Evolve: Showgirls is a photo series aimed at bringing attention to female technicians in the live events industry, highlighting that they are not just girls on show site, but are qualified and capable technicians.
We interviewed 5 women, of varying experience, for their perspectives on working in a male dominated field and how we get more women interested in a career in AV. The consensus? We need to make more women aware that this industry exists.
2 comments:
This was ridiculously empowering to read. I am so glad that they took the time to include women from multiple age groups and walks of life. I think this is even more important now after hearing about a particular booth at LDI that decided to show off “new improved” harnesses for women by having a pinup model in an outfit no professional would actually work in plastered over their display. Their response has been incredibly short sighted and has included blaming a woman on their advertising panel for the misstep, and not themselves. Having an article like this to counter balance that display is nice and refreshing, showing women as they actually work is incredibly powerful. I also appreciate the twist of words in the title. “Show Girl” brings images to mind more reminiscent of the pin up model wearing inappropriate clothing to sell a harness, using it to instead display images of these hardworking individuals is much more welcome in my mind!
I love seeing empowering articles like this one. Reading each of their individual bios made my heart a little happier and me a little bit more ready to learn and take classes at this school. One story in particular really touched me: the story of Madison Adams. She is a lighting and LED technician who knew she wanted to do this from one point in high school moving forward and found concert work and knew she wanted to do that. That is what happened to me too. It was so heartwarming to read that someone else had a similar experience and that they are thriving now. I cannot imagine that in 10 years time, I will be in a similar situation to her. One thing I also really liked is how each of their little paragraphs ended with a direct quote. One that I particularly liked was about how this industry is a “boy’s club”, and I have been thinking about my current DP class and realizing that we only have 7 male identifying students. They make up just over a quart of our class, yet in the grand scheme of the industry, women make up such a smaller percentage. I wonder if this is a sign that times are changing and more women are coming into the field or if CMU is promoting more women to come into this field.
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