10 ms·

This shouldn’t be the image of Hack Day

78 points by toni 17y ago

steveklabnik 17y ago
> I’ve heard arguments that this kind of thing is culturally acceptable in Taiwan—in fact it may even be expected for technology events, though I’d love to hear further confirmation. When in Taiwan... I mean, not to rain on anybody's parade, and I'll say that I wouldn't be expecting this at a conference either, but you shouldn't be holding Taiwan to American standards. Maybe I'm still too young.
- simonw 17y ago
  Apparently this kind of thing really is pretty much a requirement for a Taiwanese event - pretty dancing girls are in attendance for all kinds of events. But like I said in the post, I don't care. For me, addressing the gender imbalance in technology is more important than obeying cultural norms. Plus dancing girls is one thing, but dancing ON people is quite another.
  - yalurker 17y ago
    Ya know, I've never walked into a conference, office or classroom and started counting up the number of men versus women in the room. Do you also worry about race? Religion? Sexual orientation? Disabilities? It seems like you're projecting your own feelings about the tech community onto Taiwanese business culture. By your own admission this is common to Taiwan, not tech. Maybe it would be better if we just saw people as people and stopped freaking out about which sub-groups we can split them into.
    - smokey_the_bear 17y ago
      You know, I never explicitly start counting either. But it was very obvious when I walked into my computer engineering classes in college, and there were two other girls out of 150 people. Then I'd walk into my English class and it would be half female. It doesn't take counting to notice disparities like that. Conferences are the same. I also didn't think about it until I was on a team at Google that was half female. But that was my third team there, and I'd also interned at IBM, Microsoft and a startup, and I had never worked with a female engineer before.
      - Tichy 17y ago
        Just the assumptions that the difference in numbers is because of discrimination is wrong, or at least the numbers alone don't prove it. It could prove the opposite thing: that men are in a bad position because they are forced to study hard and lonely subjects. (Not saying it does, just saying the numbers could be interpreted in any number of ways).
        smokey_the_bear 17y ago
        I didn't say it was discrimination, and I've never felt like it was. But I'd feel uncomfortable if I went to a conference that was basically held in a strip club. I even felt a little uncomfortable at Google's Christmas party in 2004 when they had scantily clad Go Go dancers on tables everywhere. But working often with people that have exceedingly poor social skills around women is something that has affected my job satisfaction. I'm sure men have other things that affect them that I haven't had to experience though.
        Tichy 17y ago
        I wouldn't like strippers at a conference either, no question. I haven't really experienced above average social incompetence around women in IT, but as I said elsewhere, there tend to be not many women around to act incompetent with. Of course I would like to have more female coworkers. I just don't think that go go dancers in Taiwan are the root cause for not many women being in IT.
    - swolchok 17y ago
      Ya know, I've never walked into a conference, office or classroom and started counting up the number of men versus women in the room. Did you go to a university with a good CS program that you were in? Were you ever single while attending university? Did you ever think it might be nice to date a woman who shared your abilities and interests? It's not exactly unheard-of for men to tally up the male/female ratio at gatherings where they spend the majority of their time if it seems out of whack.
    - jlees 17y ago
      To be fair I often count the number of other women at tech events I go to... mostly because it's obvious and easy. I mean, I don't even need to take my socks off.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    You're not going to win your battle by defying cultural norms. By chastising the way that others live their lives, you only drive them further away from your ideas. You may win your moral battle, but you'll lose the war. > Plus dancing girls is one thing, but dancing ON people is quite another. Once again, how other people choose to live may, in fact, be completely different from you.
    - simonw 17y ago
      It's not defying cultural norms to NOT hire dancing girls for your event. That's like saying refusing to smoke is defying the cultural norms of smokers.
      - steveklabnik 17y ago
        Didn't you just say above that > Apparently this kind of thing really is pretty much a requirement for a Taiwanese event - pretty dancing girls are in attendance for all kinds of events. If it's expected to be there, and it's not... you're acting in a manner that's inconsistent with culture. As for your refusal to smoke comment, you'd be suprised at how strongly people will hold onto such things. I used to never drink alcohol, ever. But I had no problems with others doing so at all. I'd go out to bars with my friends all the time, and just drink a Coke, no rum. But slowly, people stopped inviting me out. They felt that I was being judgemental by not partaking in drink, that I was somehow saying that it was beneath me. This happened with several different disparate groups of people. People don't listen when you tell them that they're wrong.
- megaduck 17y ago
  I strongly disagree. While living in China I encountered horrific racism and sexism, both widely accepted as community standards. There was a human cost to those "standards", and I grew to believe that we should all be held to a certain standard of behavior, regardless of our national origin or cultural identity. Disapproval of the current situation is how progress gets made in the world. There was a time in this country when slavery was widely accepted and women weren't allowed to vote. Those were the standards of the day, and they were only shifted because a vocal minority stood up and cried out, "This is wrong!". Somebody always has to be the first to raise the bar.
  - deleted 17y ago
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  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    > I grew to believe that we should all be held to a certain standard of behavior, regardless of our national origin or cultural identity. I guess this is just where we differ. I don't belive that one way of living is inherently better than another; or that I have some moral imperative to make others behave in a way that I see fit. Of course, I'd love them to, and if asked the reason that I act differently, I'd be happy to explain. I used to feel the way that you do. It's easy to get caught up in the "of course, slavery is wrong! Of course, sexism is wrong!" But then it slowly starts to bleed into "of course, we have to spread Democracy to Iraq," "of course, we have to make laws that gay people can't marry"... Moral superiority is how wars start. By making others' ways of life into the literary Other, you're demonizing the very people you're trying to convince.
    - acdha 17y ago
      This is very easy to say, as someone privileged enough not to be affected by the issue, and you're making an insane leap to say that criticizing routine discrimination "is how wars start" or somehow imply that it leads to banning gay marriage. It looks like you're missing the difference between suggestion and coercion and, as far as "making others' way of life into the literary Other" goes, well, I think a great way to do that is to assume that everyone is choosing to engage in sexism rather than uncritically going along with the status quo.
- nopal 17y ago
  I don't think Simon's argument has to do with adhering to American standards. In fact, he explicitly states that he's interested in creating an "inclusive environment" for women developers. How quick are we on Hacker News to pass judgement on Google for censoring search results in China? Why aren't we defending their actions in the same manner that some are defending the decision to include lap dancers? I think it's because we sense that there is a greater issue at hand, and that is precisely what Simon is saying here. Forget whether or not Yahoo has the right to hire provocative dancers for their conference or even what the norms are for other conferences in the area. Those things have no concern for the feelings of women. Even if Yahoo can and others do, it doesn't mean it was the right decision.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    > Those things have no concern for the feelings of American women. Sorry, I've edited your quote. You're still projecting your morals onto others. See my response to your sibling. ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=891269 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=891269 ) You won't change hearts and minds with a message of "You're wrong."
sown 17y ago
Those pictures make me feel very uncomfortable.
