So what was the goal then? It seemed like a legit campaign that was raising actual money. How does one reconcile their company as feminist with how that campaigned operated?
The goal was free marketing via the press who zeroed in on what appeared to be an ongoing SV story - Bubble 2.0 + gender imbalance + hapless engineer stereotypes.
And by any measure, it was outrageously successful.
> How does one reconcile their company as feminist with how that campaigned operated?
By accepting those women as adults who are free and intelligent enough to make decisions that may not necessarily line up with the common branch of feminism popularized by the media.
You don't have to spend every waking moment of your life, nor every resource or effort of an organization you belong to, to prove that you're worthy of associating with an ideal like feminism. If they identify with the feminist cause and support it, they don't need to prove it to you or justify how their campaign is or isn't feminist. It wasn't intended to be a feminist campaign, and it doesn't invalidate the rest of who they are or what they identify with.
I'm not saying that they have to constantly spend time justifying themselves, but it is important to look critically at the work a company does when it claims to be feminist. In regards to the tilt campaign, I don't see how that campaign challenges the status quo and pushes for women's rights. I do see how it could be viewed as promoting or exploiting the mythology of male culture the Valley to raise money, which to some may be anti-feminist in nature.
> If they identify with the feminist cause and support it, they don't need to prove it to you or justify how their campaign is or isn't feminist.
We've seen that many times organizations that claim feminism or feminist principles often don't act in a way that is supporting of women, so being critical is fully warranted when an organization says one thing but does something that seems to do nothing but perpetuate existing stereotypes and problems. Moreover, they made the claim, not me, so asking "why is what you are doing feminist" is important.
> I do see how it could be viewed as promoting or exploiting the mythology of male culture the Valley to raise money, which to some may be anti-feminist in nature.
Is it a mythology if it is based on hard facts? I.e. this sounds a bit like saying that heat engine works on mythology of lower energy levels in a heat sink. Also note that just like heat engine equalizes energy levels between source and sink, such campaing seeks to equalize gender inbalance. Which I guess is as feminist as you can get.
I think it is actually beneficial for a person or an organization working toward women's right to disassociate themselves from the feminism movements and related labels lest they actually do end up spending all their time constantly justifying themselves.
You can't compare a physical phenomenon to a social one, especially when the existence and magnitude of the latter is heavily contested by people with agendas that rely on the phenomenon's existence and magnitude.
Just like the utility of heat engines is heavily contested by us making sure heat sink never averages with the heat source. That's why you have a radiator in your car.
My point is, that a) that campaign didn't foster a myth, it used a real, existing potential gradient and b) it is very much pro-feminist as long as they're letting things equalize and not actively trying to maintain that gender gradient.
ETA: of course I can compare a physical phenomenon to a social one, mathematical models don't differentiate between those. Still, I chose that example only to highlight that calling facts a "mythology" is weird.
