Is There A Deep-Rooted Misogyny In The Wedding Industry? Dear Devlin

Dear Not A Radical Feminist,

Thank you for sending this in, and for highlighting something that needs highlighting. I’ve wondered for a while whether anyone would use this column to raise it, because it’s a relatively safe space where any issue can be brought up anonymously. I agree this needs to be talked about, so let’s talk about it.

Sadly, This Isn’t New, And It Isn’t Just Weddings

This became very clear to me when I first tried to book my own work, after three years assisting photographers in the music industry. I sent my portfolio to the top music magazine for consideration, and it came back with feedback that, although they liked the work, they did not hire female photographers.

The picture editor (a woman 🫣) went on to explain that they’d worked with one once, but she must have been ‘on her period’ as she’d had a bad day. I know. Utterly wild, right?

What that told me was that I was going to have to work harder to get less. So I dropped my gender. I removed my first name from my brand and submitted the portfolio to another magazine under just “Devlin”. I got my first commission. Throughout my music industry career, I was never referred to as Lisa, and I regularly heard, “I didn’t realise you were a girl.” It was my way of opening doors I felt were otherwise closed to me, and then working extra hard to prove my worth.

The Boys’ Club

Weddings weren’t much different when I first started. Think of the wedding photographers you’ve seen in films – overwhelmingly men. These days, the real-world industry is generally cited as close to 50/50, and by some measures, female-dominated. Hollywood just never got the memo.

I remember my first photography trade show: a sea of stands with hard black branding, using young female models in minimal clothing to sell kit. Most shows have worked on this over the years. But you’ll still find bunches of male photographers with long lenses clustered around any female model in the room, and what they do with those images I genuinely don’t want to know.

I once spoke at a conference for wedding photographers where one of the early speakers set a precedent for a whole day of ‘dick jokes’ from the stage.

The final talks came from two female photographers, who both spoke about sexual violence in their presentations. The organisers had all of our slides in advance, so they knew exactly what was coming, and they still actively created an atmosphere that felt very misogynistic.

It felt like we, female speakers, were only there to fulfil a quota. I went home, donated part of my fee to a women’s refuge charity that had helped one of the speakers, and started a group chat with some industry pals called Too Much Dick.