Why does being born a certain gender make one less likely to do something negative either to their own gender or the other gender?
If we take your statement at face value then we have to make a whole bunch of assumptions that make little sense to me (e.g. that people have the same opinions of what is sexist, that all women are "sensitive" to such issues, that women never actively take part in sexism of women on purpose, that women being sexist to men doesn't exist, etc).
So yeah... I'm going to go ahead and say that that statement is just false unless you can show me something that indicates it is true.
Women are people. People are "sexist." More or less likelihood of such sexism is hard to track because there is no fixed definition (or "line") of sexism its self, nor is there an easy way to /prove/ that someone is or isn't sexist/being sexist.
1. It's not "being born" but identifying with a group. Gender, race, sports team, etc. You're more likely to act favorably toward people in your group.
2. Clearly not everyone has the same opinion of what's sexist.
3. If women were not "sensitive" to this, then they wouldn't be complaining so much. They are complaining, therefore I conclude that they are sensitive to it.
4. Women can be mean to other women, but why would they be sexist against women on purpose?
5. Women being sexist to men is not relevant to this context. We're talking about treatment of women.
Gender is a performance, not a thing. You act in alignment with what you portray to others as your gender.
> 2. Clearly not everyone has the same opinion of what's sexist.
While this is true, the vast majority of disagreement about what sexism is are deflections that serve to discredit actual instances of sexism or to pretend that sexism doesn't happen.
> 3. If women were not "sensitive" to this, then they wouldn't be complaining so much. They are complaining, therefore I conclude that they are sensitive to it.
This is totally true, women are sensitive to sexist depictions of their gender that are objectifying. Who wouldn't be?
> 4. Women can be mean to other women, but why would they be sexist against women on purpose?
Sexism is more than just conscious actions taken against others, it is about cultural and social contexts and structures. The same misogynistic messages in our culture are heard by men and women and that means everyone is affected by them to some extent. Misogyny isn't limited to men against women, some women may have internalized misogyny: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/internali...
> 5. Women being sexist to men is not relevant to this context. We're talking about treatment of women.
Women cannot be sexist against men in a systemic way. Advertising that objectifies men's bodies doesn't increase the rhetoric that devalues men nor does it contribute to a culture where sexual assault against men is the vast majority of occurrences.
As to whether or not this marketing event was degrading, the answer is quite clearly yes. Women's bodies were used as a marketing ploy to sell a product. Women's bodies as a commodity is a long running sexist theme in our society, including marketing. Commodify-ing women's bodies is dangerous and is directly related to violence against women. For an overview, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_objectification#Sexual_o...
#1, while I will accept that at face value you're more likely to root for the home team - I disagree with the unspoken assumption that that translates into less sexism.
#2, right, but even with that being the case we know enough about what sexism is to blanket say that an entire gender is less likely to conduct it?
#3, some women are complaining, some men are complaining about the reverse (e.g. /r/mensrights). Therefore using identical logic I can claim that because some men have complained about sexism that men are "less likely" than women to be sexist. See how that works (or doesn't)?
#4, because women are people and people are sexist? What is it you want me to explain? If someone calls something sexist and it was produced by a women, earlier discussion not withstanding, it is.
#5, women being sexist to ANYONE is entirely relevant to this discussion. The discussion is: "women are less sexist." Therefore ANY sexism on the part of a women is fair game.
It's not like sexism at tech trade shows is a new thing, but there always seems to be people to defend it. They are using naked women as attention-getting displays to sell laptop batteries to a largely male audience. Forget blaming the company, maybe they had to do it to sell their product, but surely there is some sexism involved here.
That being said, I'd buy an argument that said women are more likely to be aware of these issues. Or even that women are less likely to be sexist. I suppose I took issue with your assertion that women are MUCH less likely to be sexist. I guess it's an argument of degrees.
My memory is a bit fuzzy but from interviews I've read with models, most of them (male and female) are against the "power structures" you're talking about. The only model I'm friends with is definitely not the sort of girl who believes her place is in the home etc.
I have never heard of Hyper-whatever. I have now. In 5 months time if I come across their name I may not remember the controversy but I will remember the brand, and they know it.