maudineormsby 17y ago
For shame, for shame - forget where it's held, this kind of action reflects on the industry as a whole. Couldn't agree with this article more. The lack of female talent in this industry is a real shame, and excludes a perspective that could be extremely helpful.
- jlees 17y ago
  It's the kind of image that has been prevalent in the gaming industry for eons. I wonder how disparate the percentages of female hackers (if you can define hacker sufficiently) versus women in gaming are. Certainly in gaming we're pretty much used to it by now - and it is slowly changing. Plus, as another poster says, 'when in Taiwan'; their culture's totally different. If there is a gender imbalance specifically in Taiwanese or Asian computing (and most of the female CS students I met were from China or Japan), addressing it needs to take the culture into consideration - the miniskirted lapdancers are a symptom, not the disease.
  - maudineormsby 17y ago
    True, but even when you have a disease, you start by treating the symptoms to ease the discomfort. I can only imagine how uncomfortable women at these conferences (what few there are) must be.
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      > I can only imagine how uncomfortable women at these conferences (what few there are) must be. Or would be, if they were American. Considering this is part of their culture, they probably don't bat an eye.
      - antonovka 17y ago
        Culturally held sexism is still sexism, and such culturally established prejudice and undue partiality is not unique to Taiwan. We shouldn't accept sexism or racism, period.
coderdude 17y ago
I find it weird that some tech guys, unlike nearly all normal men, get really upset when fine women are in the picture. Would you rather the following image continue to be the image of Hack Day and all other tech events? http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Funny/nyc_linux_users.jpg http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Funny/nyc_linux_users.jpg
- maudineormsby 17y ago
  As opposed to the blatantly sexist, misogynistic viewpoint represented by the other pictures? Yes, absolutely and unequivocally. I do see your point, and the tech community could learn a little about marketing themselves, but it doesn't excuse the garbage that is in the article.
  - uriel 17y ago
    > As opposed to the blatantly sexist, misogynistic viewpoint represented by the other pictures? Uhu? What pictures are you talking about that represent "blatantly sexist [and] misogynistic viewpoint"? Because I have yet to see any.
- simonw 17y ago
  I'm personally embarrassed by the presence of "fine women" if they've been paid just to show up - it makes tech guys look like the only time they get to talk to a woman is if she's being compensated for it.
  - coderdude 17y ago
    I think that underscores an insecurity about your ability to interact with attractive women. Strippers, exotic dancers, and eye candy in general have and will remain a big part of male-only events. You can whine that there should be more females and that is fine. If there were, and they cared, they would voice out against it. This is not uncommon.
  - deleted 17y ago
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yalurker 17y ago
Yes, how dare someone on the other side of the world do something that doesn't fit with contemporary American standards for what is professional! Clearly this is the fault of the technology industry, as a whole. Just like the energy industry is clearly not inclusive because of how middle-eastern oil-producing countries treat women. </sarcasm> Seriously, can we please stop seeking out any instance of anything inappropriate and then using it to slander an entire industry? The fact that something potentially sexist happened somewhere doesn't mean that discrimination is rampant throughout the industry.
- simonw 17y ago
  Firstly, I'm British. Secondly, I'm not arguing that this incident proves our industry is sexist. My argument is that the low number of women involved in our industry is a problem, and one thing we can do to address that problem is to have a zero tolerance attitude to this kind of thing. Thirdly, I couldn't care less about "professionalism". The first London Hack Day had people playing Faceball on stage! I care about behaviour that makes a portion of the potential audience feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.
  - jlees 17y ago
    I imagine a far greater proportion of the potential audience consists of (guys who get offended on behalf of women for sexist behaviour) than consists of (women who may or may not care). On that basis this behaviour should be stopped. Not because zero tolerance is the right answer; that way lies political correctness gone mad.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Now why on earth would that get you modded down ? I fully agree with you. I'm a male and I would have been quite disappointed at this whole thing, and I certainly don't get 'upset' at seeing scantily clad females, the beaches here are full of them. The problem is the context, as if women on a gathering like that have nothing but 'decorative' functions, and as if all men would find such a display appropriate. I also think that regardless of how far from 'home' this happened if that's yahoos' approach to this kind of event anywhere that it reflects bad on them as a company. The apology that is linked to from here is actually pretty weak. It shows a certain disrespect.
thirdape 17y ago
People are way too sensitive. Looks like they hired Go Go dancers for a party. Probably not the best idea in the world but people trying to use this as an example of the "shame" of the IT worlds sexism are just grand standing. There are not a lot of women in IT because up until recently it was considered a mark against socially to be a nerd. Now with the growing popularity of nerd culture and the high incentives to be in that field there will be a more diverse crowd. Or maybe there will always be more men then women because women are less interested in technological fields. Sorry if that's not a popular opinion but I'm not interested in many fields of study and have not slammed one for being in anyway discriminatory against me. It certainly won't be because Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are sending out masses of men wearing NO MAAM t-shirts to tack no girls allowed signs on the the computer labs across the country. If anything the same loosely regulated and relaxed environment, common in many IT fields and shops, that would make them think nothing of hiring dancers for a party is the same attitude that would welcome anyone regardless of looks, sex, race, or anything else.
alex_c 17y ago
I wonder how many people are genuinely outraged, and how many are outraged because it is the expected response.
- antonovka 17y ago
  I wonder how many people are bordering on asperger's levels of social ineptitude and insensitivity due to the fact that it's really easy to be insensitive when you're on top.
  - alex_c 17y ago
    Insensitivity and oversensitivity can both be inappropriate. It's always safer to be oversensitive than insensitive, though. Wouldn't you agree that becomes a problem when it masks how people actually feel about a subject? Side note: I move to officially recognize mentions of Asperger's when discussing social situations as HN's custom version of Godwin's law.
    - antonovka 17y ago
      Wouldn't you agree that becomes a problem when it masks how people actually feel about a subject? No -- I think the fact that it's considered culturally inappropriate to express clearly racist and sexist opinions is a benefit -- it's the first step to stemming the spread of that cultural virus. Side note: I move to officially recognize mentions of Asperger's when discussing social situations as HN's custom version of Godwin's law. It was an intentional reference to an endemic lack of social graces in technology culture and the oft-referenced syndrome. It was not an ad hominem argument.
      - alex_c 17y ago
        No -- I think the fact that it's considered culturally inappropriate to express clearly racist and sexist opinions is a benefit -- it's the first step to stemming the spread of that cultural virus. I disagree - and I think the fact that my first, intentionally ambiguous, comment was modded down (by some) is a hint why. I had the temerity to as much as HINT that some people are not honestly outraged by this, and was immediately shot down. The problem is not with expressing clearly racist or sexist opinions - the problem is that any such subject automatically becomes a minefield, and anyone except the clueless (or the bored) will automatically either adopt a "how COULD they" attitude, or keep silent. There is no discussion, no explanation of why it is wrong (even if it should be self-evident), just something bordering on a witch hunt. Now, say someone with a sexist view walks into the conversation. Having an IQ higher than, say, a garden gnome, they immediately pick up on the "right" thing to say, and join in the chorus - possibly even becoming the loudest voice. Have they actually learned anything or been convinced of anything, other than how to act? I'm just generally not a big believer in taboos. I feel that talking about problems - HONESTLY talking about problems - is better than pretending they don't exist. Edit: and now you got modded down. See, this is what I mean - it's such a polarized topic, it makes it almost impossible to have a normal conversation.
