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Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoWhat was the sexist language in question?
- tptacek 15y ago[Benefits to the event include] Women: Need another beer? Let our friendly (female) staff get that for you.
- ars 15y agoI feel embarrassed to type this, but could someone explain what's wrong with that? They are offering to give women a beer? Why is that bad? Is it because they are assuming only women drink beer? That seems the reverse of the stereotype if anything. Edit: I think I got it - they are assuming the women will drink beer and not participate intellectually? Is that it? Personally I would assume you would drink and participate at the same time, so maybe that's not it.
- chalmerj 15y agoIt was about context: The item in question appeared under the heading "Great Perks" – as if to say that women were one of the 'perks' in question. Out of context, it appears as though they're addressing women directly. In context, they're offering women as a 'perk' to a male dominated event crowd.
- msbarnett 15y agoNo, you're misreading it. What it actually says, under the benefits for attending is "Massages, Live DJ, Gym Access, Food Trucks, Top Shelf Booze, Women, 5 Hour Energy, Perfect Fuel." Hence the colon after "Women:" isn't addressed too women, it's clarifying how the women will be delivered to you as a perk, just like chocolate, massages, and gym access. It's incredibly objectifying.
- hack_edu 15y agoI think I got it - they are assuming the women will drink beer and not participate intellectually? Is that it? So, where does it say 'Men'?
- mweil 15y agoHere's a screenshot of it. https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.png https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.p...
- drivebyacct2 15y agoGod. This stuff is beyond tacky. It's not just insulting for females but it reminds other LGBT geeks that they're outliers. Who cares whether a man or woman is delivering my drink? Like seriously, I'm gay and I don't think I've ever thought "Damn, a woman delivered my drink instead of a dude".
- ArtB 15y ago> Who cares whether a man or woman is delivering my drink? If you don't get this, then you are missing a lot. Generally speaking men on average will enjoy themselves a lot more if there are pretty girls around. There is a restaurant in town that serves Swiss Chalet grade food in town but all the chicks wear miniskirts and look like models. Even on a week night it is packed with businessmen tipping extravagantly. Sex sells, and sex appeal is a real perk. The problem is that what is a perk targetting 90% of the target demographic and appeals to probably 85% of those, happens to be off-putting to minorities some want to attract into the industry.
- lomegor 15y agoDo you have sources to back that up? (That it appeals to 85% of the target demographics). Either way, you are treating women as objects, as perks, as things that men want to look at. And you are treating men as cavemen who want to see women all the time. These ideas have affected (and are affecting) society in a bad way. By using women in that sense, they are promoting the idea that women can be used in that way if you like.
- angersock 15y ago"Do you have sources to back that up?" Interesting article here covering sex (not gender) gap: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-development/it-gender-gap-where-are-the-female-programmers/2386 http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-development... ...and then there's the actual BLS stats here (ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat11.txt) which suggest something like 20% females in the workforce. In the game industry, at least as of the IGDA survey in '05, we see something like 92% identify as straight (http://archives.igda.org/diversity/IGDA_DeveloperDemographics_Oct05.pdf http://archives.igda.org/diversity/IGDA_DeveloperDemographic...). So, we could back-of-the-envelope that perhaps a figure of 75% is reasonable, and 85% is not absurd as a guesstimate if you don't fact check.
- zethraeus 15y agoWhat a crappy thing to write. https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.png https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.p... It says under 'Great Perks': Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you.
- angersock 15y agoSo. Much. Brogramming. Anyways, in addition to the annoying beer plug, let us observe their other typos: "Massages: take a brake [sic] from hacking to unwind." "NO Idea Guys: security is on strick [sic] instructions to bounce anyone who can't code." "NO Slow Internet: Let's make buffering a thing of the paste [sic]." Fucking clowns.
- MartinCron 15y agoHow about the nonsensical coupling of "no empty calories" with "free beer"? Clowns indeed. This is the sort of thing that makes me ashamed of my profession, my culture, my gender, everything.
- Androsynth 15y agoAlthough that line has a bit stupid to put on there, the entire flyer stinks of meatheadedness in general. Recommendation & personalization technologies are acquired as fast as they are launched. You could be next! ^that made me laugh harder than the women statement.