Its a little different however if their core customer base was the ones in arms, not people like me who have never heard of them. Non-customers rallying doesn't do anything but spread their name about I feel.
Edited to add: I'm good friends with a model. She does stuff like this for fun.
Bear in mind that there's nothing more frustrating that someone apparently taking you seriously and listening to you and then flat-out refusing to give you any of what you want from them. It makes you feel like you were tricked by someone who never took you seriously at all.
Fundamentally, this is about a company facing off against an angry group of people who want to force the company to action that pleases them. No CEO is going to enjoy that.
Also, if the demographic in question isn't your customer base you're likely to treat them somewhat less seriously.
Miss Rep is a bay area non-profit so I'm sure they have a very large base here. And a lot of macs.
Not to mention all the techies, not at all affiliated with Miss Rep, who were tweeting about this event.
Many tweeters and posters stated specifically that they were former or potential customers who will now look elsewhere.
The real issue here seems to just be a puritanical view of nakedness/sexiness.
Women most certainly do deal with problems in the workplace, but having the ability to choose to stand mostly naked to sell batteries doesn't seem like one of them.
I'm sorry but this was not at all clear from what you had written. Or any of the tweets you quoted. I tried to be pretty careful, thoughtful, and understanding but apparently I failed badly. After all this discussion I have no idea what your objection actually is. Sorry for wasting everyone's time, I wish there was something I could actually take away from this but I just feel defeated by this whole conversation.
Here is a link to one of them: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5157470
Obviously the whole thing runs much deeper and I agree that things could be handled much more effectively.
The fact is that this was widely considered offensive and unnecessary, and the CEOs response only made it worse. No one has the right not to be offended, but everyone has the right to speak out and not buy a product for whatever reasons they choose, which is exactly what happened.
Personally, I don't have a problem with naked people in body paint as part of a display; it does everything you want a display to do, it catches eyes and it sticks in memory.
But why did they only choose naked women? There are no painted male models in their staff photo from the event.[1] Was it decided that including naked men would somehow hurt the effectiveness of the display, and if so, why? Certainly there were willing male models, so it seems that HyperMac just steered clear of hiring men. The accusations of sexism (or more accurately, objectification) all springs from that, and the unwillingness of the CEO to even acknowledge that as a concern is honestly disturbing.
[1] http://www.hyperblog.com/2013/01/thanks-for-an-amazing-ces-2...
There is absolutely no evidence that it would have been considered that way.
Right now, the display is "naked women in body paint", but with men it would be "naked people in body paint." The gender neutrality of the display would exist in more than just a semantic sense, but also in a deeper sense that gender wasn't considered a factor when they were making this display. Right now, that's not how it looks at all. It looks like they only wanted naked women to be associated with HyperMac's products. And the CEO's comments do absolutely nothing to dissuade that viewpoint.
Would people have still complained about objectification of women if there were men in the display too? Maybe. But they would have a much weaker case than they do now.
The problem -- at least as it seems to me -- is not that there were nude, painted people hired for the event, but that there were only nude, painted women hired for the event for no apparent reason other than their presumed sex appeal to the predominantly male attendees.
That's where the objectification argument comes in, at least in my eyes. Like I said from the start, I don't have an inherent issue with using nude, painted models for a display.
My issue with the display is it that HyperMac only hired female models when males would have sufficed just as well. That's the only real basis for claiming objectification of women in my eyes. Because the CEO gave absolutely no answers -- refusing to acknowledge that could even be a concern -- Occam's razor suggests going with the simplest explanation of why only nude female models were chosen to represent HyperMac, and the simplest explanation (at least in my eyes) is their sex appeal.
Models are chosen primarily for their looks, so why was the look of the nude female body the only one HyperMac had representing them at the show?
Edited to add: at least the CEO claims they were knowledgeable, which takes care of the main problem with booth babes. Both men and women had been trained to ignore women at the conferences, as a kind of mental spam filter just because many of the booth babes were clueless about the products.
About the depth thing: click the "link" button if you want to reply. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5154055
http://www.netmagazine.com/features/primer-sexism-tech-indus... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_objectification