danw 17y ago
I've attended both the London Yahoo hackday's myself and found them wonderfully well run by lovely people. Personally, I would feel terribly uncomfortable if they had booked dancers like this for entertainment. It is a bad idea for two differing reasons. 1. I attend hackdays to build things. Not for loud bands, giant jenga or lap dancing. The intention is hacking, surprisingly. Organisers should focus their energy and resources on good wifi, nice apis, etc that appeal to the hackday audience instead of any form of auxiliary entertainment. 2. There seems to be a slight gender imbalance at hackdays. I don't think lap dancers are going to help that. Even if this is the local 'norm', Yahoo hackday is a global brand. When people see behaviour like this, it marks the whole tech community as either misogynistic or ladish.
nl 17y ago
They did the same thing last year: http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/09/taiwan_open_hac.html http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/09/taiwan_open... To quote: "The evening entertainment (Hack Girls) was an interesting contrast to Girltalk at Sunnyvale Open Hack Day the weekend before." Also on FlickR, from 2008: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myhsu/sets/72157607394199935/?page=2 http://www.flickr.com/photos/myhsu/sets/72157607394199935/?p... And: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/hackgirl/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/hackgirl/ I can't find any kind of confirmation anywhere that this kind of thing is considered normal for a business conference in Taiwan. Perhaps people are confusing car shows (or arguably computer games shows) with a hack day?
- michaelkeenan 17y ago
  I moved to Taiwan last year, and I can confirm that dancing girls are very common in all kinds of irrelevant contexts, particularly expos. It's weird to me, but I haven't heard any women here complaining about it.
antonovka 17y ago
Some of the disturbing arguments here demonstrate just how far we have to go before women are celebrated as equals in technology. Here's one techtalk I found to be quite enlightening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmROmy5jT80 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmROmy5jT80 Google TechTalks - Dr. Cornelia Brunner Associate Director, Center for Children & Technology Education Development Anyone have others they would recommend?
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  Technology is possibly one of the most meritocratic fields that there are. Programmers and scientists respect results, and generally are poor with the surrounding social issues. I've never heard anyone say "oh, yeah, that paper, too bad it's authored by a woman." or "I'd love to accept this patch, but I'm not gonna bother looking, a girl wrote it." I've won (well, second place, actually) a programming competition with a female partner. I won't deny that there are few women around here. I think there were 14ish in my program? But the problem won't be solved if you run around trying to make special rules for the girls.
  - antonovka 17y ago
    I won't deny that there are few women around here. I think there were 14ish in my program? But the problem won't be solved if you run around trying to make special rules for the girls. "Don't hire strippers. No lap dances." aren't special rules for the girls. Technology is possibly one of the most meritocratic fields that there are. Yes, clearly there are no social issues and sexism in technology, which is why we get blog posts about it from women who take issue with blatant examples of sexism in technology. Sarcasm aside, I can't recommend the above video highly enough.
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      > "Don't hire strippers. No lap dances." aren't special rules for the girls. The way that you're presenting it is, however. "Don't hire strippers because it makes the girls feel uncomfortable." is the subtext here.
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Tens of millions are in slavery as we speak. People in some countries cannot get free information and the government closely monitors what they watch and do. Some countries still "harvest" organs from condemned prisoners to sell on the open market. And yet we find time to get outraged over a couple of pretty girls lap-dancing a couple of geeks at some conference. Modern morality is an interesting thing. It seems that it rests on how easy it is to pass judgment, how many people will agree with you when you do, and having the appropriate degree of self-flagellation.
- alex_c 17y ago
  I usually don't agree with "don't solve problem X, because Y and Z are worse" (society isn't exactly like prioritizing bugs), but in this case - right on.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    I think the best argument against the dancers is that it is tasteless -- or at least seems so to most of the readers here. I honestly don't know if it seemed tasteless to conference attendees or not. I also don't know if it was a major part of the conference or could easily be skipped by those who didn't like it. I try to be an easy-going guy. Nobody is being harmed here. More troubling is the tendency to mouth-off about "easy" things like this while saying things like "every culture is okay" when it comes to things like the secret police or freedom of information. That just seems completely moronic to me.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    Unfortunately it has been decided (in the rest of the comments) that we're not allowed to do anything about, or even comment on, any of these problems, even if done by Western companies in foreign lands, because to do so would be cultural imperialism.
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- mbrubeck 17y ago
  In case you haven't noticed, both men and women (including prominent women like Caterina Fake) called out Yahoo on this event. And previous occasions have been no different, with plenty of women raising their voices. For example, after last spring's CouchDB talk we heard from several women: http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2009/04/25/why-rails-is-still-a-ghetto/ http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2009/04/25/why-rails-is-still-a... http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-at-gogaruco/ http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-... http://dyepot-teapot.com/2009/04/25/dear-fellow-rubyists/ http://dyepot-teapot.com/2009/04/25/dear-fellow-rubyists/ http://www.renaebair.com/2009/04/27/perform-like-a-frag-sta http://www.renaebair.com/2009/04/27/perform-like-a-frag-sta http://lizkeogh.com/2009/04/29/i-am-not-a-pr0n-star-avoiding-unavoidable-associations/ http://lizkeogh.com/2009/04/29/i-am-not-a-pr0n-star-avoiding...
  - uriel 17y ago
    While other women didn't give fuck, because they had more important things to worry about than a handful of lame pictures.
gord 17y ago
I was surprised in other parts of Asia, how common a practice it is to engage 'race girl' PR staff for the most civic of events. For an open source promotion we had in Thailand I interviewed several stunning PR girls [tough job but someone has to do it].. Fortunately among these air hostesses and models to be were some students with genuine interests beyond makeup and fame. The impeccably dressed PR beauties we chose, did a fantastic job of translating the message of free software 'as in beer and freedom'. We gave demos and handed out 12 thousand promo folders with Gimp and Blender on CD over 4 days. Exhausting but fun.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Not in China. You are not getting a lap-dance in public from a Chinese woman.
petewarden 17y ago
Here's my practical problem with this: - We're missing out on 50% of the people who could be good engineers. Programming is a really effective tool for improving our world, so any waste of talent is a Bad Thing. - Whatever the moral arguments, accepting go-go dancers at events sucks as a way to attract women into our world. Is shaming conference organizers the most important change we can make? Hell no, but it's low-hanging fruit. It gives us a zero-effort way to advertise that we as a community want more women here. If we can't even manage this, god knows how we'll make any real changes. It's pretty depressing to read this thread, I thought there was a widespread consensus that the lack of women in computing was a problem. I'd be interested to know if any of the commenters defending the conference agree or disagree that it's important to get more women into our field?
