Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OH HAI SEXISM

storify.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 99 posts

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#61

Post by eurleif »

dlikhten wrote: post #59
dbuns wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 As long as consumers choose to us services that monetize primarily on ads, (Facebook, Google, et. Al), I say game on. I may not personally agree on a style basis, but focusing on the morality of a business model seems like a way better time sync than trying to get everyone to capitulate to your opinions.

My point with all this is that you can advertise however you want. Naked women, women in bikinis, who cares. However if you do some blatant sexism and want to attract intelligent women into your ranks, or want to attract intelligent men who give a shit, you fail. Furthermore you can expect a PR backlash. And of course will try to justify yourself. The reason for this is obvious: they have NO INTENTION to take the vid…

>will do anything they can to stop criticism. Classical Trolling.

Trolls don't try to stop criticism. Trolls like upsetting people.

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#62

Post by darklajid »

japhyr wrote: post #32
Pewpewarrows wrote: post #3

I really hope that everyone is as equally offended and quick to point out sexism for every advertisement, television show, and movie featuring a very fit, shirtless man doing a stereotypical "masculine" activity (construction work, heavy lifting, playing a sport, or fighting each other).

This is not a legitimate counter-argument. The use of women in advertising, and our social treatment of women in general, has negatively affected most women's ability to be treated professionally and respectfully. The use of fit, shirtless men in advertising does little to hold men back in general.

I agree that women are underrepresented in our field (and certainly others).

I have two issues with your post. Maybe they are a failure to understand what you're saying (blame it on reading comprehension in that case):

1) ".. has negatively affected most women's ability to be treated professionally and respectfully"

If you reread those lines, would you still choose them? _Most_ women's ability to be treated in either way or both is negatively affected? Maybe I stumble when I read 'most' and change that mentally to 90% or so - which my gut rejects as unreasonably large and way over the top.

2) Did you watch the video? Would you, if that girl came now down the street, think disrespectful about her? Consider her unprofessional in her job?

I think the video was obviously shot for this effect and completely unnecessary. The 'I need new pants' comment at the end was the biggest issue I have with that stuff. Watching it I reacted like w/ most advertisements: Lack of interest in general, disgust for so badly disguised tries to influence the viewer, me.

But I don't think videos like these will go away, nor are they the biggest problem. Failure to distinguish between a model with little more than a shirt on (job: to be looked at) and your fellow rails programmer (job: produce awesome code) because they share the same sex is .. stupid. And needs to be eliminated.

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#63

Post by mhurron »

japhyr wrote: post #22
mhurron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think we can all agree that using scantily-clad women as advertising objects is a bad thing Nope. They're paid for it, there is nothing illegal about it and I fail to see anything wrong with targeting perceived likes of a segment of the population to move product. In fact, I believe that's what advertising is. I see no difference between a woman in a bikini or a celebrity in an ad.

There is a higher moral ground than just what is legal, and what people are willing to do for money.

Your morality is not everyone's morality.

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#64

Post by [deleted] »

untog wrote: post #2

I don't know if this is going to be an unpopular post, but I don't think this is such a clearcut case of sexism as the API Jam/"Lighten Up" stuff we've seen recently. I think we can all agree that using scantily-clad women as advertising objects is a bad thing- we were hating GoDaddy for it long before SOPA. But I think that everyone in this story went about things the wrong way. Shanley Kane had a legitimate complai…

[deleted]

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#65

Post by badclient »

koeselitz wrote: post #56
untog wrote: post #2

I don't know if this is going to be an unpopular post, but I don't think this is such a clearcut case of sexism as the API Jam/"Lighten Up" stuff we've seen recently. I think we can all agree that using scantily-clad women as advertising objects is a bad thing- we were hating GoDaddy for it long before SOPA. But I think that everyone in this story went about things the wrong way. Shanley Kane had a legitimate complai…

> The actual root sexism isn't the story here. It's a story about PR, or about making- and dealing with- complaints. I think it is, actually. This method of dealing with women who speak up - veiled threats, sniping about "tone," complaints that 'we're not being treated fairly!' - is the actual root sexism. It's not just a PR problem or a problem with complaints. The anger here focused directly and solely on the woman…

Complete bullshit. The "anger" that you refer to has very little to do with her being a woman. If the same words came from a guy, he'd be met with a similar response.