- mirsadm 15y agoI wonder if the brackets were not around the word female if it would be considered as offensive. Regardless it was a stupid thing to put on there. I don't even get why they added "female" to that sentence.
- olliej 15y agoum, read it more carefully. It's saying women are a perk, then clarifies by saying that the women in question will be the ones serving drinks. Paraphrased: Perks: * women: they're there to serve drinks. The problem is not the "(female)" bit, it was the fact that the existence of women is reported as a "perk". Because after all, women are just objects that exist to serve drinks to men.
- MartinCron 15y agoYeah, defining women as a "perk" is pretty textbook objectification.
- grandalf 15y agoWith all the hubbub over sexism in tech over the past year or two, what kind of idiot uses language like that in the description? It shows a tremendous lack of a clue more than it shows sexism (though it shows that too).
- funkah 15y agoGuy in a polo shirt talking about "chicks": Garden-variety moron. Guy in a C++ shirt talking about "chicks": Representative of the RAMPANT MISOGYNY in our industry.
- tptacek 15y agoGuy in a polo shirt talking about "chicks": Garden-variety moron. Guy in a C++† shirt erecting a billboard pointing geeks to "chicks": Representative of the RAMPANT MISOGYNY in our industry. † Really?
- bitops 15y agoReplace C++ with whatever programming language you like, the statement still stands.
- Cushman 15y agoWell, yeah. Duh. Does it make sense if you replace "C++ shirt" with "military uniform"?
- DannoHung 15y agoGuy in a polo shirt talking about "chicks": Garden-variety moron being a moron on his own time. Guy in a C++ shirt talking about chicks at a programming conference: Representative of the RAMPANT MISOGYNY in our industry and wasting the time of everyone he's talking to who came to the damn conference to learn some shit, not awkwardly listen to a jerkoff make a fool of himself and alienate people.
- Jun8 15y agoHere's more coverage: http://bostinno.com/2012/03/20/boston-api-jam-publishes-eventbrite-with-sexist-language-enrages-community-sponsors-quick-to-pull-out/ http://bostinno.com/2012/03/20/boston-api-jam-publishes-even... The organizers' apology is: "While we thought this was a fun, harmless comment poking fun at the fact that hack-a-thons are typically male-dominated, others were offended. That was not our intention and thus we changed it." Which completely misses the fact that the other items on the announcement seem to be written by a 11 year old or someone after downing quite a few beers. Here's the point though: Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech.
- RegEx 15y ago> Here's the point though: Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech. Interesting perspective. Could you please elaborate?
- Jun8 15y agoSure: Let's focus on the women in tech problem, leaving aside minorities, which has also been previously discussed on HN (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3169475 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3169475). This was discussed many times on HN in the context of sexist language, booth babes in conferences, etc. My thoughts on the subject are: 1) There is a gender imbalance in the tech community, regardless of how you slice it (e.g. founders, developers, etc.). 2) Many people when faced with what they perceive to be sexist language, take it to be a political statement rather than the idiotic flyer (as in this case) or the casual blog comment(e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3602762 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3602762, which caused a firestorm on HN) that it is. 3) Don't get me wrong: I'm against crude use of sexisms such as this one, GoDaddy commercials, photos of women in bikinis on Rails conference slides, booth babes. The point is that these offend not only my anti-sexist sensibilities but also my intelligence, so even if I were sexist I would still be offended by these and ask for their removal, on the grounds that they show that the mental model of me that the people responsible have is a brainless, easy to manipulate moron. 4) However, thinking that eradicating the above will lead to considerably more women in tech, I think, is mistaken. I believe addressing the issues that are less obvious but more influential in consciously or subconsciously turning off women is more important, e.g. rather than getting worked up when somebody uses the word girl in a post, thinking about the "cool" but male-oriented terms like code ninja that are prevalent in job postings (e.g. all of the 10 types of programmers mentioned here are all male oriented: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-types-of-programmers-youll-encounter-in-the-field/262 http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-types-of-progra...).