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  > I'd be interested to know if any of the commenters defending the conference agree or disagree that it's important to get more women into our field? I think it's important to get intellegent people into the field, regardless of gender. However, it's foolish to judge a conference in a far-off land by our system of morals.
  - petewarden 17y ago
    > However, it's foolish to judge a conference in a far-off land by our system of morals. I tried to re-frame this as a practical problem rather than a moral one, since cultural relativism is a rabbit-hole this thread could disappear into for decades. Do you believe accepting go-go dancers at events is likely to discourage Taiwanese women from wanting to get involved? That's the basis of my disapproval, cause and effect.
  - diego_moita 17y ago
    > However, it's foolish to judge a conference in a far-off land by our system of morals. I strongly disagree. The country where I live (Canada) is the fourth in my life (after Portugal, Angola and Brazil). I also visited more than a dozen other. The system of morals that people embrace in Canada is one of the main reasons I choosed to live here. And I believe that I have enough multicultural experience to say that no, it isn't foolish. Same cultures are better than others. How do you know? Because there is an absolute in morals: don't do to others what you wouldn't want they did to you. You can derive a lot of judgements from there.
Tichy 17y ago
So set up another Hack Day without Go Go Dancers and go there instead of the Go Go Dancer day? Or somehow trademark the "Hack Day" label so that you can enforce a "no go go dancers" rule. I suppose atm anybody can call an event a "Hack Day", so there is no point in trying to enforce any particular style.
ig1 17y ago
While I don't think what they did was a good idea. Saying it causes a gender imbalance seems unsupported. Here's why: Which country has a great gender imbalance among technology workers the USA or Taiwan ?
sh1mmer 17y ago
And finally I can comment... http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2009/10/taiwan_ohd_apology.html http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2009/10/taiwan_ohd_... I probably shouldn't comment much, but there is one thing I really want to say for me, not the company. I hope we've done some good in the community, and despite this mistake I hope that people will remember that. A bunch of us in the office I work in, in California, do our best to promote women in tech (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yahoo_women_in_tech/3799977956/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/yahoo_women_in_tech/3799977956/...). I hope you'll judge us (Yahoo!) by our actions, and that includes our ability to say sorry when things aren't done right. Tom
- aditya 17y ago
  +1 to Tom on this. I had the pleasure of attending Open Hack Day NYC and it was an amazing event. Mad Kudos to Yahoo! to put something like this together.
- bobbob 17y ago
  Did Yahoo every appoligize for handing over information about the Chinese pro-democracy protesters that China asked for some years back? To not apologize for that is a much graver mistake than what you are currently apologizing for.
dmoney 17y ago
Thought experiment: early stage startup A, which consists of 3 males throws a private launch party at which there are female strippers. It's unprofessional, but at this point it doesn't matter because it's just a group of friends who happen to be running a company. Startup B, consisting of three females, same situation with male strippers. Later A and B merge and, to celebrate, throw an event called Hackers and Strippers, which is open to the general (adult) hacking population and features male and female strippers and a guitar shower room. Hard to imagine any hacking gets done, but a good time is had by all. The actual logistics of such an event, and whether or not it would offend their customer bases, are left as an exercise to the reader. AB grows to become the 3000 employee AB Corp. When they IPO they throw Hackers and Strippers Worldwide. Same kind of party on a larger scale. Unprofessional? You betcha. Independent of sexism, at what point does unprofessionalism become a problem?
- dotBen 17y ago
  I read this twice and I'm still confused as to what this has to do with the OT?
  - dmoney 17y ago
    Part of the argument is that this is sexist. Part is that it's unprofessional. If there were also male strippers the event would no longer be sexist, only unprofessional. Would it still deserve moral outrage? Would it still be counter-productive? I'm just exploring permutations here. I think half-naked dancing girls would make it hard to get any hacking done. But that doesn't necessarily make it a bad event (aside from sexism). A bad event to hack at, maybe.
    - LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
      I'm still trying to figure out where the guitar shower room comes in >.>? (This thread is the first google result for "guitar shower room.")
      - pushingbits 17y ago
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alexgartrell 17y ago
I feel like people are missing the point. You shouldn't be pissed about this because it'll hurt women's feelings. You should be pissed because it makes developers look sad and pathetic and overly horny. I'd be appalled to see that in any kind of professional/academic setting. WRT Women, I think the white knight stuff is hurting more than helping. They don't need our protection from the perils of sexism, they just need us not to be sexist and to know that they can handle it all by themselves.
- donaq 17y ago
  it makes developers look sad and pathetic and overly horny Not commenting on whether it's right or wrong, but erm, really? Do racing drivers evoke those impressions? Because they sort of have the same thing at car races.
  - alexgartrell 17y ago
    There isn't a preexisting stereotype of racing drivers being sad, pathetic, overly horny. Public tends to look for perception reinforcers. This is one example
- uriel 17y ago
  > WRT Women, I think the white knight stuff is hurting more than helping. They don't need our protection from the perils of sexism, they just need us not to be sexist and to know that they can handle it all by themselves. This can't be repeated often enough. All the 'white knight' grandstanding is much more appalling and offensive any of the 'sexism' I have seen anywhere in the IT industry.
neilk 17y ago
It seems to me the real bug is that everyone assumes that a sexual performance necessarily degrades the person doing it. Everyone seems to be making that assumption, from the mouth-breather geeks who called up rent-a-lapdancer, to the prudish, sometimes hypocritical, bloggers wagging their fingers. Don't get me wrong; I understand the problem. Being asked to make the coffee is fine. Being asked to make the coffee just because you're a woman is reprehensible. The actions take place in a context, and just because there are empowered women doing sex-charged performances in San Francisco doesn't mean the event in Taiwan was empowering. Still, I feel the disconnect from the sex-positive culture I know in SF, and the generally sex-paranoid culture of corporate America. There are subcultures at least where neither being 'professional' nor being very out front with your sexuality matters at all to how respected you are. I kind of wish mainstream culture would catch up. If people would just get that, they wouldn't have to see a sexual performer as an inferior, and the nature of the entire exchange would be different.
- shiranaihito 17y ago
  The actions take place in a context, and just because there are empowered women doing sex-charged performances in San Francisco doesn't mean the event in Taiwan was empowering. Does it mean those women in Taiwan weren't empowered then? Besides, maybe that kind of thing is common in Taiwan, and nothing to get all worked up about (especially on the other side of the planet). To the women, it was probably just a business transaction, and the geeks probably enjoyed it. No one got hurt or degraded.
Mz 17y ago
When I got my certificate in geographic information systems (GIS), it was an 8 week long intensive program where I spent 36 to 40 hours a week in class and up to 20 more studying. GIS is a 2/3s male field and my classes were all about 2/3s male. The last week of school, it dawned on me that the majority of women in my classes occupied the last two rows of seats. There were a few women who sat various places. I was the only woman who consistently sat in the front row. I also was one of only a few women to attend the graduation party. The few other women left by about midnight. I stayed until about 4am. I was one of the last people to leave. I've had people (usually women) make horrified remarks about what a terrible (ie "immoral" -- good girls don't stay at parties surrounded by male colleagues until 4am) and dangerous thing it was I did to attend the graduation party. I really have no way of knowing what lap-dancers at a hacking event might have to do with sexism and discouraging the participation of women. But it's clear to me that there are still very real social barriers to the full inclusion of women in technical fields.

