You May Have Seen My Face on BART
medium.com
medium.com
Her main argument is also a little too wide-eyed - she basically says that because the poster is factually correct (she is an engineer, she works at One Login, she likes working there) it shouldn't be receiving all the attention and criticism.
Except, it's not that simple, because advertisements aren't just lists of facts - they have embedded values in terms of who they are trying to target and what they are trying to communicate.
So when people criticize the ad, they aren't calling into question its facts, but rather its motive - who are they targeting and why? The author tries to discredit the idea that this ad is targeted at men by saying the entire concept is sexist, but I don't buy it. They chose to put her on the ad because she is an engineer, yes, but the fact that she's a pretty female engineer was not accidental, and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
> The problem is whenever an attractive male engineer is on an ad
But most ads/media/etc depict engineers as unattractive, regardless of gender. I would say the dice ads intend to frame the men in the photos as unattractive.
Of course "Alex" would never receive such attention for being attractive (hence the joke) nor would he be harassed for merely appearing on such a dumb advert. It of course illustrates the idiotic double standard between men and women in tech (or even fashion for that matter) which is your whole thesis here.
The first thing that popped into my head when I saw the advert you're featured in was "this is a really poor advertisement" either done with the explicit expectation of eliciting eyeballs (like most ads) or whipped up in last minute fashion with no real thought put into it (I didn't even realize it was a recruitment ad until I read your post).
There's a lot to break down regarding the micro issues (a terribly done ad) and the macro issues (sexism, male gaze, internet rage, etc) but I would be particularly upset with the people who devised this concept. I'd hazard a guess that the other people who were in the running to be placed on this ad were just as photogenic (which if true is completely maddening and upsetting).
It's equally disgusting to me that there's been human toll taken because some schmucks in the marketing department decided to whip this up in one day with clearly little forethought.
To be fair, OneLogin has a relatively small engineering team. Of all of the other female engineers at the company, I have now been there the longest. I really hate needing to validate this but I also have pretty great stats on sprint completion as well. It makes me sad that mine is the only one getting attention and people seem to have these far out opinions on what really is going on.
Ads that are simply a positive testimonial from an employee of the company are standard for startups in San Francisco. It's about awareness.
Speaking of marketing awareness, the testimonial isn't even necessary. Case in point, the Lucas from Venmo campaign a year ago: http://valleywag.gawker.com/venmo-everyone-hates-your-weirdo...
Advertisements are designed to catch a person's attention and elicit a response. Most marketers don't care whether it's a good response or a bad response, just getting noticed is the goal. There's a lot of visual language tied up in ads which we're conditioned to interpret a certain way. Many ads mismatch these visual cues to attract a person's attention (sometimes successfully, sometimes not). I think a lot of the anger at the OneLogin ad comes from the mismatched messages in the same way the Venmo ad did, only because it's a woman in the ad the anger is directed at her instead of the concept/execution.
That reminded me of a pair of talented, male twins I've worked with who are attractive and quite slender (compared to the average American).
They get odd comments like "you're too slender, you don't look like a normal person", "you're too attractive/well-dressed to be tech" and other odd observations that sound like compliment, but aren't.
Either way, these are the people that you stay away from, and instead spend time working with people like those described in the author's ad.
facepalm
anchalee above is the same anchalee who's blog we're talking about.
geez...and I lost three points on this thread!
I'm sorry for whatever you had to go through in your life to develop such an inflated and hostile perspective, but I think you're completely missing the point here. As for my previous comment -- there's nothing like sexism right at home.
This concept might blow your mind, but if you really knew me as a person you'd understand how FAR from shallow I am. I'm an introvert, I have a small handful of amazing friends and I see them for the human consciousness that I allocate my time to; it has very little to do with physical presence. You could be the most conventionally physically attractive person on the planet but I will not want to waste even a minute in your presence if you don't have a good heart. Physical appearances are relatively ephemeral, people who put too much value on looks are setting themselves up for extreme amounts of disappointment in life.
A wise man once said "There is more to life than being really really ridiculously good looking... and I'm going to find out what that is."
Reading through the non-gender issue parts of the post, you sound like a very nice and hardworking person. So I apologize for my knee-jerk reaction to what I saw as typical male bashing and let's drop the issue ;-)
You know what I never hear when I go climbing? "Wow, those girls don't look like climbers." I'm helping on the periphery of a project right now to open a small co-op bouldering gym in my town, there's a "core" group of people making it happen, we got together to figure out the building layout and wall design, and half the people there were women. The person negotiating the lease for the commercial space is a woman. Not once have I overheard even a single mention of gender there.
You know what I never hear when I play Ultimate? "Wow, she runs fast for a girl." Again, nobody cares. People show up, they play, they hang out together, they go home.
One of the strongest people doing go (weiqi / badul) lessons online right now is a woman, Haylee. Not a single, "oh, she doesn't look like a go player". Instead, nothing but piles and piles of enthusiasm for every one of her videos. She's becoming a niche celebrity.
