
Guys, stop sexualizing women in your mockups - alexkiwi
http://blog.wells.ee/guys-stop-sexualizing-women-in-your-mockups/
======
brd
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.

~~~
fleitz
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.

~~~
lowboy
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...](http://www.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment_300/327_top_10_list.html)

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ancarda
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?

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PeterisP
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.

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russelluresti
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).

------
_mulder_
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.

------
404error
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.

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

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

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

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

~~~
warmwaffles
You clearly see the issue.

------
ryanac
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/](http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/)

------
moocowduckquack
_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.

~~~
eridius
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).

~~~
russelluresti
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?

~~~
alukima
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.

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

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

------
omonra
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.

------
alukima
“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.

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lcedp
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.

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markolschesky
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.

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mhofstadt
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.

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

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corresation
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.