78 points by toni 17y ago

> I’ve heard arguments that this kind of thing is culturally acceptable in Taiwan—in fact it may even be expected for technology events, though I’d love to hear further confirmation. When in Taiwan... I mean, not to rain on anybody's parade, and I'll say that I wouldn't be expecting this at a conference either, but you shouldn't be holding Taiwan to American standards. Maybe I'm still too young.

simonw 17y ago
Apparently this kind of thing really is pretty much a requirement for a Taiwanese event - pretty dancing girls are in attendance for all kinds of events. But like I said in the post, I don't care. For me, addressing the gender imbalance in technology is more important than obeying cultural norms. Plus dancing girls is one thing, but dancing ON people is quite another.
- yalurker 17y ago
  Ya know, I've never walked into a conference, office or classroom and started counting up the number of men versus women in the room. Do you also worry about race? Religion? Sexual orientation? Disabilities? It seems like you're projecting your own feelings about the tech community onto Taiwanese business culture. By your own admission this is common to Taiwan, not tech. Maybe it would be better if we just saw people as people and stopped freaking out about which sub-groups we can split them into.
  - smokey_the_bear 17y ago
    You know, I never explicitly start counting either. But it was very obvious when I walked into my computer engineering classes in college, and there were two other girls out of 150 people. Then I'd walk into my English class and it would be half female. It doesn't take counting to notice disparities like that. Conferences are the same. I also didn't think about it until I was on a team at Google that was half female. But that was my third team there, and I'd also interned at IBM, Microsoft and a startup, and I had never worked with a female engineer before.
    - Tichy 17y ago
      Just the assumptions that the difference in numbers is because of discrimination is wrong, or at least the numbers alone don't prove it. It could prove the opposite thing: that men are in a bad position because they are forced to study hard and lonely subjects. (Not saying it does, just saying the numbers could be interpreted in any number of ways).
      - smokey_the_bear 17y ago
        I didn't say it was discrimination, and I've never felt like it was. But I'd feel uncomfortable if I went to a conference that was basically held in a strip club. I even felt a little uncomfortable at Google's Christmas party in 2004 when they had scantily clad Go Go dancers on tables everywhere. But working often with people that have exceedingly poor social skills around women is something that has affected my job satisfaction. I'm sure men have other things that affect them that I haven't had to experience though.
        Tichy 17y ago
        I wouldn't like strippers at a conference either, no question. I haven't really experienced above average social incompetence around women in IT, but as I said elsewhere, there tend to be not many women around to act incompetent with. Of course I would like to have more female coworkers. I just don't think that go go dancers in Taiwan are the root cause for not many women being in IT.
  - swolchok 17y ago
    Ya know, I've never walked into a conference, office or classroom and started counting up the number of men versus women in the room. Did you go to a university with a good CS program that you were in? Were you ever single while attending university? Did you ever think it might be nice to date a woman who shared your abilities and interests? It's not exactly unheard-of for men to tally up the male/female ratio at gatherings where they spend the majority of their time if it seems out of whack.
  - jlees 17y ago
    To be fair I often count the number of other women at tech events I go to... mostly because it's obvious and easy. I mean, I don't even need to take my socks off.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  You're not going to win your battle by defying cultural norms. By chastising the way that others live their lives, you only drive them further away from your ideas. You may win your moral battle, but you'll lose the war. > Plus dancing girls is one thing, but dancing ON people is quite another. Once again, how other people choose to live may, in fact, be completely different from you.
  - simonw 17y ago
    It's not defying cultural norms to NOT hire dancing girls for your event. That's like saying refusing to smoke is defying the cultural norms of smokers.
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      Didn't you just say above that > Apparently this kind of thing really is pretty much a requirement for a Taiwanese event - pretty dancing girls are in attendance for all kinds of events. If it's expected to be there, and it's not... you're acting in a manner that's inconsistent with culture. As for your refusal to smoke comment, you'd be suprised at how strongly people will hold onto such things. I used to never drink alcohol, ever. But I had no problems with others doing so at all. I'd go out to bars with my friends all the time, and just drink a Coke, no rum. But slowly, people stopped inviting me out. They felt that I was being judgemental by not partaking in drink, that I was somehow saying that it was beneath me. This happened with several different disparate groups of people. People don't listen when you tell them that they're wrong.
megaduck 17y ago
I strongly disagree. While living in China I encountered horrific racism and sexism, both widely accepted as community standards. There was a human cost to those "standards", and I grew to believe that we should all be held to a certain standard of behavior, regardless of our national origin or cultural identity. Disapproval of the current situation is how progress gets made in the world. There was a time in this country when slavery was widely accepted and women weren't allowed to vote. Those were the standards of the day, and they were only shifted because a vocal minority stood up and cried out, "This is wrong!". Somebody always has to be the first to raise the bar.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  > I grew to believe that we should all be held to a certain standard of behavior, regardless of our national origin or cultural identity. I guess this is just where we differ. I don't belive that one way of living is inherently better than another; or that I have some moral imperative to make others behave in a way that I see fit. Of course, I'd love them to, and if asked the reason that I act differently, I'd be happy to explain. I used to feel the way that you do. It's easy to get caught up in the "of course, slavery is wrong! Of course, sexism is wrong!" But then it slowly starts to bleed into "of course, we have to spread Democracy to Iraq," "of course, we have to make laws that gay people can't marry"... Moral superiority is how wars start. By making others' ways of life into the literary Other, you're demonizing the very people you're trying to convince.
  - acdha 17y ago
    This is very easy to say, as someone privileged enough not to be affected by the issue, and you're making an insane leap to say that criticizing routine discrimination "is how wars start" or somehow imply that it leads to banning gay marriage. It looks like you're missing the difference between suggestion and coercion and, as far as "making others' way of life into the literary Other" goes, well, I think a great way to do that is to assume that everyone is choosing to engage in sexism rather than uncritically going along with the status quo.
nopal 17y ago
I don't think Simon's argument has to do with adhering to American standards. In fact, he explicitly states that he's interested in creating an "inclusive environment" for women developers. How quick are we on Hacker News to pass judgement on Google for censoring search results in China? Why aren't we defending their actions in the same manner that some are defending the decision to include lap dancers? I think it's because we sense that there is a greater issue at hand, and that is precisely what Simon is saying here. Forget whether or not Yahoo has the right to hire provocative dancers for their conference or even what the norms are for other conferences in the area. Those things have no concern for the feelings of women. Even if Yahoo can and others do, it doesn't mean it was the right decision.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  > Those things have no concern for the feelings of American women. Sorry, I've edited your quote. You're still projecting your morals onto others. See my response to your sibling. ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=891269 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=891269 ) You won't change hearts and minds with a message of "You're wrong."

sown 17y ago

Those pictures make me feel very uncomfortable.

maudineormsby 17y ago

For shame, for shame - forget where it's held, this kind of action reflects on the industry as a whole. Couldn't agree with this article more. The lack of female talent in this industry is a real shame, and excludes a perspective that could be extremely helpful.

