
Women as Entertainment in the SEO Industry - crockstar
http://janecopland.co.uk/2011/12/women-as-entertainment-in-the-seo-industry/
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will_critchlow
I know Jane well IRL and count her as a friend.

My company also runs digital conferences and she's frequently spoken at our
events - and I'm very thankful it wasn't one of ours where the sleazeball
stuff happened.

From a purely pragmatic perspective (i.e. what, as organisers, can we do about
sleazeballs) I'm fascinated by two aspects of my own personality:

\- on the one hand, I skew towards believing that individuals are entirely
responsible for their own actions. If someone's a sleazeball at one of our
events, that's entirely his fault (I would obviously react badly if I
witnessed it or knew it was happening in real time)

\- on the other hand, I'm into game theory and behavioural economics and I
wonder how we can structure things so that we reduce the occurrence of this
kind of thing. I'd love to hear ideas for tactical things conference
organisers can do to filter and constrain ridiculous behaviour...

~~~
badams76
I think not having booth babes and strippers would be a great start. It would
sure cut down on the males of our species being subconsciously primed for
sexual thoughts.

~~~
will_critchlow
Well, we don't have booths, never mind booth babes...

I'm more talking about the kind of harassment that Jane describes happening in
the bar / at breaks in the conference etc.

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thaumaturgy
I'm a bit torn by this particular post. On the one hand, I think there's
enough evidence of sexism and racism in the technology sector to treat it
curiously -- as in, it's worth examining further and figuring out if there's
an actual problem (I think there is, but that's just opinion) and where that
problem is and how it can be addressed. I'm also interested in why so many
self-described "hackers" seem so quick to dismiss it, especially since if they
share any one trait, it should be curiosity.

So if this were a post about how they couldn't make a business deal or get
funding or were at a disadvantage because they had a woman on their team, it
would be as compelling to me as some of the other stuff I've read recently.

But: it's primarily about jackasses with no social skills, and there are tons
of those in technology circles. People who interact with electronics more than
other people are more likely to have all the social graces of a meadow muffin,
and I don't think that's a solvable problem in society this year or next.

It sucks that she had to deal with those people. It sucks that they focused on
her gender or attractiveness and said stupid things instead of having a
conversation about one of her interests. Still, this is mostly a case of nerds
behaving badly more than anything else.

I'm also pretty lukewarm on her feelings about “the sexiest women in social
media”. Taken seriously, she's right on all her points. Taken in good humor, I
find it about as offensive as sexy firemen calendars (i.e., not at all
offensive, just all in good fun).

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mcherm
The problem here is not the inappropriate behavior of one individual at a
conference -- there will always be someone behaving badly. The problem is that
when made statements like "all women who come to conferences should be
available", that every other person at that table did not immediately speak up
and say "Hey, shut up! You're behaving like an asshole and I won't have it!".

~~~
bsenftner
That is exactly what we need. Stupid casual statements made in the presence of
other men are "tests" to gauge the acceptability of the behavior. That is the
critical point in time when this behavior can be stopped, and the socially
dangerous individual conditioned to live acceptably in our society.

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neyne
This is one of those things where personal actions do mean something. Avoid
booths with half naked girls at conferences. It will only take one conference
with an empty booth for that company not to use this kind of attraction again.
Makes sure that people around you know that this is not OK, they will think
twice before acting as assholes, even if it is for the sake of peer pressure
and not out of respect for women.

Thanks Jane for writing this up. Important.

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gldalmaso
Sadly I don't see this scenario changing any time soon, the reason being that
so far, for these guys, the rewards are much greater than the risk.

The rewards would be (male) peer approval and easy relief during
presentations, whereas right now there seems to be little risk of either law
suit or peer reprehension.

So, since these guys don't really think of women as people, they don't see any
harm done.

It's actually a horrible picture of just how much non-empathic an adult can be
and still function well in our culture.

The fastest way to revert this is to get many male tech guys to acknowledge
the problem enough to publicly reprehend them. That way the rewards are
thinned for the sexist presenter. He may carry on to be a jerk, but won't gain
as much from being a public jerk.

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helen842000
Unfortunately there are many men (in all industries) that still put women on
the 'scale' immediately, & subconsiously. At one end, women get ignored,
stared through and sidelined. At the other they get harrassed and the only
topic of conversation is attractiveness.

These men don't distinguish from the booth babes, strippers etc (who have
chosen the model industry) and the women that they work with, that are their
peers in the tech industry.

I think the worst part is when you point out you don't want to be addressed
according to your appearance, these are the guys that claim their remarks were
some kind of backhanded compliment!

Perhaps naming and shaming those involved in the more threatening, dangerous
and scary encounters would be a deterrent or a warning sign at least.

I work in the tech industry & as yet to have never had a comparable encounter,
though there have been general annoyances in the workplace that I've put a
stop to early on.

Should I ever have such an experience I'd be sure to speak up about it.

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bradhe
A lot of excellent points, and I don't think "digital conferences" are the
only places women are harassed in this nature. But for all the good points I
found myself wondering what she was really struggling with at some times. Part
of her piece came off as a rant about how she felt jilted that she didn't
"stack up" to other ladies.

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peteretep
What I'm still missing here is how this links back to technology.

A lady has a deeply unpleasant encounter with some some jackass, and also
notices that in an industry which is mostly men, you get some creeps putting
together sexist things like the "sexiest women in technology".

But: what's the relationship with this to technology conferences, other than:
you're going to meet a lot of men? What's the take-away here for the tech
industry? What does she want us to /do/ about this?

~~~
neyne
two things:

1\. She is in tech. 2\. In tech conferences, companies tend to use scantly
dressed women to advertise their booths. Connection between the product they
are selling and the external looks of the model presenting it is non-existent.
Therefore it is about objectifying women for the sake of marketing. It should
stop.

~~~
jinushaun
People don't want to buy things sold by men.

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vannevar
I don't think overt sexism is any more prevalent at tech conferences than it
is in any other predominantly male gathering. In fact, I would bet it's
actually less prevalent at tech events: for every aggressive jerk at a tech
conference, there are 10 quiet geeks who would be scared to death to talk to
an attractive woman. Try going to a male-dominated sales conference for
comparison. I'm not condoning the behavior, only pointing out that it is
hardly unique to tech.

~~~
vannevar
Could one of the anonymous downvoters provide some rationale for their
disagreement? I'm open to evidence that the tech industry suffers more
harassment claims than other male-dominated industries. Or is your
disagreement based on the idea that the tech industry should be held to a
higher standard? That sexism is ok for those _other_ people, but not for us
because we're expected to be more civilized?

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justsayin1313
We are born of woman, we are conceived in the womb of woman, we are engaged
and married to woman.

We make friendship with woman and the lineage continued because of woman.

When one woman dies, we seek another one, we are bound with the world through
woman.

Why should we talk ill of her, who gives birth to kings?

The woman is born from woman; there is none without her.

~~~
dlss
Dude. This is a technical forum not poetry night at a coffee shop...

Also, out of curiosity, would you be in favor of anti-female sentiment in a
future with the technology for asexual male reproduction?

