Women As Party Favors And Eye Candy: The Latest Tech Marketing Meme

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women-party-favors-eye-candy-shanley-kane-women-in-tech/

Good news, ladies. You can take a break from worrying about whether your lack of ambition, lack of math skills or desire to see your kids from time to time are the reason why there are no women in tech. Instead, you can express your dismay at the very real (and borderline unbelievable) sexist behavior of men in tech and your appreciation for the people who had the good sense and gumption to call it out.

The fun started when Sqoot, a daily deal API, advertised for a hackathon in Boston and listed “women” as one of the perks (along with food trucks, a gym, chocolate and a DJ.) It was a man that pointed out the offensive language on Twitter, but word spread fast and many people were up in arms about it.

<snip>

Despite the backlash against Sqoot, one has to wonder: What made them think this was a good idea in the first place? Maybe Sqoot’s error was just an unfortunate, very public reflection of a larger issue: That tech is for bros.

On Wednesday, we got more evidence of that in a very public Twitter argument between Shanley Kane and the two co-founders of Geeklist, an online community where developers can showcase their work. Kane contacted the founders, Reuben Katz and Christian Sanz, after she found an advertisement video of an attractive woman dancing around in nothing but a Geeklist t-shirt and her underwear. Kane tweeted at them asking that the video be taken down.

While Sanz agreed that there was “too much skin” in the video, instead of saying he would take it down, he got angry at Kane for her “aggressive tone.” He told her that she was wrong to broach the subject in a public setting and that she should have sent him an email instead. A two-hour conversation (argument) ensued, during which Sanz and Katz told Kane how inappropriate she was being and even included her employer, Basho, on a tweet to point out how badly she was reflecting on its brand.