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So do you suggest that the way women are represented + put to use in the media/marketing is okay? Just because X is the case, doesn't make X okay. There's an o

So do you suggest that the way women are represented + put to use in the media/marketing is okay? Just because X is the case, doesn't make X okay. There's an obvious point being made when a slide with women clad in bikinis is shown at a geeky male-dominated conference. Do you think that's about some women looking sexy? And what do you think about the contrast between those slides and the technical ones? Do you not think doing that expresses an opinion about women's place in technology? Personally I find what marketing does to women both when advertising to them and advertising using them utterly despicable. I think you're muddying the waters in quite a weaselly way here, and it makes me feel uneasy. We shouldn't repress sexiness (whatever the hell that would mean), but this is blatantly nothing to do with that. Nothing.

sp332 14y ago
> There's an obvious point being made when a slide with women clad in bikinis is shown at a geeky male-dominated conference. Sorry, what point? The first thing that comes to mind is that the presenter wants to communicate that the tech is sexy. > And what do you think about the contrast between those slides and the technical ones? I might be thinking of a different slide deck, but the women were on the same slides (to the side or in the background) as the technical content.
- king_jester 14y ago
  > Sorry, what point? The first thing that comes to mind is that the presenter wants to communicate that the tech is sexy. That kind of imagery is made for a male gaze and is oriented towards straight men, so how exactly does that convey sexy to a room full of people of different gender and different orientations? (hint: it doesn't and using that kind of imagery is very sexist and alienating)
  - sp332 14y ago
    I don't disagree that male gaze is a problem. But if you pick up anything targeted at women, they also use women to denote sexy things. So I don't think it's alienating. And why would it be degrading?
    - king_jester 14y ago
      Advertising aimed for male gaze vs. advertising that attempts to sell to women are a bit different. For male gaze advertisement, women are reduced to an ownable sex object, typically parts of their face will be hidden or out of frame. You'll also see ads where the actual product is turned into a women or made to look like a women (for a media definition of a women looks like, in any case). Ads targeted towards women use other women to try and sell you the product so you can achieve what the ad represents the woman having. In both cases, the ads are alienating. In male gaze ads women are explicitly not desired except as an object, so there's a very direct alienation there. For advertising selling to women, the ads serve to highlight elements that a women should have or is missing to in order to be the ideal, which is alienating as there is no such thing as an ideal women and everyone's needs are different. I mentioned it earlier, but Killing Us Softly is a nice video lecture that covers a lot of this kind of material (this link is trailer only, I'm afraid): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY
w0utert 14y ago
>>So do you suggest that the way women are represented + put to use in the media/marketing is okay? >> There's an obvious point being made when a slide with women clad in bikinis is shown at a geeky male-dominated conference. >> Personally I find what marketing does to women both when advertising to them and advertising using them utterly despicable.[/quote] Oh come on, please... The point being made is very likely not much more than 'look, here's some nice looking girls to make you feel good', which tends to work on male audiences, because men like looking at good-looking girls, just like they like looking at shiny sports cars. It's the exact same reason why car ads or ads for computer components often have good-looking female models in them. It gets the audience in a positive mindset, so the ad has more effect. If you take big issue with that (like you seem to do), your problem is with the simple evolutionary fact that men fancy good-looking women, good luck trying to change that... As for 'what marketing does to women both when advertising to them and advertising using them': did you ever care to have a look at one of the millions of magazines explicitly targeted at women? They are full of pictures of fashionable sexy people, male and female, for the exact same reasons some geeks put bikini pics in their powerpoints: because the audience likes looking at them... I don't condone sexism in any way, but trying to find some kind of evil sexist motives, intentional or unintentional, behind every instance where women are depicted for their good looks, seems extremely cynical and sour to me.
- sp332 14y ago
  > which tends to work on male audiences That might mean something if the audience was only men. But instead it had the effect of making the women feel like they were being ignored, as if the presenter was only speaking to the men in the room.
  - w0utert 14y ago
    Fair enough... You could say it wasn't very thoughtful of the presenter, probably distasteful even, but in my opinion there's a whole world between bad taste and sexism. I honestly don't understand why anyone would get worked up over something like that.
- singular 14y ago

sp332 14y ago

> There's an obvious point being made when a slide with women clad in bikinis is shown at a geeky male-dominated conference. Sorry, what point? The first thing that comes to mind is that the presenter wants to communicate that the tech is sexy. > And what do you think about the contrast between those slides and the technical ones? I might be thinking of a different slide deck, but the women were on the same slides (to the side or in the background) as the technical content.

king_jester 14y ago
> Sorry, what point? The first thing that comes to mind is that the presenter wants to communicate that the tech is sexy. That kind of imagery is made for a male gaze and is oriented towards straight men, so how exactly does that convey sexy to a room full of people of different gender and different orientations? (hint: it doesn't and using that kind of imagery is very sexist and alienating)
- sp332 14y ago
  I don't disagree that male gaze is a problem. But if you pick up anything targeted at women, they also use women to denote sexy things. So I don't think it's alienating. And why would it be degrading?
  - king_jester 14y ago
    Advertising aimed for male gaze vs. advertising that attempts to sell to women are a bit different. For male gaze advertisement, women are reduced to an ownable sex object, typically parts of their face will be hidden or out of frame. You'll also see ads where the actual product is turned into a women or made to look like a women (for a media definition of a women looks like, in any case). Ads targeted towards women use other women to try and sell you the product so you can achieve what the ad represents the woman having. In both cases, the ads are alienating. In male gaze ads women are explicitly not desired except as an object, so there's a very direct alienation there. For advertising selling to women, the ads serve to highlight elements that a women should have or is missing to in order to be the ideal, which is alienating as there is no such thing as an ideal women and everyone's needs are different. I mentioned it earlier, but Killing Us Softly is a nice video lecture that covers a lot of this kind of material (this link is trailer only, I'm afraid): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlmho_RovY

w0utert 14y ago

>>So do you suggest that the way women are represented + put to use in the media/marketing is okay? >> There's an obvious point being made when a slide with women clad in bikinis is shown at a geeky male-dominated conference. >> Personally I find what marketing does to women both when advertising to them and advertising using them utterly despicable.[/quote] Oh come on, please... The point being made is very likely not much more than 'look, here's some nice looking girls to make you feel good', which tends to work on male audiences, because men like looking at good-looking girls, just like they like looking at shiny sports cars. It's the exact same reason why car ads or ads for computer components often have good-looking female models in them. It gets the audience in a positive mindset, so the ad has more effect. If you take big issue with that (like you seem to do), your problem is with the simple evolutionary fact that men fancy good-looking women, good luck trying to change that... As for 'what marketing does to women both when advertising to them and advertising using them': did you ever care to have a look at one of the millions of magazines explicitly targeted at women? They are full of pictures of fashionable sexy people, male and female, for the exact same reasons some geeks put bikini pics in their powerpoints: because the audience likes looking at them... I don't condone sexism in any way, but trying to find some kind of evil sexist motives, intentional or unintentional, behind every instance where women are depicted for their good looks, seems extremely cynical and sour to me.

sp332 14y ago
> which tends to work on male audiences That might mean something if the audience was only men. But instead it had the effect of making the women feel like they were being ignored, as if the presenter was only speaking to the men in the room.
- w0utert 14y ago
  Fair enough... You could say it wasn't very thoughtful of the presenter, probably distasteful even, but in my opinion there's a whole world between bad taste and sexism. I honestly don't understand why anyone would get worked up over something like that.
singular 14y ago