- funkah 15y agoSo, they've posted an apology: http://t.co/h5jZOfb7 http://t.co/h5jZOfb7 It doesn't really make sense to me though. The original does not read as sharp satire or parody at all, just regular old tone-deaf "haha chicks bro!!!!" idiocy.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- thisduck 15y ago"Perhaps I'm not in the best position to be commenting on this" Yeah, perhaps not. Try replacing "Women" with "children" or "Indian people" and reread that. Does that feel right? Now put yourself in the shoes of an Indian person reading that. How does that feel?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- thisduck 15y agoAnd why would putting women in an ad be any different? I mentioned Indian because I am of that descent, but that your mind jumped to "illegal" is something you need to examine about yourself. I think this is probably somehow connected to why you can't understand using women for this purpose in this advert is not appropriate.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- thisduck 15y agoOkay, maybe I jumped the gun a bit. I'm not sure why you're repeating the "that's all women can do" part. I don't think that's the specific complaint. Perhaps you can tell me why having women on the list of things, bolded no less, is a selling point? Why is it relevant? And to whom?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
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- ohyes 15y agoThis is insulting to everyone... Why would I take a break from a two day Hackathon to drink beer, work out, and chase women? It is only two days. Presumably, if I wanted to do that, I would go to a bar or the gym. Who the hell do they think their target audience is?
- rjdagost 15y agoWhile I don't condone the choice of words used in the ad I am underwhelmed at the "offensive" content. If you are offended by this you need to get some thicker skin.
- ugh 15y agoIt’s blatant sexism and misogyny. That is always offensive. I’m not sure why you don’t seem to have a problem with sexism and misogyny. That’s all being offended means: I have a problem with you saying stuff like that. That seems reasonable enough to me. No, whoever is offended by this is exactly right. They do not need a thicker skin.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- niete 15y ago"misogyny" has become such a buzzword it is meaningless. I imagine that it is true that some men really do _hate_ women, but the 'offensive' sentence could have come from a broad spectrum of perspectives about women. Now, I know feminists have tried to redefine the term into [anything they don't like], but that is a pretty good illustration of what intellectually dishonest offense seekers they are.
- ugh 15y agoYeah, and you are a Niete, niete. Do you think the kid who calls everyone she dislikes gay – and thus uses homophobic language – really fears gay people? No, because that's not really what that word means, even if the dictionary says it means that. That’s how language works. Misogyny describes a very specific kind of sexism, and that’s just the case here. Peace out from a dishonest offense seeker.
- MartinCron 15y agoDo you really not think that listing "women" as a "perk" isn't genuinely offensive to reasonable people? I'm a straight white Caucasian male and the whole thought of that in a software context embarrasses the hell out of me.
- chernevik 15y agoSo, one, whoever wrote this is an idiot. Given the free and easy style of the startup eco-verse, it's pretty hard to say exactly what this does or doesn't say about whoever / whatever was behind the event. Maybe the President approved this. Maybe an intern slapped it up. Maybe the VP of Marketing submitted the wrong copy by accident. Want to know why Big Corporate has so much bureaucracy? This is why. But they didn't fix it immediately! Yeah, or perhaps the responsible parties were meeting with investors or home sick or some such. Things move fast on the intertubes but maybe giving management an evening to 1) realize something's wrong and 2) fix it would provide a better signal of who is and isn't completely out of their minds.
- ugh 15y agoSometimes there are no second chances. Sometimes you should get it right the first time. Especially when it comes to something as obvious as this. Sorry, but this is not some subtle mistake.
- chernevik 15y agoHere's some reading for you, Mr / Ms Perfect. http://www.amazon.com/The-Crucible-Arthur-Miller/dp/0142437336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332286422&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/The-Crucible-Arthur-Miller/dp/01424373...
- ugh 15y agoI’m not perfect. I’m all for second chances. And they will get them, no doubt. I’m not for banning them from society or anything like that.
- chernevik 15y agoAre you quite sure you know what you wrote? "Sometimes there are no second chances. Sometimes you should get it right the first time. Especially when it comes to something as obvious as this. "Sorry, but this is not some subtle mistake."
- jsavimbi 15y agoWell, it looks like @sqoot was unable to weather the storm and has now pulled the event from Eventbrite.
- cjbprime 15y agoThe company that was hosting it pulled out too, so I don't imagine they had any choice.
