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Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

bloomberg.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#201

Post by ImSkeptical »

heartbreak wrote: post #194
ImSkeptical wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're suggesting women should be free to do this, but men should be shamed for asking women to do it - which seems like a weird position to hold. I can imagine some harm comes from this - e.g. an employee is mistaken for a model, or perhaps an employee is never mistaken for a model, but the magnitude of the harm doesn't seem so severe, and seems comparable to the benefit - the party is more fun. I know…

Nope. S/He’s saying women are free to work as models at a party, but employers shouldn’t hire women to be models at company events.

So it's only fine if a private individual hires models for their party?

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#202

Post by ScottBurson »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #187
ScottBurson wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet somehow we don't see the same self-sorting phenomenon in other cultures. Russia, for instance. Maybe the one good thing communism accomplished was to create a culture in which everyone knows women can be technical. (Maybe that was part of the culture before -- I wouldn't know -- but the Soviets certainly encouraged it.)

To be clear, china has the same problem, perhaps even worse despite its reputation of gender diversity. Our big boss when I was working in china made it abundantly clear to us that we had to hire more women, and that there were supply issues from the universities, etc.... Maybe India does better? Also, I find it weird that while I’ve met many Russian developers, I’ve never met a female Russian developer. That is just…

I do know two very good female Russian developers. I know a lot more male Russian developers, but few of them are as good as these two. I also know a couple of good female Russian QA engineers.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#203

Post by RangerScience »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #196
RangerScience wrote: post #31

Huh. Seems like a better way to do it would be to just invite / hire a BUNCH of artists. No need to pretend; support an important part of why the Bay is the Bay, and expose your peeps to people they might not otherwise meet.

Most models are artists, not sure why you want the convoluted impractical version.

> Most models are artists

This is fair!

> convoluted impractical version.

I don't understand.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#204

Post by RangerScience »

659087 wrote: post #110
RangerScience wrote: post #31

Huh. Seems like a better way to do it would be to just invite / hire a BUNCH of artists. No need to pretend; support an important part of why the Bay is the Bay, and expose your peeps to people they might not otherwise meet.

I doubt very many artists would be interested in spending their night having awkward forced interactions with random brogrammers and Kalanicks at a corporate christmas party. There's a reason these companies have to pay women to show up and pretend to be interested in what their employees have to say.

> awkward forced interactions

Then you're "doing it wrong". Pay them to bring their art. Include them in the party (whatever degree of free drinks / food / access everyone else gets). Tell them that if someone's being a dick, they can feel free to be a dick right back.

Teach your people that no-one else is responsible for their happiness.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#205

Post by rad88 »

EpicEng wrote: post #190
rad88 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% would be a lower bound. I majored in a hard science, not CS. Two great programmers I know, in senior positions, don't even have a degree. At my last company there was a decent Rails engineer who studied communication in college and had worked in affiliate marketing at his previous job. There was also a guy who was a lawyer and then went to code camp and got hired as an engineer. The pipeline isn't sufficient to e…

Ok, but if we assume that the number of non-CS grads who work in software development is proportional (seems fair) between males and females you're still in the same boat. Are you saying that women far out number men when it comes to sw devs who didn't major in CS? I just don't see any data that supports what you're saying. 20% is the _upper_ bound.

Your question is about people who have already become employed software developers. Obviously those women don't far outnumber men in any respect. What I'm saying is the candidate pool of women is much larger than is assumed here (the candidate pool of men is as well). It wouldn't take a "magic wand" to start hiring them. Maybe doing so would amount to discrimination in some people's eyes, but I think this business of hiring professional models to entertain the men and give the appearance of parity is pretty sketchy as well. Corporations are apparently willing to take drastic measures to create the a certain kind of gendered workplace experience. Given the choice I would rather the results of their actions actually benefit society in some way.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#206

Post by pas »

ardit33 wrote: post #57
davidu wrote: post #7

Pathetic. The whole point is to celebrate with the employees and their families and recognize the hard work everyone has put in over the year. A stranger not connected to an employee would take away from that value. If you want more women at the event, hire more women at the company and create a culture that encourages that.

"If you want more women at the event, hire more women at the company and create a culture that encourages that." -- Yes, some magic wand will solve it? If they are tech companies and engineers are the primary value drivers, and only 16% of CS grads are female, what kind of rock will they find balanced workforce? Companies hire because they need people to feel a role, (eg. engineers, marketing, sales, hr... etc). If t…

There are people who are not "CS grads" who might be able to throw together a web app or two. That number doesn't mean anything.

The fact that a lot of women simply don't like programming, don't find it interesting, find it hard to learn and understand is meaningful.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger... (read from "So if it happens before middle school, and it’s not stereotypes, what might it be?")

