When Daniella Zalcman began her career as a photojournalist, she was immediately confronted with the reality that the newsroom was predominantly white, and predominantly male.

As her reputation as a documentary photographer grew, she experienced and witnessed sexism at all levels of the photojournalism industry; from photo editors who hired more men than women, to male photographers who sexually harassed their female colleagues, Zalcman and many of her female colleagues witnessed first hand the “boys club” of the photojournalism industry.

Tired of being quiet about a problem that has long persisted in journalism, Zalcman sought to address this issue by taking a simple but important first step on the way to equity: address the hiring gap between white men and women, and people of color. Often told by photo editors that they would hire more women if they just knew where to look, Zalcman put something together that was both simple, and elegant: a list.

Zalcman reached out to her female colleagues and created adatabase of women photographers, their skills, and their contact information, and made that list available to picture editors. From there the organization, called Women Photograph, grew to become a leading advocate for gender equity in journalism, and is continuing to broaden its mission to help women grow in the profession by offering scholarships, grant programs, workshops and a supportive community for female journalists ready and willing to support one another as professionals.