The outlier is the software industry. It's full of people that feel they have some kind of special insight into the anthropological origins of gender relations in a technical context, or some such bullshit. This entire thing should be a non-issue. I can't believe an ad for some company is getting this much attention just because one of the ads featured a young woman. It's stupid.
Damn I wish tech would just get over itself and start treating eachother like fellow people.
You are very badly informed if you think it's just the software industry. I had a brief time at a place with mostly mechanical engineering work and the group of 40'ish people (100% men) were the most misogynistic men I have ever met in my life. Sexism in tech pales in comparison to the daily comments that flew in that office. I am very sure there is much worse sexism going on in other industries besides tech -- why tech gets pretty much all the attention, I'm not sure.
> It's full of people that feel they have some kind of special insight into the anthropological origins of gender relations in a technical context, or some such bullshit.
Actually, the friends I've made in the tech industry are some of the smartest. I actually do happen to think that for some reason system administrators are usually very smart folks (but that's just my observations).
> This entire thing should be a non-issue. I can't believe an ad for some company is getting this much attention just because one of the ads featured a young woman. It's stupid.
It is a non-issue. It's just a few nutcases on Facebook who made those comments. The bigger problem is the opportunistic attempt to make a story out of this. It's an easy sell, so the players involved are really taking it to town.
You're right. There was a lot of the same during my stint in electronics QA too. I probably should have said "tech industry" instead, although that's a bit broad and vague. Automotive repair shops tend to have a bit of a problem too.
> Actually, the friends I've made in the tech industry are some of the smartest.
I won't disagree there, but "smart" doesn't really correlate with "depth of knowledge". So, no, they don't really have a special insight, because they lack domain knowledge in fields outside their expertise. It seems to be a problem in tech specifically that, because someone is really good at understanding systems in one particular context, they start to believe that makes them as knowledgeable as the professionals in other contexts.
HN and Reddit both in particular exhibit that sort of behavior a lot.
(I realize the irony in saying that I've got some kind of special insight into the behavior of people on HN and Reddit... I'm stupidly becoming a data point in my own argument.)
> It's just a few nutcases on Facebook
I wish.
"You're too attractive to be an engineer" makes no sense at all. It baffles me that you'd try to compare the statements.
My wife is an aerospace engineer who worked as a programmer for quite a while (and in my 'objective' opinion she's prettier than average ;)). She had a surprised "You can work with computers???" comment once, but that is about it. She worked >10 years in the tech industry, and so have I. I've never seen women treated like that, and I worked with quite a few. Such stories would raise quite some eyebrows here, and won't only be considered very unprofessional, but also lacks normal social behavior.
What I notice is that, every time such an issue pops up (about how women in tech are treated), it's always in the US. Seems more like a cultural issue to me, but I might be wrong.
If you really want to point fingers for her specific complaint, point them at the marketing team. It's 2015 and every tech creeper out there has a mobile phone to play on while bored at bart. Her first and last name and workplace are listed - why would they go to onelogin.com/careers (again, with no call to action even - what's in it for them?) when they could just as easily look her up on LinkedIn and try to find some more pics and send an inmessage. And yes, as another woman in tech, I can personally attest that there are TONS of tech creepers out there. NO, I don't think that is how it should be, but I also think that the marketing team should have tried harder to protect their own employees. They should have taken in to account that creepers are there and WILL be exposed to this bart take over campaign. Doesn't sound like a well thought out or strategic campaign.
side note on the dice campaign - big difference here. Those are models. They got paid to pose for the billboards. The Dice marketing team didn't make it easy for tech creepers to find them online to harass them (no last name, no company listed, no identifying features besides the focus of the campaign message - which, btw, actually has a call to action... just saying). Not a fair comparison.
My 2 cents on sexism in tech as a whole - I agree it is a TOTALLY unfair world right now. I battle this in all parts of my work life. Personally have experienced unfair pay, demeaning "compliments", the comments about "being too pretty to know about [fill in the tech subject]". The feeling that I have to wear a fake wedding ring at events to cut harassment down. Being talked down to because I am young and blonde, how "cute". That is a lot of bullshit to be up against! Yeah, it's terrible, and it isn't right.
But I can say that it IS IMPROVING. I see an increased amount of women when I am at industry events or visiting other offices. Could it be better? Hell yes. Keep your head up ladies and don't take the bullshit - which includes being smart about what you participate in and stand up for. When something negative (like this woman's experience being in this campaign) happens to you, LEARN from it and don't let yourself be in that position anymore. Be there for your sisters and girlfriends. Empower each other. It is terrifying, but also liberating. Find where you rock it the hardest and hustle that shit til you get what you want and nobody can deny it from you. If you find yourself in a place where you're being harassed, gtfo and go somewhere better. Be the example and support others, otherwise nothing will ever change.