Depends on what he means. He could just mean that he made extra efforts to make sure that his candidate pool for the job wasn't just men.
He could also mean that in a tie for qualifications (between a man and a woman), he would hire the woman; which, while possibly illegal to the letter of the law (in the UK, possibly elsewhere), doesn't seem like a horrible thing. He explicitly states that it's to counter-act male-skewed tech work environments, so presumably if the work place were 50/50 men-to-women, he would relax this preference to women (as a tie-breaker).
I'm not debating whether it's right or wrong. I'm simply pointing out the fact that his approach, even by your suggested guidelines, is still very much illegal in the UK.
Legality to one side, I would be interested in hearing more about this. Surely any hiring decision that's even remotely swayed by gender opposes the entire concept of gender equality?
I question this.
Neither I nor Wikipedia should be used for legal advice, but there are exceptions to discrimination law, and the parent's comment seems to precisely meet one of them:
Assuming absolutely identical skills, experience, education, etc, then you are legally entitled to apply positive action in favouring a woman. Attempting to defend that position in a UK employment tribunal however, would be near impossible.
I don't find the photo particularly scandalous, but taken in the context of the tech industry issues with sexism, it definitely shows a lack of awareness on the part of the organizers.
I would hate to see us become so politically correct that we can't show a picture of people having fun to advertise a party. But, it's not that hard to find stock images of both men and women who are attractive, having fun together and not dressed up like playboy models kissing one another.
Asking as one of these apparently tone-deaf guys, can someone be specific about what's bad here? Was Techweek for throwing the party, or the women dressing that way, or deciding to pose that way for photos, or Techweek putting the photos on Facebook, or choosing the photos for the invite?
The chosen image creates the impression that women at parties are the "entertainment," and/or are sex objects. It also sends a belittling and hostile message to any women who may be planning to attend. And in general, it's in pretty poor taste for an industry event. It feels like the kind of flier I'd expect to have shoved into my hands while walking down the strip in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve.
As men, we are so frequently accustomed to seeing images like this that we don't really see what's so bad about them. That's more of the point of the blog post, at least as I read it. It's a good point. This sort of thing won't strike most male readers as all that big a deal, and that's part of the issue.
Huh... that's actually the opposite impression I got from the photo. While there is always an element of "performing" in a photo booth, I don't see any obvious male influence. Trying to put myself in the shoes of a woman getting this invite, these photos would be encouraging. It's evidence that A) women actually show up and B) that women can relax and have fun at these events. That's why I was so surprised at the reaction.
How does it do that? Serious question! The people in the picture are having fun at a party at one of those photo shoot stations that is at every black tie party.
Those strike me as models, not party attendees, presumably paid to pose for that photo, or to be at some event in which the photo was taken. They are not dressed in black tie attire; they are dressed in a sexy, posed, clearly pre-coordinated "booth babe" take on black tie. I could be wrong, but that's the impression the photo gives me.
Neither. You can add a leering guy to the picture and it will still be offensive. There are probably pictures with beautiful women that would not be offensive.
The 'issue' has been described several times in the comments and in the original article. Trying to reduce it to one feature isn't helpful.
The original article says nothing at all about what the problem is and the comments here says a lot of different things, most doesn't make any sense at all (complaining about sexualizing a rave...).
I don't see what good will come of this, but I will try genuinely to help you nonetheless.
Would you be happy (rather than surprised) to see a photo of two male models on your invite to this event in the same style? Maybe with their shirts undone to their waist, sharing a kiss, anything that's approximately equivalent?
If not, you might like to consider why that choice of image would be uncomfortable for you and that this particular choice of image might be uncomfortable for others.
If you bite the bullet (well done!), there are further problems. This is an event to launch a high school seniors employment initiative. High school and sexualised imagery don't belong together.
First off, those women don't have any thing undone. In fact, their shirts go all the way to the neck. No cleavage. One pic has one of the women showing a little (tiny, tiny) midriff but the image cropping really minimizes the amount of skin shown. They are dressed in a "fun take on the black tie affair" kind of way... not half nekkid. So your comparison on the men with shirts undone to their waist is quite a bit extreme.
sharing a kiss
Second, call it a crazy double standard or what have you but the fact is, many girl friends do stuff like this while not many guys do. When my wife is hanging out with her girl friends it is not uncommon for one of them to lick another at some point in the evening. I can honestly say that I don't recall ever being involved in a licking with another guy. I also don't accompany my guy friends to the restroom but that seems to be popular with the women. Men and women are different after all.