jlees 17y ago
It's the kind of image that has been prevalent in the gaming industry for eons. I wonder how disparate the percentages of female hackers (if you can define hacker sufficiently) versus women in gaming are. Certainly in gaming we're pretty much used to it by now - and it is slowly changing. Plus, as another poster says, 'when in Taiwan'; their culture's totally different. If there is a gender imbalance specifically in Taiwanese or Asian computing (and most of the female CS students I met were from China or Japan), addressing it needs to take the culture into consideration - the miniskirted lapdancers are a symptom, not the disease.
- maudineormsby 17y ago
  True, but even when you have a disease, you start by treating the symptoms to ease the discomfort. I can only imagine how uncomfortable women at these conferences (what few there are) must be.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    > I can only imagine how uncomfortable women at these conferences (what few there are) must be. Or would be, if they were American. Considering this is part of their culture, they probably don't bat an eye.
    - antonovka 17y ago
      Culturally held sexism is still sexism, and such culturally established prejudice and undue partiality is not unique to Taiwan. We shouldn't accept sexism or racism, period.

coderdude 17y ago

I find it weird that some tech guys, unlike nearly all normal men, get really upset when fine women are in the picture. Would you rather the following image continue to be the image of Hack Day and all other tech events? http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Funny/nyc_linux_users.jpg http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Funny/nyc_linux_users.jpg

maudineormsby 17y ago
As opposed to the blatantly sexist, misogynistic viewpoint represented by the other pictures? Yes, absolutely and unequivocally. I do see your point, and the tech community could learn a little about marketing themselves, but it doesn't excuse the garbage that is in the article.
- uriel 17y ago
  > As opposed to the blatantly sexist, misogynistic viewpoint represented by the other pictures? Uhu? What pictures are you talking about that represent "blatantly sexist [and] misogynistic viewpoint"? Because I have yet to see any.
simonw 17y ago
I'm personally embarrassed by the presence of "fine women" if they've been paid just to show up - it makes tech guys look like the only time they get to talk to a woman is if she's being compensated for it.
- coderdude 17y ago
  I think that underscores an insecurity about your ability to interact with attractive women. Strippers, exotic dancers, and eye candy in general have and will remain a big part of male-only events. You can whine that there should be more females and that is fine. If there were, and they cared, they would voice out against it. This is not uncommon.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

yalurker 17y ago

Yes, how dare someone on the other side of the world do something that doesn't fit with contemporary American standards for what is professional! Clearly this is the fault of the technology industry, as a whole. Just like the energy industry is clearly not inclusive because of how middle-eastern oil-producing countries treat women. </sarcasm> Seriously, can we please stop seeking out any instance of anything inappropriate and then using it to slander an entire industry? The fact that something potentially sexist happened somewhere doesn't mean that discrimination is rampant throughout the industry.

simonw 17y ago
Firstly, I'm British. Secondly, I'm not arguing that this incident proves our industry is sexist. My argument is that the low number of women involved in our industry is a problem, and one thing we can do to address that problem is to have a zero tolerance attitude to this kind of thing. Thirdly, I couldn't care less about "professionalism". The first London Hack Day had people playing Faceball on stage! I care about behaviour that makes a portion of the potential audience feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.
- jlees 17y ago
  I imagine a far greater proportion of the potential audience consists of (guys who get offended on behalf of women for sexist behaviour) than consists of (women who may or may not care). On that basis this behaviour should be stopped. Not because zero tolerance is the right answer; that way lies political correctness gone mad.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Now why on earth would that get you modded down ? I fully agree with you. I'm a male and I would have been quite disappointed at this whole thing, and I certainly don't get 'upset' at seeing scantily clad females, the beaches here are full of them. The problem is the context, as if women on a gathering like that have nothing but 'decorative' functions, and as if all men would find such a display appropriate. I also think that regardless of how far from 'home' this happened if that's yahoos' approach to this kind of event anywhere that it reflects bad on them as a company. The apology that is linked to from here is actually pretty weak. It shows a certain disrespect.

thirdape 17y ago

People are way too sensitive. Looks like they hired Go Go dancers for a party. Probably not the best idea in the world but people trying to use this as an example of the "shame" of the IT worlds sexism are just grand standing. There are not a lot of women in IT because up until recently it was considered a mark against socially to be a nerd. Now with the growing popularity of nerd culture and the high incentives to be in that field there will be a more diverse crowd. Or maybe there will always be more men then women because women are less interested in technological fields. Sorry if that's not a popular opinion but I'm not interested in many fields of study and have not slammed one for being in anyway discriminatory against me. It certainly won't be because Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are sending out masses of men wearing NO MAAM t-shirts to tack no girls allowed signs on the the computer labs across the country. If anything the same loosely regulated and relaxed environment, common in many IT fields and shops, that would make them think nothing of hiring dancers for a party is the same attitude that would welcome anyone regardless of looks, sex, race, or anything else.

alex_c 17y ago

I wonder how many people are genuinely outraged, and how many are outraged because it is the expected response.

antonovka 17y ago
I wonder how many people are bordering on asperger's levels of social ineptitude and insensitivity due to the fact that it's really easy to be insensitive when you're on top.
- alex_c 17y ago
  Insensitivity and oversensitivity can both be inappropriate. It's always safer to be oversensitive than insensitive, though. Wouldn't you agree that becomes a problem when it masks how people actually feel about a subject? Side note: I move to officially recognize mentions of Asperger's when discussing social situations as HN's custom version of Godwin's law.
  - antonovka 17y ago
    Wouldn't you agree that becomes a problem when it masks how people actually feel about a subject? No -- I think the fact that it's considered culturally inappropriate to express clearly racist and sexist opinions is a benefit -- it's the first step to stemming the spread of that cultural virus. Side note: I move to officially recognize mentions of Asperger's when discussing social situations as HN's custom version of Godwin's law. It was an intentional reference to an endemic lack of social graces in technology culture and the oft-referenced syndrome. It was not an ad hominem argument.
    - alex_c 17y ago
      No -- I think the fact that it's considered culturally inappropriate to express clearly racist and sexist opinions is a benefit -- it's the first step to stemming the spread of that cultural virus. I disagree - and I think the fact that my first, intentionally ambiguous, comment was modded down (by some) is a hint why. I had the temerity to as much as HINT that some people are not honestly outraged by this, and was immediately shot down. The problem is not with expressing clearly racist or sexist opinions - the problem is that any such subject automatically becomes a minefield, and anyone except the clueless (or the bored) will automatically either adopt a "how COULD they" attitude, or keep silent. There is no discussion, no explanation of why it is wrong (even if it should be self-evident), just something bordering on a witch hunt. Now, say someone with a sexist view walks into the conversation. Having an IQ higher than, say, a garden gnome, they immediately pick up on the "right" thing to say, and join in the chorus - possibly even becoming the loudest voice. Have they actually learned anything or been convinced of anything, other than how to act? I'm just generally not a big believer in taboos. I feel that talking about problems - HONESTLY talking about problems - is better than pretending they don't exist. Edit: and now you got modded down. See, this is what I mean - it's such a polarized topic, it makes it almost impossible to have a normal conversation.

