Nikon Chose 32 Male Photographers, and Not a Single Woman, to Promote a Camera

To help promote a new camera model, Nikon recruited 32 photographers from Asia, Africa and the Middle East to test it it out and share their experiences on the company’s website. All 32 photographers were men. Not one single woman was included.

The company claims that it did invite female photographers, but none were able to participate. It’s unclear how many women were invited. Nikon conceded that it did “not put enough of a focus on this area.”

Nikon needs to rectify this damaging oversight. Please sign this petition asking Nikon to recruit 32 more photographers, all female, to participate in the promotional campaign.

Though there has been a lot of progress in the past twenty years, female photographers are still vastly underrepresented when it comes to public recognition. To help bridge the gap, databases have been created listing female photographers and photojournalists in different parts of the world. Nikon could easily have used one of these to identify female photographers to include if it was struggling to find them.

Perhaps Nikon didn’t even recognize there was a problem since the company is dominated by males. According to company reports, women represented just 10.6 percent of Nikon employees and 4.7 percent of managers as of March 2016. The company is trying to expand female employment to 25 percent by 2021.

Nikon needs reassess its values and catch up with the times. It needs to take responsibility for making sure diversity is represented. Adding 32 female photographers to this promotional campaign would be a small start. Please sign this petition so we can put pressure on Nikon to make this right.