> Would you be happy (rather than surprised) to see a photo of two male models on your invite to this event in the same style? Maybe with their shirts undone to their waist, sharing a kiss, anything that's approximately equivalent?
That actually touched on a very different issue, especially the "sharing a kiss"-part. While nobody seeing the pictures of the two girls is thinking of them as lesbians, a lot of people would consider two guys doing the exact same poses "gay". Just goes to show that gender inequality cuts both ways :(
Personally I wouldn't have a problem with that all though. I REALLY disagree that we should hide images like that because a lot of people (even people who support gay marriage) are uncomfortable with things that "are gay".
> High school and sexualised imagery don't belong together.
WHAAT? They're 17/18 for gods sake! There's hardly a time where it is more appropriate.
1. The fact that you/others expect women to behave in a sexually titillating way for men is not 'cuts both ways' discrimination, except that it degrades everyone.
1. Huh?! Where have I said anything of that sort, or something even close to it? Are you sure you even read my comment?
2. Yeah, they do. Forcefully repressing their sexuality is not respectful. At all.
I think it's pretty stunning that you find my comment, in which I highlighted a gender inequality issue and being honest with youth about their sexuality, disgusting.
No answer to my question but you ask your own? IMO you're wilfully avoiding the point about the appropriateness of sexualised imagery in general, but nonetheless I'll answer your question: from the original source.
"Gather with us as we celebrate the launch of our charity initiative with Urban Alliance, the only year long employment program for under resourced high school seniors in Chicago." Excuse any transcription error.
Your question seems incredibly irrelevant. Yes, putting partying people on a party invite seems like the most natural thing to do. The women are clothed, so I'm not sure why you think a shirtless guy is equivalent. But more to the point, I think putting sexy guys having fun on a party invite would make exactly as much sense as this one. But it would have the disadvantage of not showing women that they can show up and have a good time too.
The problem is that the women are overtly sexualized. Which is fine if the ad is for a strip club. But it's not...it's for a tech event. Context is key here. We've been desensitized by accepting these images of women as normal...they're not. And especially not for a tech event.
Black Tie Rave AfterParty at a nightclub - how that can be a tech event? For anybody who may mistakenly think so (or wanting to turn it into), the image does perfect job of clearing that misunderstanding.
Ok, but is the solution for all men to self-flagellate and feel guilty about their sexualities? It seems like his reaction is an extreme non-sequitur that will only lead to unhappiness.
Not at all. Sexuality is irrelevant in the context of a tech event. It's not about sex, it's about tech. And making everything sexualized to attract attendees is the problem.
>Sexuality is irrelevant in the context of a tech event.
why? who decided it? and how it can realistically be done - forced ingestion of chemical castration pills by all the attendees? Wherever you have people, you'll have sexuality. May be oppressed, yet it still will be there. Only mister Data could turn his emotions chip off, and even he liked to have it on.
When people do such blanket statements without firm grounding in reason and facts, usually it is a statement of power, ie. in this context it would mean "Sexuality [of people/group i designate as such] is irrelevant ..."
It's mainly just about the way Techweek chose to present themselves. They had the opportunity to pick anything and that's the one they ended up with - to me that is definitely poor judgement regardless of whether you're offended by the image or not.
So you're saying that this is mainly a political maneuver to further punish Techweek because they aren't bowing deeply enough? (Even though it's couched in the language of a moral crusade for sexual equality.)
"The photo in question was taken from a series of photos of event attendees that were posted on our Facebook page in March. These photos were taken at a photo booth featuring top hats, bow-ties, and other fun black-tie related props. It was used with the intent to promote and encourage attendance at the inaugural event here in Chicago."
Re-reading it, it might not have been this exact party/event, but it's clear that it's not just some stock photography of pretty women.
Reminds me of the opposite of the sexism LinkedIn was accused of[1]. It'd have been interesting if the two individuals in the posted pictures had been developers as well. I wonder if that would have changed the dynamic of the conversation at all.
I'm not so sure, have a look at some of the pics from 2013. It appears to be more than a tech event as it has some kind of fashion show component.
