Hacker News Reader

Comment by hythloday | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, that quote is out-of-context to the point of disingenuousness. Women are listed as one of the "great perks" that (male?) attendees can enjoy:

https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.p...

View on HN

Ah, Thank you! That definitely brings a lot more context into it and I can see how some may get offended by it.

I still question whether this is offensive to myself. Compared to the ads I hear on the radio and TV for local clubs and bars and how they're touting their female attendance or "hot bar tenders" as a reason to come, this seems relatively tame to that...

Don't take this as a dig at you, but I think that's a very revealing comparison. A hackathon is a professional event; people go there to code, not to hook up. Men are largely immune to being propositioned in professional spaces, partly because it just doesn't happen and partly because men perceive public space as "theirs" (there's research to show that women don't). So the cost to men of presenting this as a sexualized event is virtually nil or slightly positive. The cost to women, on the other hand, is phenomenal, because not only does it signal that this is an event where they'll be assessed by their tits rather than ability, but that the organizers of the event are likely to be indifferent or overtly hostile to problems of sexual harassment.

This is often a gedanken experiment that's often as distracting as it is illumination, but (assuming you're a straight man), imagine that 90% of programmers are gay or bisexual, and that one of the few hackathons available to you advertises itself by promising that "beefcake hunks" will fetch you drinks (which is just a couple of points down from the "massage" perk). Would that change your perception of the expected atmosphere of the hackathon?

Just because sexism exists elsewhere, doesn't make it any less sexist though, does it?

Well, for a start, these clubs and bars are presumably targeted at men. I personally, and I believe many people, find that sort of advertising distasteful, but their client base presumably puts up with it.

However, this event was targeted at the tech community. You know, the scary wimminz can program too. The implication of it being an all-male event is perhaps more worrying than the objectification.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com