On the whole, I think the guys involved in the conversation end up looking more stupid and petty, especially given they are cofounders. Now, am I sexist in saying this? Does everything have to viewed from those lenses?

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#66

Post by aplusbi »

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #3

I really hope that everyone is as equally offended and quick to point out sexism for every advertisement, television show, and movie featuring a very fit, shirtless man doing a stereotypical "masculine" activity (construction work, heavy lifting, playing a sport, or fighting each other).

I am not equally offended because I don't feel that the sexualization of men in advertisements is equally offensive. The reason is simple: the sexualization of women comes from a male-fantasy prospective. The sexualization of men also comes from a male-fantasy prospective.

What does offend me are advertisements with the bumbling-husband archetype or similar man-without-a-woman stereotypes.

Edit: I should point out that I do think male sexualization is bad as it can promote poor body image, etc.

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#67

Post by ceol »

bct wrote: post #25
mhurron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think we can all agree that using scantily-clad women as advertising objects is a bad thing Nope. They're paid for it, there is nothing illegal about it and I fail to see anything wrong with targeting perceived likes of a segment of the population to move product. In fact, I believe that's what advertising is. I see no difference between a woman in a bikini or a celebrity in an ad.

"They're paid for it, there is nothing illegal about it" Ah, Hacker News, where all ethical questions boil down to "were they paid?" and "is it illegal?".

Also, "define ".

If you can't write a mathematical proof of it, it doesn't exist, and any discussion of it will inevitably lead to a bunch of people arguing semantics.

This site is one of my favorites, but when an article about sexism in the industry hits the front page, I do what I can to avoid the comments. The majority of the time, it will be things like

* "I still have a problem with this notion that simply because women may be fun to look at, that they are objects."[0]

* "I don't think you'll ever be able to take the objectification of women out of society, and I don't know if it's necessary to try - we've seen women begin objectifying men in some capacity in the last seventy-five years or so, and I don't know if that's necessarily an unhealthy thing. Better to let that objectification be out in the open than keep it locked up in your head."[1]

* "I really hope that everyone is as equally offended and quick to point out sexism for every advertisement, television show, and movie featuring a very fit, shirtless man doing a stereotypical "masculine" activity"[2]

[0]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3740048

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3740090

[2]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3740003

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#68

Post by posabsolute »

koeselitz wrote: post #56
untog wrote: post #2

I don't know if this is going to be an unpopular post, but I don't think this is such a clearcut case of sexism as the API Jam/"Lighten Up" stuff we've seen recently. I think we can all agree that using scantily-clad women as advertising objects is a bad thing- we were hating GoDaddy for it long before SOPA. But I think that everyone in this story went about things the wrong way. Shanley Kane had a legitimate complai…

> The actual root sexism isn't the story here. It's a story about PR, or about making- and dealing with- complaints. I think it is, actually. This method of dealing with women who speak up - veiled threats, sniping about "tone," complaints that 'we're not being treated fairly!' - is the actual root sexism. It's not just a PR problem or a problem with complaints. The anger here focused directly and solely on the woman…

I agree with badclient, there are ways to speak to people about things you disagree and the way she handled it was far from being professional.

You can try to reason with people or you can just have a bad attitude and smack them and hope the other will bow.

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#69

Post by rorrr »

japhyr wrote: post #22
mhurron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think we can all agree that using scantily-clad women as advertising objects is a bad thing Nope. They're paid for it, there is nothing illegal about it and I fail to see anything wrong with targeting perceived likes of a segment of the population to move product. In fact, I believe that's what advertising is. I see no difference between a woman in a bikini or a celebrity in an ad.

There is a higher moral ground than just what is legal, and what people are willing to do for money.

This is not Iran. Women are allowed to dance around in underwear. And get paid for it. It was that model's choice. She was OK with it. If she's OK with, I'm OK with it.

Re: OH HAI SEXISM

#70

Post by kevingadd »

arien wrote: post #49

This is slowly getting out of hand. I would even dare to speak of censorship. Who cares what a random girl in a video is doing? Was she forced to appear in there? Then what's the problem? It's not even "fucking gross", it's just a couple of people giggling around being silly! I'm a girl and never felt objectified by bosses/colleagues in the tech world, nor suffered any kind of sexism. But maybe it's because I never c…

A customer or random stranger saying they think your content is inappropriate does not even begin to approach censorship. Censorship is a related topic of discussion, but nothing resembling it is happening here.
Post reply on HN