I think it'd be distasteful if I were to post photos of individuals in comparable clothing without their permission, but you can take a look here: https://www.facebook.com/techweek/photos_stream
Considering no one has mentioned a fashion show component to this event, I suspect this discussion is missing some context.
The point of this party (if you read the small print in the image) is to have a fun charity event strictly before the conference starts. It is explicitly outside the timeline of the "tech event."
if they are developers, they would not go to a tech event dressed like that.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that they did exactly that.
You might want to google "playboy bunny outfit images" because I don't think you know how much less material there is in one of those than in what the women are wearing in the Techweek invite. The Techweek invite images actually show very little skin.
The problem is not that there are fun, beautiful people, the problem is that using those pictures objectifies women by using them as the draw to the event. Two women in skintight outfits almost kissing is not an appropriate advertisement for the party, as it implies that women are meant to be looked at and longed after, which is counter to the nature of the equality movement.
I'm asking a serious question. Is it not possible to be smart beautiful and have fun at a rave party?
My experience is mostly with the JavaScript community where there are many smart beautiful people of both genders that have fun. Should we only show photographs of the males?
It may be a strawman but as there is such a disturbing prevalence of similar comments on this thread, a response:
Yes it is possible to be beautiful and have fun at a rave party, whether you are a beautiful male or a beautiful female (or otherwise). However, were these two peopel selected at random or were they hired, dressed and asked to pose specifically for their looks and gender? I don't seriously believe that you think its the former - you're not naïve, just combative.
While I'm not saying they were chosen at random, the photos were from the TechWeek Miami event. They've been on TechWeek's Facebook page without any sort of problems since March.
If you made this invitation, how would you decide which pictures from the last event to choose? I'm curious because if it were me, I would want to show (as I wrote elsewhere in the thread) that women were included and had a good time, just like these photos.
There is indeed a tendency to go over board, and end up with the equally disgusting polar opposite. We're not there yet.
For now, we probably just need to nip it all in the bud, at least until we've grown up enough to handle sexuality without using it as a form of gender oppression.
The Techweek drama aside, what do you think of Sean's post? I admire and applaud his bravery in admitting he hasn't done enough in the past and will do better in the future.
In the United States, 77.8% of homicide victims are male.
But no, Sean is having a public anxiety attack because a company chose a photograph of two actual attendees in a photo booth who chose chose to dress slightly more provocatively than his sensibilities allow.
Sean isn't being brave. He's sucking up to women in an extremely politically expedient way.
True! It seems slightly hypocritical though. I think Techweek reacted pretty much the same way - accidentally did something offensive and reacted quickly when it was pointed out - but he's not willing to forgive them.
Due to recent complaints the black tie ball is now and Amish style. This is to prevent the objectification of women by making them less appealing.
Call me ignorant (although I would rather refer to myself as not really focused or caring on the matter), that just because there are 2 good looking woman promoting an event which hopefully should also be fun does not make it objectifying women.
Maybe people are just paying to much attention to the small things.
Woah, tons of straw men in here. If you read this and believe that the fact that they chose attractive women is the problem, than you should probably either reread it or stop having opinions about things.
Leaving the gratuitous sexism to one side briefly - a Black Tie Rave... 'champagne and caviar paired with glowsticks'... I ask you. And from the city that gave the world house music.
These typical ads portrait women as play-things to be gawked at rather than someone's daughter, wife and another human being. And they are plain dumb.
But it's so prevalent nowadays that it hardly registers in a conscious way, and I think that's the problem.
As an LDS Christian I go to church and won't watch R rated movies, but even I feel like I've become numb to this kind of objectification of women. And I think it's a serious, serious problem in this society.
The Mormon church objectifies women albeit with some reverse psychology going on - the need for women to cover up and not dress 'sexy' is just another way to objectify women. Mormon males not watching 'R' movies is the same - reverse psychology. Some women - most women - really do want to be more than some frumpy Mormon daughter/wife/grandma. Furthermore, with the Mormon church there is no room in the priesthood for women - how can you skip that and move on to the objectification debate?
Normally I keep my opinions on the LDS church to myself lest I offend some Mormon, yet, on places like HN I think it is better to encourage the indoctrinated to escape belief in mythical sky gods and false prophets. You need to quit that church and start to see, love, understand and enjoy being with women on a bigger canvas than allowed by your church.