It seems that there is a things-people distinction in sexes and it shows.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#207

Post by jasode »

throwawayjava wrote: post #191
jasode wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"it's not 1950 anymore; the PR blow-black has the potential to be truly brutal." For that particular party, there definitely wasn't blowback because the next morning, everybody talked about how amazing it was. I think it caught everyone off guard because it was unexpected and it gave attendees happy memories. (Yes, maybe the attendees should have been morally outraged but I can only report how they actually responde…

>>"it's not 1950 anymore; the PR blow-black has the potential to be truly brutal." > For that particular party, there definitely wasn't blowback PR is bigger than just internal opinion. Witness: this article. > The interactions with the models would be similar to a kid interacting with Mickey Mouse at Disney Oy > the women were not dressed up as "Playboy bunnies". They were wearing regular shorts and a themed tshirt…

>PR is bigger than just internal opinion. Witness: this article.

This particular article has an extra angle about models pretending to be friends of employees at a company party. I wasn't endorsing that.

I was relating a somewhat related story about models at a software conference. However, they were not pretending to be in relationships with anybody. They were there to be hosts with bubbly personalities and to schmooze the crowd.

>Oy

I was not exaggerating. The conference models were not there to show skin; they were there to socialize. The conversations (regardless of it being artificial and scripted from the models) are not of a sexual nature. It's lightweight platonic chatting designed to loosen up the crowd.

Here are some videos showing the Disney character Garcon at the park. Not every Disney actor's face is hidden behind a mask:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=disney+gaston

Clicking on some of those videos should give an idea of how the models interact with guests. The men that Disney hires for that work are all beautiful male specimens. (Women would typically categorize them as "hunks" or "beefcakes".) However, the purpose is not for girls/daughters/mothers/women to grab their crotch or act out Magic Mike[1] fantasies. The Garcon actor is there to be funny and provide smiles.

The Garcon models are not allowed to exchange phone numbers with the park guests. There is no "let's meet up at Cinderella's castle" secret rendezvous after they show off their one arm pushups. So, if the women at the park don't get to engage with sexual foreplay at the park with Garcon, why does Disney only hire attractive men? Oy indeed.

The models at the software conference did similar work to the Garcon actors at Disney theme parks.

The reason you don't see public-relations blowback about the beautiful models at Disney is the same reason you don't see it about models at industry conferences.

On the other hand, the Bloomberg article about "models pretending to be friends of employees" is a whole different level of weirdness.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Mike

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#208

Post by Tade0 »

stuffedBelly wrote: post #171
mfe5003 wrote: post #145

Maybe they should invite some other company to their party with the other gender ratio if it is such a problem.

My thoughts exactly. Or host semi-exclusive parties at larger public venues such as bowling centers, where employees have chance to mingle with outsiders, likely with better gender ratio (most such venues have split sections and people can walk across them. Thirsty Bear in SF is a good one). Not to even mention implication on gender issues, hiring models to interact with employees does not really help them improve th…

We tried to host such a thing a few times in college.

Apparently female-dominated environments suffer from social awkwardness as much as male-dominated ones.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#209

Post by jasode »

twobyfour wrote: post #179
jasode wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, they're now spending the evening outnumbered by male colleagues who are ogling other women who are there explicitly as objects of sexual attraction Unfortunately, it was my limited recollection of the event that's prompted some replies about it marginalizing female employees. To clarify, it was a vendor conference and not a company party. Employees from different companies would attend. (Think of it like Google I/…

I'm not suggesting that it's a quasi strip club environment or nearly as egregious a violation as taking employees to a strip club. Just that it's along the same spectrum of making beautiful women available for men's enjoyment and that that's what causes it to be a source of discomfort. And if my company hired a bunch of gorgeous models - most female but a few male - for our holiday party, I would be outraged. The ma…

These 2 comments looked like they contradict each other:

1) ">It's one step short of holding your holiday party at a strip club."

2) ">I'm not suggesting it's [...] nearly as egregious a violation as taking employees to a strip club."

The "one step" looks like "nearly" to me which is why I tried to clarify the nature of the interactions.

If any _hint_ of "strip club" is even mentioned in the replies to my anecdote about the software conference party, that's my fault for describing it poorly.

See my other comment about this.[1] Are female guests at Disney describing Gaston as "one step" removed from a "male strip club"? I don't think so and that's the type of platonic vibe I was trying to portray in my conference anecdote. Nevertheless, people still get the wrong impression that the party models were there to act as a sexual tease. (The "fake friends" models mentioned in the Bloomberg article may be instructed to act in a more sexually provocative manner but my anecdote wasn't about them.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15877739

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#210

Post by heartbreak »

ImSkeptical wrote: post #201
heartbreak wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. S/He’s saying women are free to work as models at a party, but employers shouldn’t hire women to be models at company events.

So it's only fine if a private individual hires models for their party?

That’s not what I said.
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