- gojomo 15y agoSuper-dumb thing to write. Plus the other misspellings indicate the writer had little other writing talent, as well. Maybe he was drunk. But, enthusiastic young event promoters aren't the most enlightened crew. (Indeed, too much enlightenment could kill your chances of launching a hot new bar, 'energy drink', or various other kinds of youth-oriented events/venues/local-deals.) So there's a message here about culture and the reckless generalizations of youth, but not especially one about tech events. (Other than: at a tech event, this sort of thing is noted and corrected very quickly.) As with a dog and a carpet, sometimes shit happens. The dog only learns slowly, and by the time it learns: there's another puppy making the same mistakes. Give quick and firm feedback – one wap with the newspaper! – and get a correction/apology, but don't dwell on it. It's not something that stains everyone vaguely associated to the Nth-degree.
- DarkShikari 15y agoOthering. Get that word into your head, and keep it there. Othering. Othering is when you make someone feel as if they don't belong in a community, that they're different from other people there. Making stupid (racist) Asian jokes about the only Chinese-American member of your team. Writing flyers that assume that your entire audience consists of a certain type of heterosexual man. Even something small, like constantly poking at the fact that one of your fellow hackers also has an MBA. The list is endless. Usually it's best to not call attention to such things at all, even in a positive way. Telling someone how awesome they are for being different is still making a big deal about how different they are, as opposed to helping them fit into your group. All of these things make those people feel as if they don't belong on your team or in your community. It doesn't matter if you think it's "in good fun" or "just a joke". It doesn't matter if you think "oh, it's not really sexist". It makes people feel unwelcome. It's dumb, pointless, and it's the responsibility of any hacker to just not do it. Othering can happen in any community that is dominated by a relative homogenous group. It turns off many hackers who might want to work with you. There is nothing inherently "straight upper-middle-class Caucasian male" about wanting to build a working product; stop acting like there is.
- bdr 15y agoWell said. I think there can be an element of subconscious, monkey-brain motivation behind that kind of behavior. Less status for them means more for you. At least sometimes — this flyer looks more just plain dumb.
- MartinCron 15y agoThanks for sharing this word. Like the similar term "microaggression", HN is the first I've heard it, and it really helps to illustrate the fallacy of the "oh, it's not a big deal if we have women bring us beer" crowd.
- Volpe 15y agoI think you need to moderate this view slightly. Whilst yes, ostracising people doesn't help. Humour and sarcasm are effective team building/social tools, and "sledging" or "poking fun" are effective ways to build long term teams. Just spend time in any sports team (male/female/mixed) and you'll see this kind of joking around is abundant, and actually helps the team (not hinder it). I think it is more nuanced than you say, humour has to be combined with empathy to make sure you aren't offending, but at the same time, making light of differences with people helps people see past those difference (obviously within reason).
- angusgr 15y agoI think sqoot should also reconsider autospamming their "apology" message to anyone who mentions them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/sqoot https://twitter.com/#!/sqoot (Not because they shouldn't apologise, but because there are better ways to do it than spam.)
- mcbaby 15y agoI'd like to point out that if we replaced the "Womens" perk with the "Perfect Fuel" perk, nobody would be complaining about how this insulted people who don't eat dark chocolate. Obviously not every guy cares whose serving their drinks, the same way not every guy attending the event cares to eat dark chocolate. They're trying to get people to go to their event. I'd imagine most people going to Hackathon's are heterosexual males. It makes sense for Sqoot, and it's saddening for me to see how we blindly kowtow to the PC police.
- acdha 15y agoYou are aware that women are sentient beings, right? I hope it was unintentional but your post reeks of objectification.
- srl 15y agoUgh... the reactions to these idiotic, misogynistic statements always feel overblown. Yes, sexism is a pretty big problem in the industry (and adjacent ones). But you're not going to fix it by griping about a horny 20-something saying something stupid about women (surprise!). You're not even going to help. You're just going to walk away with a "there I helped" endorphin rush and go back to not really caring for the vast majority of your life. The response to funkah's "garden-variety moron" objection has brought out the excuse of, "well, this was an official flier, so it's a big deal". IMO, the fact that this happened on something "official" is less an indication of rampant misogyny (not that I'm denying it exists!), and more an indication of our ridiculously informal, fast-and-loose culture. (The poor quality of the rest of the flier bears this interpretation out.) So what it comes down to is, someone decided to turn a massive brain-fart into an "official" flier, and part of that brain fart was a stupid, misogynistic comment. Surprise, surprise. I'm sure everybody's real proud that they've managed to detect and criticize blatant, overbearing misogyny, but I don't see many submissions focusing on the persistent discouragement of young girls from participating in science - a very real, and ultimately more fundamental problem. Lets have some. And lets give them more attention than this "moronic person is moronic" stuff.
