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My issue here - and why I am glad it's on HN - is because we have this problem in our industry a lot. We question why more women aren't interested in it while w
by mnicole 14y ago
My issue here - and why I am glad it's on HN - is because we have this problem in our industry a lot. We question why more women aren't interested in it while we parade them around our conferences or include photos of them in slides barely-clothed. We make very vivid implications that they are just visual stimuli for the taking.
We can go back to that whole Violet Blue Twitter/article debacle wherein she criticized a woman legitimately working at her company's spot on the floor for being a boring-looking booth babe.
In my opinion, the only people that should be doing your advertising for you are your employees. There's no reason to bring human eye-candy to these events in the hopes that it will get a few more customers. I do like PAX's stance where if the "babe" isn't educated on your product as much as you are, she shouldn't be there. At the same time, those are "models" of the characters for your games at a gaming convention, not male or female bodies just standing in a warehouse being ogled to sell unrelated product.
- jlgreco 14y agoI think we would be remiss if we did not consider this in a more bayesian fashion. Say 90% of all tech companies are using sexist advertising. Big problem; clearly something wrong with tech. But that is only part of the picture. We have to consider what companies that are not "tech companies" are doing as well. If we see similar levels of sexist nonsense from them, then we should consider the possibility that the "techiness" of tech companies is not to blame and the problem has another cause. I think it is very likely that this incident is a manifestation of something that is wrong with marketing and corporations in general. This stuff isn't popping up because tech is involved, it is popping up because advertisers are involved and executives okay it. I feel I should say explicitly that I am not saying this behavior should be permitted "because everyone else is doing it". The behavior is not acceptable, but we should find the real cause.
- mnicole 14y agoTotally agree with you there. VS is a brand almost exclusively for women, and yet all of their marketing is clearly for men. That said, lingerie/fashion do have a [sometimes scantily-clad] human component that should be represented in some way (more tastefully..), whereas tech generally does not. That's my problem with this situation; there's no excuse for this company that could fall into the "but we make x, so it's kinda sorta okay" category.
- jlgreco 14y agoFair point.