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>The fact of the matter is: members of the tech community (LinkedIn users) saw it as impossible that our female engineers could actually be engineers, and a lea

by mjolk 13y ago

>The fact of the matter is: members of the tech community (LinkedIn users) saw it as impossible that our female engineers could actually be engineers, and a leader of the tech community (LinkedIn) agreed with them. Oh, quiet you. The text sounds scammy and the photos of attractive women just give the entire thing a 'spam' feel. It's not a slight against female engineers.

smegel 13y ago
Apparently they only had an issue with the images specifically...so maybe they just have a problem with attractive women. Strange nonetheless.
- cbhl 13y ago
  To be honest, I actually find the copy rather disturbing -- it reminds me of the copy I've seen used to advertise sites that provide video chat services.
  - smegel 13y ago
    Maybe, but if the pictures were male engineers, would you even blink or look twice?
    - mkr-hn 13y ago
      Given the same pose, lighting, and composition, absolutely.
- rhizome 13y ago
  so maybe they just have a problem with attractive women. Yeah, that's probably it.
- sorval 13y ago
  one of the images originally in the post was a 'borrowed from the internet' of an attractive actress, they claimed it was an "engineer" on their staff. This was pointed out in the comments and they quickly removed the image. So while the author of the post brings up an interesting topic, he's clearly not being honest.
xradionut 13y ago
You can go to any tech conference and find attractive engineers and programmers of any gender. My bad! Those are recruiters... :)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- wavefunction 13y ago
  How many times are "computer dudes" hit with pictures of attractive women to encourage us to buy hardware/software, attend conferences, etc? I think the culprit you should be pointing the finger at is advertisers and marketers, not the average computer programmer (who may or may not be male).
  - saraid216 13y ago
    How many times have you heard people justify sexist marketing strategies by explaining that this is "what works"? Because it does. Because of the average computer programmer.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > That's true, but consider this: the fact that it's true is, itself, a confirmation that (a) institutional sexism exists in our programmer culture, and (b) sexism is pervasive. How strange would it sound to say "that male engineer's handsome picture sure looks spammy"? Attractive female images are frequently used in marketing both to women or men, and this is not remotely unique to "programmer culture", so the fact that pictures of attractive women in a particular presentation recall underhanded marketing in the minds of members of the "programmer culture" is not much of an indicator of institutional sexism (pervasive or otherwise) particular to that "culture". Its more a sign that people's mental spam filters are driven by what spam actually uses, which itself reflects marketing more generally, which in this particular area reflects the fact that marketers have found that people generally, regardless of sex, respond well to images of attractive women. It's possibly the case that among the biological, cultural, and other contributors to that general response are probably some things that could fairly be labelled "sexism", but its certainly not a simple and direct link.
- dwild 13y ago
  Unfortunately, attractive women are often used on spam ads (dating website). This has nothing to do with the fact that they don't believe they could be engineer, it's about the fact that it look like one of theses spams ads. Also why do they show attractive women? Why not every type of women and every type of men? I'm curious to see their entire set of pictures and I'm pretty sure we will wee more attractive women than anything else. If there's someone who actually push the stereotype, it's them. They want to attract men using attractive women, like all these dating website ads.
Alex3917 13y ago
I don't think it's the fact that the women are intrinsically attractive, but rather the fact that they're consciously choosing the pose/makeup/lighting in order the emulate the design language of the adultFriendFinder-style ads. (It's not like the glamor-shot trend of the 80s was the result of some evolutionary genetic shift that made every woman temporarily look like that.) The fact that most of the copy could apply equally well to sex trafficking doesn't help much either.
freshhawk 13y ago
> these (and others) are our real engineers that we have signed contracts with > the photos of attractive women just give the entire thing a 'spam' feel And this would be their point, the fact that people feel that way is a problem given that all advertising is mostly attractive people because that works better.

by mjolk 13y ago

smegel 13y ago

Apparently they only had an issue with the images specifically...so maybe they just have a problem with attractive women. Strange nonetheless.

cbhl 13y ago
To be honest, I actually find the copy rather disturbing -- it reminds me of the copy I've seen used to advertise sites that provide video chat services.
- smegel 13y ago
  Maybe, but if the pictures were male engineers, would you even blink or look twice?
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    Given the same pose, lighting, and composition, absolutely.
rhizome 13y ago
so maybe they just have a problem with attractive women. Yeah, that's probably it.
sorval 13y ago
one of the images originally in the post was a 'borrowed from the internet' of an attractive actress, they claimed it was an "engineer" on their staff. This was pointed out in the comments and they quickly removed the image. So while the author of the post brings up an interesting topic, he's clearly not being honest.

xradionut 13y ago

You can go to any tech conference and find attractive engineers and programmers of any gender. My bad! Those are recruiters... :)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

wavefunction 13y ago
How many times are "computer dudes" hit with pictures of attractive women to encourage us to buy hardware/software, attend conferences, etc? I think the culprit you should be pointing the finger at is advertisers and marketers, not the average computer programmer (who may or may not be male).
- saraid216 13y ago
  How many times have you heard people justify sexist marketing strategies by explaining that this is "what works"? Because it does. Because of the average computer programmer.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> That's true, but consider this: the fact that it's true is, itself, a confirmation that (a) institutional sexism exists in our programmer culture, and (b) sexism is pervasive. How strange would it sound to say "that male engineer's handsome picture sure looks spammy"? Attractive female images are frequently used in marketing both to women or men, and this is not remotely unique to "programmer culture", so the fact that pictures of attractive women in a particular presentation recall underhanded marketing in the minds of members of the "programmer culture" is not much of an indicator of institutional sexism (pervasive or otherwise) particular to that "culture". Its more a sign that people's mental spam filters are driven by what spam actually uses, which itself reflects marketing more generally, which in this particular area reflects the fact that marketers have found that people generally, regardless of sex, respond well to images of attractive women. It's possibly the case that among the biological, cultural, and other contributors to that general response are probably some things that could fairly be labelled "sexism", but its certainly not a simple and direct link.
dwild 13y ago
Unfortunately, attractive women are often used on spam ads (dating website). This has nothing to do with the fact that they don't believe they could be engineer, it's about the fact that it look like one of theses spams ads. Also why do they show attractive women? Why not every type of women and every type of men? I'm curious to see their entire set of pictures and I'm pretty sure we will wee more attractive women than anything else. If there's someone who actually push the stereotype, it's them. They want to attract men using attractive women, like all these dating website ads.

Alex3917 13y ago

I don't think it's the fact that the women are intrinsically attractive, but rather the fact that they're consciously choosing the pose/makeup/lighting in order the emulate the design language of the adultFriendFinder-style ads. (It's not like the glamor-shot trend of the 80s was the result of some evolutionary genetic shift that made every woman temporarily look like that.) The fact that most of the copy could apply equally well to sex trafficking doesn't help much either.

freshhawk 13y ago

> these (and others) are our real engineers that we have signed contracts with > the photos of attractive women just give the entire thing a 'spam' feel And this would be their point, the fact that people feel that way is a problem given that all advertising is mostly attractive people because that works better.