
You May Have Seen My Face on BART - anchalee
https://medium.com/@isisAnchalee/you-may-have-seen-my-face-on-bart-8b9561003e0f
======
s0mecats
I don't believe the author is quite as shocked by the reaction to her poster
as she would like us to think. When she asks rhetorical questions like, "Is it
so unheard of that I genuinely care about my teammates?" it comes across as
feigned ignorance more than anything else.

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.

~~~
rabbyte
The problem is whenever an attractive male engineer is on an ad, people say
they're advertising to engineers which happen to be mostly men; and whenever
an attractive female engineer is on an ad, people say they're advertising for
men which happen to be mostly engineers. The values "embedded" in advertising
comes from an understanding of the observer and the observer here is a male
engineer, always.

~~~
Eridrus
Let me start by saying, I don't think you're wrong wrt embedded values, but...

> 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.

------
dmschulman
I see your point with the example of the DICE advert, and not that I think
it's a tasteful ad, but it's obviously riffing on the stereotypical Calvin
Klein fashion model photo spread (which one could argue is a clever joke in
context).

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.

~~~
anchalee
I'm waiting on receiving photos of the other ads back but when I do I will
certainly post them. The other people featured in the ads are actually of many
different shapes and colors.

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.

~~~
vizer
I did see some of the other ads. Unfortunately I was more upset about your
quote and the purpose of this ad. I was personally offended that all the male
engineers are bragging about their codes and how important their job is, where
as you are talking about how cool your co-workers are. I don't think it is
your fault but accept the fact that this ad is in poor taste.

------
ericclemmons
It's so bizarre how offended people get (the Facebook commenters in this
instance) when scrutinizing the person used in an ad. One in particular argues
that the author isn't what female engineers are supposed to look like.

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.

~~~
anchalee
True Story: Once I was with a friend inside the elevator of my apartment
building wearing a GitHub shirt. A foreign man asks "Do you work for GitHub?"
I replied "No, but I use their product every day." "What do you do?" "I'm a
developer" "What?! You're too hot to be an engineer!"

 _facepalm_

~~~
rbanffy
Don't get me wrong (the comment was really rude and insensitive) but I'd like
to explore this social context for a second. How would, say, a jockey react to
a remark such as "you are too tall to be a jockey". Being tall is usually
considered a desirable trait, yet, I can easily imagine a jockey would be
upset with such a comment. I know the context is much more complicated when
attractiveness of women becomes the topic mostly because of our civilization's
poor history of gender inequality, but it would be interesting to explore the
borders of this space of offensive social assumptions. I have, myself, heard
I'm "too white to be Brazilian" and that left me somewhat confused.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Just ... just, stop. Please. There is absolutely no way that armchair analysis
of gender stereotypes in an industry is going to be an insightful discussion,
because it's a discussion that really shouldn't even be happening.

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.

~~~
pen2l
> The outlier is the software industry.

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.

~~~
thaumaturgy
> _You are very badly informed if you think it 's just the software industry._

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.

------
koonsolo
I think this is a US-tech issue, and not a tech issue. I'm from Belgium, so
maybe other Europeans can confirm or deny this.

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.

~~~
cpncrunch
Yes, I completely agree. I worked at a lot of companies in the UK, and it was
normal to have female developers (both pretty and not so pretty). I find it
very strange that the US has such an issue with this topic.

------
throawayalwayz
hey @anchalee - I attended the same bootcamp as you. I hope you raised how
unprofessional the engineer was in your interview process; stuff like this
shouldn't be swept under the rug. Good luck and hope onelogin is treating you
well!

------
KarenS
How has no one else called out that this campaign is a terrible attempt to
copy the new relic billboard campaign and apply it to recruiting? Without even
providing a call to action I might add...

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.

~~~
BerislavLopac
Why is this downvoted??

