long been involved in photography, first as a hobby and later as a professional pursuit. She has lots of specialized photographic equipment that she uses to take photos that appear in books and magazines.
Something that happens to her as a woman but that never happened to her as a man is that people will see her out taking photographs with her professional photographic gear and will comment that she has impressive photographic equipment "for a lady" (or "woman" or "gal").
I have often been accused of seeing things through "a gender lens", but can we also apply this phrase to the people (all men so far, according to my friend) who make "that's a big lens for a little lady" type comments?
These men don't see a person who is a highly capable professional photographer, they see a female using specialized photographic equipment, and that somehow looks odd to them. But what is so incongruous about a woman with a telephoto lens and a tripod?
Somehow they also overlook the fact that she is 6' tall and therefore not a "little" lady, except perhaps to men who want to see all females as small, weak, and incapable.
Something that happens to her as a woman but that never happened to her as a man is that people will see her out taking photographs with her professional photographic gear and will comment that she has impressive photographic equipment "for a lady" (or "woman" or "gal").
I have often been accused of seeing things through "a gender lens", but can we also apply this phrase to the people (all men so far, according to my friend) who make "that's a big lens for a little lady" type comments?
These men don't see a person who is a highly capable professional photographer, they see a female using specialized photographic equipment, and that somehow looks odd to them. But what is so incongruous about a woman with a telephoto lens and a tripod?
Somehow they also overlook the fact that she is 6' tall and therefore not a "little" lady, except perhaps to men who want to see all females as small, weak, and incapable.