4 ms·
There are very few things that are "universally offensive." As nollidge accurately pointed out, just because women were involved doesn't mean it's not sexist.
by Cowen 14y ago
There are very few things that are "universally offensive." As nollidge accurately pointed out, just because women were involved doesn't mean it's not sexist.
The fact is that this was widely considered offensive and unnecessary, and the CEOs response only made it worse. No one has the right not to be offended, but everyone has the right to speak out and not buy a product for whatever reasons they choose, which is exactly what happened.
Personally, I don't have a problem with naked people in body paint as part of a display; it does everything you want a display to do, it catches eyes and it sticks in memory.
But why did they only choose naked women? There are no painted male models in their staff photo from the event.[1] Was it decided that including naked men would somehow hurt the effectiveness of the display, and if so, why? Certainly there were willing male models, so it seems that HyperMac just steered clear of hiring men. The accusations of sexism (or more accurately, objectification) all springs from that, and the unwillingness of the CEO to even acknowledge that as a concern is honestly disturbing.
[1] http://www.hyperblog.com/2013/01/thanks-for-an-amazing-ces-2013/ http://www.hyperblog.com/2013/01/thanks-for-an-amazing-ces-2...
- sp332 14y agoThe complaint in the article was that the display was degrading to the women. Including men in the display just would have degraded men as well as women. It's not a numbers game.
- Cowen 14y agoThat's nothing but blind speculation. There is absolutely no evidence that it would have been considered that way.
- sp332 14y agoI don't follow. How would putting men in the same display change how degraded the women in the display were?
- Cowen 14y agoThe argument isn't about whether or not they're being degraded, but whether women as a group are being objectified by the people who organized the display. That argument is significantly enhanced by the fact that women were the only "objects" that were on display, especially when women were far from the only "objects" that were appropriate for this display. There's nothing about HyperMac's products that figuratively or literally only applies to naked, painted women. Naked, painted men were just as appropriate as women, but they were completely avoided for reasons that are unknown to the public. Right now, the display is "naked women in body paint", but with men it would be "naked people in body paint." The gender neutrality of the display would exist in more than just a semantic sense, but also in a deeper sense that gender wasn't considered a factor when they were making this display. Right now, that's not how it looks at all. It looks like they only wanted naked women to be associated with HyperMac's products. And the CEO's comments do absolutely nothing to dissuade that viewpoint. Would people have still complained about objectification of women if there were men in the display too? Maybe. But they would have a much weaker case than they do now.
- sp332 14y agoI really don't understand how objectifying men makes objectification of women less offensive. It's OK to dehumanize people as long as we do it equally?
- Cowen 14y agoDo you see nude, painted models at a trade event as being inherently dehumanizing? Because that would be a separate issue from what's being discussed here. The problem -- at least as it seems to me -- is not that there were nude, painted people hired for the event, but that there were only nude, painted women hired for the event for no apparent reason other than their presumed sex appeal to the predominantly male attendees. That's where the objectification argument comes in, at least in my eyes. Like I said from the start, I don't have an inherent issue with using nude, painted models for a display.
- 14y ago