Guys, stop sexualizing women in your mockups | Hacker News Reader

Guys, stop sexualizing women in your mockups

blog.wells.ee

24 pointsalexkiwi36 comments

I don't get the argument here. Look at a fashion magazine geared towards women, what do you think the ads look like in those magazines?

Marketing copy with attractive people tends to convert better than marketing copy with unattractive people. Are we just supposed to sabotage our own marketing material in order to... what exactly?

If sex sells its not because IT is a male dominated industry, its because sex sells to the population at large. Why don't you go to Hollywood and tell them to start hiring more unattractive actresses in star roles, I'm sure that would have a much larger and more immediate impact than changing the marketing copy on a few landing pages.

You can't honestly expect IT to be the ones that pioneer more 'ethical' marketing practices.

What's unethical about using sex to sell?

Our society is really fucked up and repressed about sex.

I'm really glad there's a man around to tell my partner that if she wears bathing suits to the beach and a man sees her backside that she's a victim instead of advocating she wear whatever the fuck she wants (including nothing) to the beach.

When my partner and I go to the beach we have to travel an extra 15 minutes because she'd rather go topless, that's fucked up and repressed. I can go around where ever I want with my top off, but thanks to white knights like the writer of the article she has to travel an extra 15 minutes lest a man (who is uncomfortable with naked pictures of his own gender) have to see her tits.

I'd be more impressed if people like the author could look at a woman wearing a bathing suit with out immediately thinking about sex than any blog post he could ever write about how women are sexualized. It's really fucked up that he can't think a woman at the beach in a bathing suit is doing anything other than being sexualized.

I agree with the second part.

I think this example is unethical because of the standards it creates for women. It makes women think that their primary role is for sex, which is shitty.

I don't like the standards placed on men either, like how we're supposed to be emotionless, or the current trend of "idiot men" in commercials.

http://www.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment_300/327_top_10_li...

I don't agree with or even like this article, but mockups aren't being sold to the public at large.

If a designer sends me a mockup with sexualized images I am going to be annoyed because it's not professional and I prefer to see what the project might actually look like live.

> You can't honestly expect IT to be the ones that pioneer more ethical marketing practices.

It's okay because everyone else is doing it?

Only the first photo really comes across as sexualized (Messages by Ramotion) -- I think a different photo should have been picked. The other two designs just have photos of pretty women smiling.

Also, the UIfaces service seems to be almost entirely pictures of men. Should we only have pictures of men in our mockups?

Images of faces and people aren't neutral placeholders - they will affect how attractive the whole mockup (and the advertised product) will be perceived.

In almost all cases (barring special messaging/targeting), using pictures of attractive people will give better results - if you're using pictures of average people for no good reason, then you're hurting the outcome, putting out suboptimal product; it would be just like using a less-than-readable typeface for your marketing copy - unprofessional.

Gender of the pictures matters - it should be adjusted for target message and audience, but more often than not (2/3?) a picture of a woman will be more effective (attract attention and positive emotion) than a similar picture of a man. Take a look at magazine covers - both men-targeted and women-targeted magazines will prefer to have women on their covers, since that is what will get them more sales.

And that is not an arbitrary bias of publishers, this is a reflection of the true bias of the viewers, and it probably will stay that way until we're not entirely homo sapiens anymore.

So, a few things. I'll start with the nit-picky. I think the Blurred Lines parody should be removed.

I've never seen it before, but decided to watch it (discreetly as I could at work), and I don't see the author's issue with it. That paragraph, instead of coming off as "we wouldn't sexualize men, so we shouldn't sexualize women" instead comes off as "I am slightly homophobic and don't like seeing nearly naked men".

Honestly, I dug the video and thought it was pretty clever and funny. If the author has an issue with nearly naked men and their junk, perhaps that's a personal problem the author should address outside of the context of how to treat women.

Now, on to the actual message of the article. I get how sexualizing women in a workplace is bad. But to say "remove sexuality from marketing materials" (mockups are marketing materials, after all) is just dumb. Sex sells. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter what you're selling. That's why Fruit of the Looms commercials have buff men in underwear (they're marketing to wives/girlfriends who actually do the cloth purchasing) and why beer commercials have women in bikinis (marketing to men who buy beer).

So, sorry, but the sheer economics of it means that there's going to be sexualized materials in marketing (with both men and women being sexualized depending on the target audience).

I'm not intending to offend or be sexist here but...

Do women actually have a problem looking at pictures of other women?

Whenever I see some media 'designed' for women, usually a magazine or a newspaper article, it's invariable about another woman. Either about fashion, health or just some celebrity gossip. The men that do appear tend to be unusually good looking.

The only conclusion I'm going to draw from this (and there are many), is that women don't seem to have a problem looking at pictures of other women.

It doesn't look to me like any of the women in those examples were forced to pose a certain way.

It's a problem if you make it a problem.