danw 17y ago

I've attended both the London Yahoo hackday's myself and found them wonderfully well run by lovely people. Personally, I would feel terribly uncomfortable if they had booked dancers like this for entertainment. It is a bad idea for two differing reasons. 1. I attend hackdays to build things. Not for loud bands, giant jenga or lap dancing. The intention is hacking, surprisingly. Organisers should focus their energy and resources on good wifi, nice apis, etc that appeal to the hackday audience instead of any form of auxiliary entertainment. 2. There seems to be a slight gender imbalance at hackdays. I don't think lap dancers are going to help that. Even if this is the local 'norm', Yahoo hackday is a global brand. When people see behaviour like this, it marks the whole tech community as either misogynistic or ladish.

nl 17y ago

They did the same thing last year: http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/09/taiwan_open_hac.html http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/09/taiwan_open... To quote: "The evening entertainment (Hack Girls) was an interesting contrast to Girltalk at Sunnyvale Open Hack Day the weekend before." Also on FlickR, from 2008: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myhsu/sets/72157607394199935/?page=2 http://www.flickr.com/photos/myhsu/sets/72157607394199935/?p... And: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/hackgirl/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/hackgirl/ I can't find any kind of confirmation anywhere that this kind of thing is considered normal for a business conference in Taiwan. Perhaps people are confusing car shows (or arguably computer games shows) with a hack day?

michaelkeenan 17y ago
I moved to Taiwan last year, and I can confirm that dancing girls are very common in all kinds of irrelevant contexts, particularly expos. It's weird to me, but I haven't heard any women here complaining about it.

antonovka 17y ago

Some of the disturbing arguments here demonstrate just how far we have to go before women are celebrated as equals in technology. Here's one techtalk I found to be quite enlightening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmROmy5jT80 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmROmy5jT80 Google TechTalks - Dr. Cornelia Brunner Associate Director, Center for Children & Technology Education Development Anyone have others they would recommend?

steveklabnik 17y ago
Technology is possibly one of the most meritocratic fields that there are. Programmers and scientists respect results, and generally are poor with the surrounding social issues. I've never heard anyone say "oh, yeah, that paper, too bad it's authored by a woman." or "I'd love to accept this patch, but I'm not gonna bother looking, a girl wrote it." I've won (well, second place, actually) a programming competition with a female partner. I won't deny that there are few women around here. I think there were 14ish in my program? But the problem won't be solved if you run around trying to make special rules for the girls.
- antonovka 17y ago
  I won't deny that there are few women around here. I think there were 14ish in my program? But the problem won't be solved if you run around trying to make special rules for the girls. "Don't hire strippers. No lap dances." aren't special rules for the girls. Technology is possibly one of the most meritocratic fields that there are. Yes, clearly there are no social issues and sexism in technology, which is why we get blog posts about it from women who take issue with blatant examples of sexism in technology. Sarcasm aside, I can't recommend the above video highly enough.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    > "Don't hire strippers. No lap dances." aren't special rules for the girls. The way that you're presenting it is, however. "Don't hire strippers because it makes the girls feel uncomfortable." is the subtext here.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

Tens of millions are in slavery as we speak. People in some countries cannot get free information and the government closely monitors what they watch and do. Some countries still "harvest" organs from condemned prisoners to sell on the open market. And yet we find time to get outraged over a couple of pretty girls lap-dancing a couple of geeks at some conference. Modern morality is an interesting thing. It seems that it rests on how easy it is to pass judgment, how many people will agree with you when you do, and having the appropriate degree of self-flagellation.

alex_c 17y ago
I usually don't agree with "don't solve problem X, because Y and Z are worse" (society isn't exactly like prioritizing bugs), but in this case - right on.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  I think the best argument against the dancers is that it is tasteless -- or at least seems so to most of the readers here. I honestly don't know if it seemed tasteless to conference attendees or not. I also don't know if it was a major part of the conference or could easily be skipped by those who didn't like it. I try to be an easy-going guy. Nobody is being harmed here. More troubling is the tendency to mouth-off about "easy" things like this while saying things like "every culture is okay" when it comes to things like the secret police or freedom of information. That just seems completely moronic to me.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Unfortunately it has been decided (in the rest of the comments) that we're not allowed to do anything about, or even comment on, any of these problems, even if done by Western companies in foreign lands, because to do so would be cultural imperialism.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

mbrubeck 17y ago
In case you haven't noticed, both men and women (including prominent women like Caterina Fake) called out Yahoo on this event. And previous occasions have been no different, with plenty of women raising their voices. For example, after last spring's CouchDB talk we heard from several women: http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2009/04/25/why-rails-is-still-a-ghetto/ http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2009/04/25/why-rails-is-still-a... http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-at-gogaruco/ http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-... http://dyepot-teapot.com/2009/04/25/dear-fellow-rubyists/ http://dyepot-teapot.com/2009/04/25/dear-fellow-rubyists/ http://www.renaebair.com/2009/04/27/perform-like-a-frag-sta http://www.renaebair.com/2009/04/27/perform-like-a-frag-sta http://lizkeogh.com/2009/04/29/i-am-not-a-pr0n-star-avoiding-unavoidable-associations/ http://lizkeogh.com/2009/04/29/i-am-not-a-pr0n-star-avoiding...
- uriel 17y ago
  While other women didn't give fuck, because they had more important things to worry about than a handful of lame pictures.

gord 17y ago

I was surprised in other parts of Asia, how common a practice it is to engage 'race girl' PR staff for the most civic of events. For an open source promotion we had in Thailand I interviewed several stunning PR girls [tough job but someone has to do it].. Fortunately among these air hostesses and models to be were some students with genuine interests beyond makeup and fame. The impeccably dressed PR beauties we chose, did a fantastic job of translating the message of free software 'as in beer and freedom'. We gave demos and handed out 12 thousand promo folders with Gimp and Blender on CD over 4 days. Exhausting but fun.

mahmud 17y ago
Not in China. You are not getting a lap-dance in public from a Chinese woman.

petewarden 17y ago

Here's my practical problem with this: - We're missing out on 50% of the people who could be good engineers. Programming is a really effective tool for improving our world, so any waste of talent is a Bad Thing. - Whatever the moral arguments, accepting go-go dancers at events sucks as a way to attract women into our world. Is shaming conference organizers the most important change we can make? Hell no, but it's low-hanging fruit. It gives us a zero-effort way to advertise that we as a community want more women here. If we can't even manage this, god knows how we'll make any real changes. It's pretty depressing to read this thread, I thought there was a widespread consensus that the lack of women in computing was a problem. I'd be interested to know if any of the commenters defending the conference agree or disagree that it's important to get more women into our field?

steveklabnik 17y ago
> I'd be interested to know if any of the commenters defending the conference agree or disagree that it's important to get more women into our field? I think it's important to get intellegent people into the field, regardless of gender. However, it's foolish to judge a conference in a far-off land by our system of morals.
- petewarden 17y ago
  > However, it's foolish to judge a conference in a far-off land by our system of morals. I tried to re-frame this as a practical problem rather than a moral one, since cultural relativism is a rabbit-hole this thread could disappear into for decades. Do you believe accepting go-go dancers at events is likely to discourage Taiwanese women from wanting to get involved? That's the basis of my disapproval, cause and effect.
- diego_moita 17y ago
  > However, it's foolish to judge a conference in a far-off land by our system of morals. I strongly disagree. The country where I live (Canada) is the fourth in my life (after Portugal, Angola and Brazil). I also visited more than a dozen other. The system of morals that people embrace in Canada is one of the main reasons I choosed to live here. And I believe that I have enough multicultural experience to say that no, it isn't foolish. Same cultures are better than others. How do you know? Because there is an absolute in morals: don't do to others what you wouldn't want they did to you. You can derive a lot of judgements from there.