- ugh 15y agoWhy do you think this is taking away from other efforts? I think calling out asshats is important and it doesn’t take all that much effort. It doesn't take away from anything else.
- cjbprime 15y agoDisagree. I think today made it very clear that anyone organizing this kind of event is going to lose all of their sponsors and their event space within six hours if they try to pull this crap, which feels new and powerful to me. I've never seen a backlash quite this fast and successful before. They've canceled the event altogether now, it seems. Honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if it kills Sqoot as a company -- that's an incredibly powerful warning sign in the only language many people understand how to interpret: your funders telling you they no longer want to have anything to do with you.
- xibernetik 15y ago
- icebraining 15y agoI wouldn't have written this either and it is off-putting, but I always feel funny about criticizing the objectification of a group of women when they themselves accepted it. It feels paternalistic.
- cjbprime 15y agoI don't understand. Which women were accepting it? Most of today's backlash came from women who code, which is the group being objectified.
- icebraining 15y agoThe ones hired to provide the beers?
- decklin 15y agoThere's something discomforting about seeing an apology "for any offense" from a party who is not the offender. A common derailing technique is the non-apology-apology: rather than apologizing for what I did, I apologize for your taking offense, which makes it look like you're the one who has a problem. Here, Cloudmine does this on behalf of the creeps at Boston API Jam! Why? It seems clear to me, based on their actions, that Cloudmine's intentions are good and that they don't mean to blame the victims. Comparing this post to other blogs and Twitter messages, I think I see why, and it's the same reason the post doesn't quote or directly link to API Jam: it's written in a different register -- "professional" communication. It's absolutely necessary to do that if your company takes a public action, like pulling sponsorship, and needs to publicly address it. What interests me here is that the non-apology-apology is creeping into the English language by sounding "more formal", because our ruling classes use it so much (and no one seems to care when they're called out on it). So, I hypothesize that whoever wrote this up was trying to stay calm, detached, and respectful, and unconsciously hit on this rhetorical device because of it. Note, I do not think that CloudMine is under any obligation to apologize for other people's actions, or that the writer is stupid. I'm just rubbernecking a collective lingustic maladaptation.
- OneBytePerGreen 15y agoSexist comments like the one on the flyer are dumb, and these people deserve to be called out on it, but to imply they are keeping women out of tech careers is ridiculous (and in itself, sounds kind of sexist to me - like we are tender plants who change our career paths because some jerks like to see boobies). If the flyer reflected the spirit of the event and the attitude of the organizers, I'm glad for the heads up so I know not to attend, free beer notwithstanding.
- groby_b 15y agoI wouldn't change my career path because there are idiots around, but there _are_ quite a few women who don't even want to embark on that path because it feels like you're entering frathouse central some days. Especially since there are a few other (related) fields that seem to have a slightly lower jerk quotient.
- fourmii 15y agoFunny thing, I saw this ad just yesterday. The eventbrite page has been pulled I think now. But I remember seeing the no women point and then also saw other points like 'No Ideas People' or something to that effect. The flyer struck me as somewhat offensive, not that I'm usually that sensitive. But it came across as disparaging quite a few groups of people, don't know what they were trying to do. But it seems like it would end up alienating people. Not being a full time dev, I've been mustering the energy and guts to go to a hackathon with the aim of meeting folks I could possibly learn from. My first impression was, I'd be made fun of if I turned up with nothing to offer...
- avand 15y agoHey, I'm one of the co-founders of Sqoot. We're a small startup trying to do big things. Sometimes we trip and fall. This is one of those times. In hindsight, our language was reckless & immature. Please accept our apology: http://blog.sqoot.com/we-can-do-better-an-apology-from-sqoot http://blog.sqoot.com/we-can-do-better-an-apology-from-sqoot