overdramafication because of overbitchiness? boring..
Because calling a woman "bitchy" is always a convincing rebuttal to a charge of sexism...
OH HAI SEXISM
91–99 of 99 posts
Re: OH HAI SEXISM
#92I've watched the video ... if that is sexist, then what about this perfume commercial with a half naked Matthew M McConaughey? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL83sQG8fFA Or all those commercials with half naked men aimed at selling male underwear to women (so their man will look just as good). Is that sexism too? Why does nobody cry about that type of sexism? Guess what I'm asking, in general, why is sexism towards w…
The difference is that there's not a big Twitter argument (that I know of anyway) by people who are offended by the Matthew McConaughey commercial. If there was, Dolce and Gabbana would have to deal with it, just like Geeklist is having to deal with this one.
This is not exercise in defining objective rules about what "is" and "is not" sexist. Sexism is highly subjective, like most social topics. What matters is that a geek girl--supposedly the target audience for Geeklist--complained about a Geeklist video.
Complaints about brand are not uncommon. If you manage a well-known brand they WILL happen, and there are good and bad ways to handle them. Getting the hackles up, subtly threatening the employment relationship, whining about being polite, are all bad ways to handle it.
Re: OH HAI SEXISM
#93This 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.
She is asking the video to be taken down, not merely pointing that it's inappropriate -> "I don't like it, take it down".
I'm just talking censorship because it's the nth thing of this kind I've seen this week alone and I'm starting to see a dangerous trend. Apologies if it looked a bit out of place, should have added a better explanation of what I meant.
Re: OH HAI SEXISM
#94[deleted]
Re: OH HAI SEXISM
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
The anger here focused directly and solely on the woman who made the complaint, in an ugly and crass way, and that qualifies as more inherently sexist than anything in the video. Well... no, because the anger would have to have been because she was a woman rather than just directed at a woman. Being angry at a woman isn't sexist. I don't see any evidence that the responses were that gender-specific. If I'd made simil…
This is a misunderstanding of what sexism is, I think, though it's a common one.
Sexism is not about intentions. Neither is racism, for that matter. It's about the effect our actions have in the world. I can be a non-racist and say racist things; I can even say racist things accidentally or inadvertently. That doesn't make them less racist. Likewise, I can consider myself enlightened, and mean absolutely nothing sexist by it, and still let my girlfriend do all the housework, or say things that I don't realize are hurting women in general.
That can be little scary, I think, because most of us are at least a little worried that we're going to get accused of something terrible and be held up as guilty of sexism or racism. But there's something freeing about letting go of that and accepting that everybody can make mistakes. The fact that you say something sexist doesn't make you a sexist. The point is just to try to stop doing and saying things that harm the status of women as a whole in society.
And in this case, yes, this harms the status of women as a whole in society. I'm pretty sure that Christian Sanz and Rueben Katz are perfectly nice guys who don't catcall women on the street or abuse their wives or girlfriends or whatever. I'm sure, in short, that they're no sexists. But that doesn't change the fact that this event is part of a pattern that is endemic and that makes it very, very hard for women to speak up when a company does something wrong. The pattern is laid out clearly by one of Shanley Kane's tweets: distract people by focusing on "tone" and saying you're not being treated fairly, and then make subtle economic threats.
Regardless of whether or not Christian Sanz or Rueben Katz are themselves sexists - I have a feeling they're not - this pattern is patently sexist. And it needs to stop. It's a pattern that's been repeated over and over again. We can't see this one incident as completely divorced from the millions and millions of other incidents where women have been gaslighted ('calm down already! why are you so upset?') and then threatened with economic hardship.
Re: OH HAI SEXISM
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you trying to assert that a couple of half-naked women in an advertisement for no reason is analogous to a shirtless man in the context of a masculine activity during a film? I would love to see your reasoning because I believe the context dictates the offensiveness of the message. Also I can detect the implication that somebody is a hypocrite if they do not sit there and correctly judge every single case of sexi…
I should have specified that those actions take place out of context. Such as showing a half-naked man riding on a horse down the beach to sell a product to women. Obviously everyone has different sensitivities, but if you cannot objectively identify sexism of both men and women in advertisements, yes you're a hypocrite.
>> If you cannot objectively identify sexism of both men and women in advertisements, yes you're a hypocrite.
Consider the context though. How were women treated a 100 years ago? How are they still treated? Feminism, etc.
I think you need a better model that takes this into consideration. Whether you like it or not for historic reasons there is greater sensitivity about sexism against women. I don't think rejecting this is being more objective, it's called trying to force an incomplete model onto reality.
Re: OH HAI SEXISM
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, and a lot of it has to do with the context. If your're selling swimsuits, then you hire models, have a photo shoot, and sell swimsuits. But in the technology industry, where a lot of people are working very hard to encourage more women to get involved, there's no place for this type of objectification of women. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard.
That's why we're all seeking to ban pornography, right?
No. If you're selling pornography, you hire porn stars, make porn, and sell it. That's the adult entertainment industry. If you're selling "an achievement-based social portfolio builder...exclusively for developers, to build tangible credibility in the workplace..." maybe you don't hire a model to dance around without pants on. Maybe you do, maybe you don't care, but if your customers care then maybe you should too.
Re: OH HAI SEXISM
#98Earlier 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.
There is nothing higher* about the moral ground. It usualy degenerates civil conversation to people taking mountains offense and guilt-by-association attacks.
*'Higher' in this case interpreted as "more positive" or "more virtious".
Re: OH HAI SEXISM
#99I must say, just two or three weeks ago Cracked linked me to another case of someone flipping the hell out inappropriately over a swear word. In this case, it was a 911 officer actually hanging up on a caller, multiple times, while her dad is having a seizure, because she was panicking and used the f-word. Then the officer actually went and arrested her for claimed offenses which weren't actually illegal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRKtWis69wk