Tichy 17y ago

So set up another Hack Day without Go Go Dancers and go there instead of the Go Go Dancer day? Or somehow trademark the "Hack Day" label so that you can enforce a "no go go dancers" rule. I suppose atm anybody can call an event a "Hack Day", so there is no point in trying to enforce any particular style.

ig1 17y ago

While I don't think what they did was a good idea. Saying it causes a gender imbalance seems unsupported. Here's why: Which country has a great gender imbalance among technology workers the USA or Taiwan ?

sh1mmer 17y ago

And finally I can comment... http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2009/10/taiwan_ohd_apology.html http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2009/10/taiwan_ohd_... I probably shouldn't comment much, but there is one thing I really want to say for me, not the company. I hope we've done some good in the community, and despite this mistake I hope that people will remember that. A bunch of us in the office I work in, in California, do our best to promote women in tech (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yahoo_women_in_tech/3799977956/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/yahoo_women_in_tech/3799977956/...). I hope you'll judge us (Yahoo!) by our actions, and that includes our ability to say sorry when things aren't done right. Tom

aditya 17y ago
+1 to Tom on this. I had the pleasure of attending Open Hack Day NYC and it was an amazing event. Mad Kudos to Yahoo! to put something like this together.
bobbob 17y ago
Did Yahoo every appoligize for handing over information about the Chinese pro-democracy protesters that China asked for some years back? To not apologize for that is a much graver mistake than what you are currently apologizing for.

dmoney 17y ago

Thought experiment: early stage startup A, which consists of 3 males throws a private launch party at which there are female strippers. It's unprofessional, but at this point it doesn't matter because it's just a group of friends who happen to be running a company. Startup B, consisting of three females, same situation with male strippers. Later A and B merge and, to celebrate, throw an event called Hackers and Strippers, which is open to the general (adult) hacking population and features male and female strippers and a guitar shower room. Hard to imagine any hacking gets done, but a good time is had by all. The actual logistics of such an event, and whether or not it would offend their customer bases, are left as an exercise to the reader. AB grows to become the 3000 employee AB Corp. When they IPO they throw Hackers and Strippers Worldwide. Same kind of party on a larger scale. Unprofessional? You betcha. Independent of sexism, at what point does unprofessionalism become a problem?

dotBen 17y ago
I read this twice and I'm still confused as to what this has to do with the OT?
- dmoney 17y ago
  Part of the argument is that this is sexist. Part is that it's unprofessional. If there were also male strippers the event would no longer be sexist, only unprofessional. Would it still deserve moral outrage? Would it still be counter-productive? I'm just exploring permutations here. I think half-naked dancing girls would make it hard to get any hacking done. But that doesn't necessarily make it a bad event (aside from sexism). A bad event to hack at, maybe.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
    I'm still trying to figure out where the guitar shower room comes in >.>? (This thread is the first google result for "guitar shower room.")
    - pushingbits 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

alexgartrell 17y ago

I feel like people are missing the point. You shouldn't be pissed about this because it'll hurt women's feelings. You should be pissed because it makes developers look sad and pathetic and overly horny. I'd be appalled to see that in any kind of professional/academic setting. WRT Women, I think the white knight stuff is hurting more than helping. They don't need our protection from the perils of sexism, they just need us not to be sexist and to know that they can handle it all by themselves.

donaq 17y ago
it makes developers look sad and pathetic and overly horny Not commenting on whether it's right or wrong, but erm, really? Do racing drivers evoke those impressions? Because they sort of have the same thing at car races.
- alexgartrell 17y ago
  There isn't a preexisting stereotype of racing drivers being sad, pathetic, overly horny. Public tends to look for perception reinforcers. This is one example
uriel 17y ago
> WRT Women, I think the white knight stuff is hurting more than helping. They don't need our protection from the perils of sexism, they just need us not to be sexist and to know that they can handle it all by themselves. This can't be repeated often enough. All the 'white knight' grandstanding is much more appalling and offensive any of the 'sexism' I have seen anywhere in the IT industry.

neilk 17y ago

It seems to me the real bug is that everyone assumes that a sexual performance necessarily degrades the person doing it. Everyone seems to be making that assumption, from the mouth-breather geeks who called up rent-a-lapdancer, to the prudish, sometimes hypocritical, bloggers wagging their fingers. Don't get me wrong; I understand the problem. Being asked to make the coffee is fine. Being asked to make the coffee just because you're a woman is reprehensible. The actions take place in a context, and just because there are empowered women doing sex-charged performances in San Francisco doesn't mean the event in Taiwan was empowering. Still, I feel the disconnect from the sex-positive culture I know in SF, and the generally sex-paranoid culture of corporate America. There are subcultures at least where neither being 'professional' nor being very out front with your sexuality matters at all to how respected you are. I kind of wish mainstream culture would catch up. If people would just get that, they wouldn't have to see a sexual performer as an inferior, and the nature of the entire exchange would be different.

shiranaihito 17y ago
The actions take place in a context, and just because there are empowered women doing sex-charged performances in San Francisco doesn't mean the event in Taiwan was empowering. Does it mean those women in Taiwan weren't empowered then? Besides, maybe that kind of thing is common in Taiwan, and nothing to get all worked up about (especially on the other side of the planet). To the women, it was probably just a business transaction, and the geeks probably enjoyed it. No one got hurt or degraded.

Mz 17y ago

When I got my certificate in geographic information systems (GIS), it was an 8 week long intensive program where I spent 36 to 40 hours a week in class and up to 20 more studying. GIS is a 2/3s male field and my classes were all about 2/3s male. The last week of school, it dawned on me that the majority of women in my classes occupied the last two rows of seats. There were a few women who sat various places. I was the only woman who consistently sat in the front row. I also was one of only a few women to attend the graduation party. The few other women left by about midnight. I stayed until about 4am. I was one of the last people to leave. I've had people (usually women) make horrified remarks about what a terrible (ie "immoral" -- good girls don't stay at parties surrounded by male colleagues until 4am) and dangerous thing it was I did to attend the graduation party. I really have no way of knowing what lap-dancers at a hacking event might have to do with sexism and discouraging the participation of women. But it's clear to me that there are still very real social barriers to the full inclusion of women in technical fields.