In Genesis 2:18 God says He will make Adam an ezer kenegdo (Hebrew). In the context of subduing the earth (Gen 1:28) ezer kenegdo means "strategic ally". An equal to man in every way, ordained with the power to give life. Without the woman, human life could not exist.
The woman was God's final creation. One could convincingly argue He saved the best for last.
> These typical ads portrait women as play-things to be gawked at rather than someone's daughter, wife and another human being.
Now here's an objectification - why a woman needs to be someone's wife or daughter? Men on similar pictures are usually also portrayed as models, not husbands or sons. Isn't that sexist? Isn't that misandry?
Honestly, I find most of those gender-related discussions nonsense; it's like autoimmune disease - instead of fighting only diseases, the immune system starts attacking everything around it. You just can't say anything at all about women without being labeled misogynist.
I read an interesting essay on the topic today: http://squid314.livejournal.com/329561.html. It's not only (or even mostly) about gender issues, but the key quote from the ending:
"My view on feminism isn't really driven by my view on gender relations or women or men or society. It's driven by my view on applause lights, on inability to urge restraint, on death spirals, on anti-charity, on zero-threshold medical testing, on superweapons, and most of all on epistemic hygiene. I don't care how righteous your cause is, you don't get a superweapon so powerful it can pre-emptively vaporize any possible counterargument including the one asking you to please turn off your superweapon and listen for just a second. No one should be able to do that."
When three men and three women are murdered, we focus completely on the women. When men are overwhelmingly disproportionately the victim of homicides, violent crime (including violent crime from strangers), we instead choose to have a society-wide struggle session[1] on the plight of western women.
Western culture is hypersensitive to women's issues. In particular, hyper-affluent White men seem to derive some carnal pleasure from throwing other men under the bus.
As long as people care far more about the plight of women than the plight of men, and as long as Twitter/HN activists mock anyone who points out the compassion disparity ("WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ?"), we're never going to achieve anything resembling equality.
> As long as people care far more about the plight of women than the plight of men ... we're never going to achieve anything resembling equality.
I'm unclear on your thesis here: is your position that the reason women are disadvantaged in society in general and tech in particular because we "care more about the plight of women"? Because that seems illogical.
But the only other interpretation I can think of is that you think men are at a disadvantage to women, which is a laughable assertion.
Your account is 6 days old, of course, so I may be just feeding a troll here.
It is possible for it to be simultaneously true that men are more frequently victims of violent crime, perform worse in standardized tests, and earn less than women[1] and also that women are more frequently the victims of sexual assault[2] and other forms of harassment, prevented from taking the careers of their choice[3], and subject to a greater degree of criticism in the media for the same actions[4].
The existence of things that are bad for men does mean that men have things harder than women. The fact that there are things we should fix for men does not mean we can ignore the things that are broken for women. This is not a zero-sum game, and it is not productive to determine who "has it worse". There are things that are bad for women that happen to women, and we should stop those things happening without questioning whether they are "deserving" of doing so.
[1] Though I have never seen any stats that back up this last assertion, ever.
I have a sneaking feeling that the #YesAllWomen thing might have gone a bit over your head.
It wasn't because more women died. It wasn't because of the plight of the western woman. #YesAllWomen was a more-or-less spontaneous response to the killer's motives. It was because the killer thought that he was entitled to get whatever he wanted from any woman he wanted, and wanted to make them suffer for depriving him of what he felt he deserved (sex with beautiful women). While most men will never go to that extreme, all women have experienced some form of punishment from a male for denying their sexual advances.
If you can't see why society would respond to that the way that it did, I'm not sure that a western society is appropriate for a person with your worldview.
While #YesAllWomen was eye opening in many ways, I don't think your snark was constructive.
I think there's a problem with the sancrosanct way #YesAllWomen is being treated. In my casual browsing, I quickly found someone complaining that she feels guilty for 'friendzoning' a guy and cursing society for that. Guess what, I and many other guys have had that feeling with respect to a woman at some point.
If you can't see why someone might get defensive after reading these tweets (as they were urged to do), I'm not sure that reality is appropriate for you.
Are you trying to say that you have felt threatened, unsafe or like you were going to be alienated because you had to friendzone a female? Because I can't say that I have. And I honestly have a hard time believing that you have either.
I wasn't being snarky, but you appear to take this subject much more lightly than I do. That's fine. I was being serious about what I said. The commenter above mine was either or troll or someone who actually thinks that men have it harder because of the women's rights movement. If it's the latter, he needs to know that it's not an okay attitude to have in our society.
