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People can be sexist or unwelcoming. An image is just an image, it's an inanimate object, it doesn't have opinions of its own. It's the meaning one attaches to
by panta 6y ago
People can be sexist or unwelcoming. An image is just an image, it's an inanimate object, it doesn't have opinions of its own. It's the meaning one attaches to it that can be sexist or not - so it's in the eye of the observer.
To me, women and men have the same dignity, conferred by being a human being, so I don't see a picture of a woman as sexist (in the same way that I don't see a picture of a man as sexist). Even nude art images are not sexist.
Of course there have been people seeing, even using, images in a sexist way. But this should lead us to condemn those behaviours and those perpetrators.
Otherwise it would be akin to saying that kitchen knives are evil because sometimes they have been used to kill people. No, kitchen knives don't have any moral connotation, it's behaviours and people that can be evil (and usually even then, the same person is not pure evil all the time).
EDIT: having said this, if an image is making some people uncomfortable, we can use a different one. But in my view this seems just avoidance, a quick way out, which is going to make the original problem worse in the long term, because sexist people will remain sexist, only less discernible, in "stealth mode".
- CJefferson 6y agoI agree a single naked image of a woman is not sexist, but why is it that almost every semi-naked image or person I see in tech is female? They are used in advertisements and as "booth babes". If the image wasn't sexist, then there should have been a 50/50 chance of the standard image we use for images being a clipping of a naked man -- but I believe that would never have become a standard image used in CS. I can't prove that, but I strongly believe it.
- panta 6y agoRegarding tech, I guess it's because it's still a field where (unfortunately) there are more men than women, and since men are attracted to women, advertisement agencies use this fact to capture the attention of the audience. It's these ad people that are sexist or at least using sexual attraction as a leverage. The day a field will have more women than men, they could switch to using semi-naked male imagery (even though there could be different dynamics in play that dictate the rules). The effect is unfortunate of course, because a male dominated field becomes less compelling for women and thus creating a negative spiral.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago> They are used in advertisements and as "booth babes" Hasn't this largely gone away in recent years? It's still the norm in certain industries (e.g. online casinos), but my impression is that the average tech company doesn't want to be seen as the kind of organisation that hires 'booth babes'.