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Comment by krastanov | Hacker News Reader

Naomi (@sexycyborg) is a well known maker who happens to have a lot of risque maker projects and plenty of photos of her online would be scandalizing for more socially conservative people.

She has been blamed to be the face for a manufactured persona, to be generally incompetent at anything maker related, etc. The explanation for why she (and her "handler") would do that, is that they get hired to endorse products. Plenty of sexism, slutshaming, and circumstantial "evidence" (e.g. the comment about almost cutting her finger this one time) have been used against her.

It is a generally disappointing story of slutshaming.

Now a well known media persona in the maker community decided to entertain those allegations and ruined her reputation.

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No, that's not accurate. Dale Dougherty claimed publicly on his Twitter feed that Naomi Wu wasn't a real person, but rather multiple people manufacturing a persona. The subtext of the tweet is probably that Wu is a photogenic marketing spokesperson for the brand. It's not a cultural or moral critique. It's a grave, specific, and apparently entirely false one.

We don't need to get wound up into a knot about sexual mores to recognize that nobody should have to defend themselves against false accusations that they're not even a real person.

Why not both?

If she were a dude with an unfitted black tee, it seems a lot less likely that she'd be accused of being 'fake'.

Nobody should have to defend themselves against false accusations that they're not even a real person. This issue is simpler than the thread here makes it sound.

I agree that there's probably an unpleasant subtext behind this guy's decision to wreck Naomi Wu's career. All I'm saying is, we don't have to reach that issue to see how reckless what he did was.

I've still never figured out if TJ Holowaychuk is a hive mind or not. I kind of suspect not, but the history is interesting!

Context: https://medium.com/@kelas/how-is-tj-holowaychuk-so-insanely-...

> Nobody should have to defend themselves against false accusations that they're not even a real person.

Do you mean the accusation that someone is playing a role for marketing purposes, and is not actually like the image portrayed? Why is that such an inconceivable accusation? Why should nobody have to defend herself against that?

> If she were a dude with an unfitted black tee...

That's an odd argument. Why would someone manufacture a schlubby geek persona? Seems like attractiveness and distinctiveness are key qualities in a (hypothetical) persona.

Our industry is (rightfully) going through a lot of self-examination on how we treat women as sex objects and here is a technically savvy woman projecting herself (among other things) as...a sex object. While it is certainly her right to do so it seems that a bit of push-back is expected (and potentially warranted).

That said, being called "fake" may be wrong. I have no knowledge one way or the other.

Being reduced to sex object and being sexy on top of being skilled etc are not the same tho. Nor should be. (I know there are some radfem who disagree with me on that point). It is precisely the "and since she is sexy then she must be bimbo" that is a problem and causes whole lot of negativity.

Pushback here is people literally saying she is fake and can't be skilled. It is not complain about the decency nor double standard.

Basically it seems like this girl is attractive and reasonably competent, and is using her sexiness to entice viewers to watch her maker videos.

Then you have competent people who arnt sexy thinking - hey that's not fair, she is using an asset I don't have to gain viewership. So they feel compelled to point out the obvious.

I feel like this is sort of like why the weather person is often an attractive girl. Sure maybe she doesnt have a phd in meteorology but she understands it well, and generally people would rather take the info from her than some fat guy mumbling about advanced meteorology. And so when this guy sees people flocking to get weather updates from her, rather than tuning into his youtube channel his instinct will be to say she is using sex to sell.

When that happens I'm not sure what the appropriate response should be. I mean, here clearly this girl is using sexy videos, so it seems odd to be defensive about it. Maybe the response should be- "yeah, so? All that and I deliver informative content"

Naomi Wu wrote about why she dresses this way in her FAQ:

"Beside personal taste, the other issue is my appearance is effective. Female Makers- or Women in Tech are rarely featured in Chinese news, it's just not something that gets much interest and there is no community of like-minded women I can look to. Sexy girls are still the delivery vector for nearly all messages in tech here. If I want to get my message out- that these new technical tools are accessible, and that there are well-paying jobs available for women that master them, I have to do so in a way that will actually reach my audience. I'm sure the high road is nice- but in China, no one will hear a word you say while you are on it."

https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs

I don't see the harm in everyone doing as much as they can with the cards they are dealt. The alternative is a dystopia like Harrison Bergeron (http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html)

> it seems that a bit of push-back is expected (and potentially warranted).