American puritanism combined with political correctness culture is a formula to create mountains out of molehills.

And then bulldoze them flat, just in case any children might think they look like breasts.

Yea, I like how you glossed over the shot of the woman in the bikini looking out to the ocean.

Yeah, there's no way a woman would go out to the beach unless a man forced her to.

Why do you think they chose the shot of her from behind?

Couldn't you make the same argument about them taking a shot from the front?

You clearly see the issue.

Out of curiosity, what is the problem with that picture?

Does sexualizing a gender require that the members of that gender be forced to do something?

I didn't realize that a male-dominated overly-sexualized culture was ok as long as women aren't physically coerced into participating. Thanks for enlightening me!

I found The Hawkeye Initiative to be a pretty hilarious response to this issue (more geared towards representation in comics), not sure many people know about it. http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/

I can’t stand this video. Watching toned men parade around with their junk sticking out makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Obviously the author is not a fan of men in glittery pants, but I suspect that the video may not make quite the point intended.

My first thought was the author didn't understand the point of the video, but reading the next paragraph showed that he absolutely did. He's saying he was extremely uncomfortable watching the video, but this is what women have to deal with all the time. As uncomfortable as that video makes him, the original Robin Thicke video is just as bad for women (editorializing here: it's probably worse for women, because of the rape implications).

Can you explain why men should feel uncomfortable with that video?

I'm a man, and I watched it, and felt zero feelings of discomfort about toned men in revealing underwear and junk. If anything, the absurdity of it all was pretty entertaining.

So what, exactly, should men feel uncomfortable about here?

If it could be explained the world would be a far better place.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. So we have to rely on empathy when we hear people different than ourselves say something makes them uncomfortable.

I think at some point, his reaction is more about him than the video or culture at large.

He's saying he was extremely uncomfortable watching the video, but this is what women have to deal with all the time.

I understand that, but am just remarking that the video just seems like a camp pastiche of a pop song with some men in glittery pants rather than an example of something particularly outlandish. The original seems pretty sleazy and fairly rubbish, but as far as sleazy music videos go it is definitely on the tame end of the scale.

It does make me wonder if the author is actually just expressing a form of puritanism here.

I hope that the author was exaggerating when he talked about being so uncomfortable with the parody video that he couldn't keep watching.

However, you're looking at the wrong thing with the original video. Yes, the video itself is pretty tame. The problem with Blurred Lines is the lyrics.

Sex sells and it does attract more attention (and more clicks and impressions and buys) whether you like it or not.

Stopped reading at 'I'm a white male' as if it's some sort of a handicap (in the words of George Carlin - "happens to be").

Tired of white male guilt permeating every other non-technical post. To me this colors the author is too extreme in their worldview, hence I am unlikely to seriously consider whatever he says after that.

“Men can be our best advocates because the men who don’t respect women do respect men.”

I've never actually said that phrase, but if I did it wouldn't pertain to something as silly as this. Using super beautiful people in mockups or sexualized woman is immature but I'm far more concerned with people who think that woman 'just aren't smart enough to be programmers'.

Maybe this would have worked better in a more specific example. I interviewed at a place where there were so many little things like this that I didn't think I'd be comfortable working there. Sexualized images + servers named after porn actresses + the poster for the company holiday party included a scantily clad woman.

I don't get it. He gives the woman on the beach as an example of.. quote offending work unquote.

> the men who don’t respect women do respect men

There are people that don't respect anybody. If someone's being an asshole to a woman it doesn't necessary mean it's about sexism.

Btw, sexism != the discrimination of women. It's a discriminations based on person's sex - so it's discrimination of men as well e.g. implying they have to have particular qualities and behave in certain ways.

I don't know how I feel about the content of the article, but I do know that finding UIFaces is a winner. What a neat service.

Wow... if you actually click the link to Meng To's "From Design To iOS7 Prototype" design post, you'll see that at least 1/2 the images are of men. You perniciously decided to cherry pick one example that happens to have a woman, and assert that he's sexualizing women.

Also, it's clear that you are projecting your own homophobic prejudices onto women when you write: "I can’t stand this video. Watching toned men parade around with their junk sticking out makes me feel very uncomfortable."

You assume that, because you feel uncomfortable looking at the skin of same sex individuals, all women must therefore share your prejudice. I think this article reflects more about your own assumptions and prejudices than it does about the difficulties women really face. You are contributing to the problem, good job.

This is almost like saying that fashion models should be short, fat and ugly.

Sometimes people just want to climb up on their soap box. In this case apparently based upon one single example (although even that one is arguable if you live in a progressive society).

The others look like my Facebook feed. Are we to believe that smiling women = sexualized? That is simply ridiculous, and rather than seeing this post as a reasoned petition for equality, it seems to almost turn women into need-to-be-protected caricatures, and sounds remarkably like something you would expect to hear in Saudi Arabia.

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