I'm not a hyper-affluent white male, so unfortunately I'm not just confirming his hypothesis.
> Are you trying to say that you have felt threatened, unsafe or like you were going to be alienated because you had to friendzone a female? Because I can't say that I have. And I honestly have a hard time believing that you have either.
Women tend to feel unsafe in situations in which they are statistically not unsafe, at least when compared to men. In fact, men are overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim to violent crime, including violent crime from strangers.
However, because of sycophants like you, a woman must merely say "I felt so unsafe and threatened when the man in the mall wouldn't take the hint that I wasn't interested in talking to him!" for her to suddenly become an example of western injustice against women.
> If it's the latter, he needs to know that it's not an okay attitude to have in our society.
It's not okay to even believe men have it worse (which is itself a subjective measure)?
A thought exercise for our friendly, reasonable, fact-driven hangman:
If far more men than women were graduating from college; if men universally received far lighter prison sentences than women for the same crimes; if young men were earning more than young women; if women had zero reproductive rights beyond "don't have sex with a fertile man"; if women were overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim to violent crime, including (but not limited to) murder; then would you not make a public, loud, brave scene about how unfair life is for women?
I'm still not 100% sure I'm not just feeding a troll, but here goes.
---
> Women tend to feel unsafe in situations in which they are statistically not unsafe, at least when compared to men. In fact, men are overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim to violent crime, including violent crime from strangers.
I googled "statistics women safety" and wasn't able to find anything that pointed to any sort of conclusive study as to where or when a woman should feel unsafe. All I found was page after page of statistics on sexual assaults, rapes, and domestic violence that all seemed to paint the opposite picture of these mysterious statistics that you have been bringing up. For example:
* 12.4% of women had been sexually abused before the age of 15, compared with 4.5% of men, between 1996 and 2005. (Australia) [1]
* Of men who reported that they had experienced physical violence in the 12 months before the survey, 73.7% said that the perpetrator was a male (Australia) [1]
* One in 6 women and 1 in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape (USA) [2]
* 1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men have been stalked in their lifetime (USA) [2]
* 81% of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are also physically assaulted by
that partner; 31% are also sexually assaulted by that partner (USA) [2]
I could go on, and on, and on. I wasn't able to find any of these mystery statistics that you've been citing to prove your points, though. They all seem to show that it's probably a decent idea for women to listen to their intuition about a guy they find creepy, even if they are not statistically unsafe.
---
> If far more men than women were graduating from college; if men universally received far lighter prison sentences than women for the same crimes; if young men were earning more than young women; if women had zero reproductive rights beyond "don't have sex with a fertile man"; if women were overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim to violent crime, including (but not limited to) murder; then would you not make a public, loud, brave scene about how unfair life is for women?
This obsession with a perceived unfairness between the genders is starting to get creepy. What man has zero reproductive rights? If you don't want to have a kid and aren't sure if she's on birth control, use a condom for fuck's sake. It's not rocket science.
The study that showed young women earn more than men also showed that women in the same industry with the same degree level earned less than male counterparts, and that their wages tended to stagnate or fall after having kids.[3] It is assumed in the study to be related to the fact that a significantly higher percentage of young women hold college degrees.[3] If it bothers you this much that women with degrees earn more than men without degrees, maybe western society isn't the best choice for you. There are plenty of countries where women aren't even allowed to go to college. I'm sure you could earn more there as an uneducated man than most women.
While it's true that a majority of murders are perpetrated against men, an even larger majority of murders are perpetrated by men! The FBI's latest data on murders in the US shows that 22% of murder victims are female, while only 7% of those that commit murder are female. It's clear from those numbers alone that a male murdering a female is at least twice as likely as a female murdering a female. Had enough yet? How about this: of the 594 cases of murder where a spouse killed their opposite gender-ed partner in 2012 in the US, 84% (496) of the time the victim was the wife, not the husband.[4]
None of your complaints regarding the hardships of males due to females have ANY MERIT IN REALITY. If you're going to pontificate about facts and statistics, at least cite the facts and statistics that you're claiming to be the basis of your opinion. You sound like you are spiteful towards women in general and grasping for reasons to justify your malice.
I'm not sure what the situation is in the US but here in the UK, that element of 'affirmative action' is illegal.