It is generally useful to use a reversal thought experiment to check for logical consistency.

Would a photogenic young man who wore tight clothes while presenting their hardware projects be told he's not a real person because he had the audacity to own his sexuality? Would that be warranted or expected?

"Tight clothes"? No.

"A speedo barely concealing their junk"? Maybe.

To be fair, in a lot of her videos she's wearing something completely reasonable for a workshop.

Excerpt from a different article:

Why and how did you create this “Sexy Cyborg” character? Is it all persona or is it also the real you? Basically, when you are not being a maker, do you still dress just as sexy?

It’s the other way around, I actually wear more conservative clothing when taking maker pictures and video for English-speaking social media than I do normally just walking around and running errands. Westerners just seem to get enraged over silly clothes. Well, Americans and British mostly. Europeans and South Americans just think it’s funny and exciting, like Chinese do usually.

I have what I call the Auntie Test: Do Chinese women over about 50 or so have any problem with my clothes? The Auntie who cleans the halls in my apartment building has twice sent me back home for a sweater, but that is just because it was winter and catching a cold calls for Chinese Traditional Medicine. I was raised properly and am respectful. If the day comes and the neighborhood Aunties tell me not to dress so sexy, I won’t. But so long as they smile and wave at me, I don’t really think it’s anyone’s business what I wear in my own country.

http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communau...

The ranks of the tech industry are dominated by men so if a man tried to use his sexuality to capture more eyeballs he'd likely be ignored or widely mocked. Also, since men do not endure the sexual harassment or objectification like women do in the tech field, I'm not sure if the situations are easily reversed.

How about this thought experiment: what if I made a poster of Wu and put it on my office wall next to the posters of Steve Jobs and Limor Fried? Would I be creating a hostile environment for my female coworkers?

Wu can dress how she wants in her private life and it's none of my (or our) business; commenting negatively on her private attire would indeed be slut shaming. However she is projecting a highly sexualized image into a field that has problems with sexualizing women; that is what opens her to criticism.

I must have missed the tweets where Dougherty tried to destroy the career and livelihood of, say, Taylor Swift or Beyonce or Miley Cyrus.

In what universe does "a field that has problems with sexualizing women" mean the opening for criticism is on the women, not the problem of "the field"?

Dougherty needs to stop pretending he's a fit and appropriate person to lead or speak for a major company - and go learn a bit of respect and restraint. Right now his reputation is lingering around Jake Applebaum, Frank Artale, Dave McClure, and Harvey Weinstein.

I'd like to hope Tim O'Reilly realises the damage Dale's doing to the Make and Makerfaire brands, and reacts as well as 500 Startups and Ignition Ventures both (eventually) did... But, as you point out, we're in "a field that has problems with sexualizing women".

Heck, there was a freaking cologne ad campaign featuring a stanford grad student. We've got a clear example of a sexualized man in tech not getting this sort of negative response.

Why would pushback be warranted? I can see why it might be expected, assuming one truly understood just how ridiculous other humans can be.

The world is full of fakes and liars, especially where there is money to be made.

Some comments in this thread amount to encouraging that we should blindly accept that a person is who they say they are because they are the "right kind of person".

The world is also full of genuine people, far more than the fakes. Unless there's some reason to suspect a person is a fake, or some dire consequences if they are, why worry about it?

> It is a generally disappointing story of slutshaming.

Just to bring up a tangent - remember this: http://www.zdnet.com/article/when-software-offends-the-panty...

My question is; is there a double standard wrt sexualised personal projects?

There seems to be a contradiction in that sexual content by a man is seen as "hostile" or "unwelcoming" to women, but criticising a woman for producing sexual content is "slut-shaming"...

There is a difference between sexualizing yourself and sexualizing others. Especially when historically women have been sexualized without their consent which, while it happens, is a rarity for men.

So, if a male commenter were to complement her on her sexy outfit, which category does that fall into? And who is harmed by a project called pantyshot? Or posters of sexualised fantasy/anime women in skimpy clothing?

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