This is Yahoo’s idea of a party. Uh… Mother Board? Not a fucking chance. I quit and I recommend you do too.
See the full stream at CocaChou’s Flickr Site. Photo used with a creative commons attribution.
Update:
Yahoo apologizes but misses the mark completely, calling them “Hack Girls”.
Sorry
All,
I wanted to acknowledge the public reaction generated by the images of female dancers at our Taiwan Open Hack Day this past weekend. Our hack events are designed to give developers an opportunity to learn about our APIs and technologies. As many folks have rightly pointed out, the “Hack Girls” aspect of our Taiwan Hack Day is not reflective of that spirit or purpose. And it’s certainly not the message we want to send about our values here at Yahoo!. Hack Days are about making everyone feel welcome, including women coders and technologists.
This incident is regrettable and we apologize to anyone that we have offended. Rest assured, it won’t happen again.
Best,
Chris Yeh
Head of YDN
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
“mommies to which everyone can relate.”
I object on grammatical grounds alone . . . .
I think it should be “mommies to whom everyone can relate.”
Sorry . . . but if you can’t get your ads right . . . .
1. What will you do to correct it (a few words on a site you own and control really isn’t much)?
What would you have the company do to correct something that has already been done, and cannot be undone?
2. By referring to women as “Hack Girls” you realize that you all but completely negate the sincerity of the apology.
What would you have the company call them?
Honest questions.
A short list, completely off the cuff…
1. Free coding workshops for women in Taiwan
2. Promote some of the women who were at that conference
3. Do not call women girls. Ever. If those are girls then Yahoo also has a pedophilia issue
4. Host a women’s conference, then shut up and don’t try and be cute
5. Post an honest apology, the kind where you admit that denigrating women is part and parcel of the corporate culture and how you plan to change it.
I’m sure the geniuses at Yahoo can come up with something also, but a simple search of Hack Day on flickr shows that this tradition was firmly in place in 2008, if I dug deeper I’m sure I’d find more, but I’ve got better things to do with my time.
Like surfing google.
now THERE are some constructive suggestions! Nice thinking Jessica
I agree, but I am still chuckling over the “surfing google” part!
Clever.
From the quotes and capitalization, I get the impression that the scantily clad women at the event were called that by the event organizers, and not what he was personally calling them.
Mmm, booth babes. Hawt.
… wait, what were we talking about?
Anyways, booth babes (yes, that is the term) are a standard part of any tech expo, particularly in Asia. It wouldn’t be entirely unheard of to see them at another event, particularly one targeting us young folk. And yes, we refer to them as “girls”. They’re probably in their 20s, just like me. Sorry, but if you want to take a stance here, you’ll have to take it against the entire computing industry. Just about every company I know of does it. Not that I support the practice, mind you, but it is commonplace.
The “hack” in “hack girls” is legit, by the way; it’s from the older computing sense of the term “hacker”. ESR’s writing on the topic is quite good, if you really want to delve into the difference between “hacker” and “cracker”: http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html. Note that the media uses the newer terminology, where hackers are in fact crackers.
And yes, this is your cousin.
Your sister is going to kick your ass
Yes she is.
I’m gobsmacked! Seriously…I need a moment to compose myself before I open my mouth and let fly with the first things off the top of my head, for I fear they would melt my keyboard!
It was obviously a ridiculous thing to have happened and how this got through so many layers of Yahoo’s management astounds me. However I think the apology is sincere and actions within Yahoo will be taken to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Just because they refer to them as “Hack Girls” doesn’t make the apology any less sincere.
Less sincere? Maybe not. But it shows that they don’t truly understand the issue/problem. That is perhaps worse than being insincere.
As others have pointed out, the use of the term “Hack Girls” in the apology was apologizing for what the organizers had termed that segment of the event – it was not referring to these women as girls, but referencing the part of the Hack Day event that we all find so objectionable. This is the intent of the quotes and capitalization.
So, this must be why Yahoo Groups suck and why Google has surpassed Yahoo in many ways… they are too busy with their Hack Girls rather than working.
I’d hate the see what they have in Korea if this Taiwan.
As a Korean, I’d like to know what the fuck you mean by this.
I too want to know what you mean by this
Having worked for a global company, I’ve found, as written in a comment on one of the yahoo blogs, actually, that in China and Taiwan there is actually much more equality for women than in the US. I’ve heard (from my Korean co-workers) about the incredibly gorgeous and young female receptionists, how it is (or used to be) illegal for woman to smoke. And it was only the Korean customers who always insisted on being taken to a strip club when visiting.
That being said, totally apologize for my off-hand comment. I just remember being naively shocked at the stories I heard from my male co-workers after visits to various Asian countries.
Agreed, Jessica! Yahoo’s target audience is…what?? At least they have apologized. Keep an eye on them!
cheers,
Florina
Did you want to say that Yahoo’s target audiences are.. geeks or programmers or developers with a little nerd in his mind about sex and little pedophilia too? :D I prefer to walk out, just like you Jessica.
thank you (and all the others, especially the males) for having reacted…
in my country these days everybody’s arguing about what is fair to do with women (sound horrible) but a great great part of the people is just too used to this kind of things to find it unfair. what kind of females do they want? what kind of MALES do they want?!
thank you sooo much: somewhere it is possible to quit a meeting because of the “girls” and to receive an apologize (maybe not sincere, but they’ll remember about it!)!
wow :)
This was an event in TAIWAN…
If Taiwanese women (or men, for that matter) felt this was wrong, they will speak up for themselves, thank you very much. There is free speech here…
You are of course entitled to your opinions, but it boggles my mind why people think their views should apply or match what another country’s citizens think halfway around the world.
Vince, I’d partnered with Yahoo recently, and I’m very particular about who I let into my world. I put their name on my business. For me this is a very personal decision.
I loved the idea of having a multinational corporation want me. I loved the thought that the Yahoo! Mother Board would be an advisory panel of bright women held in high regard.
In keeping with being protective of my persona I am unwilling to lend my name to Yahoo in light of their complete insensitivity to women. Perhaps if I’d been with them many more years, I’d feel wedded to them in some manner, but it was fairly new in our “relationship” that I saw Yahoo for the company that it really is.
Yahoo is in it’s adolescence. I’m not interested in training a spoilt child, so I walked away.
I felt the need to mention something which just occurred to me. Issues such as this have very many ways to be perceived. It must be noted that if you feel that women are being objectified in this scenario, one would ask why you do not feel concern for the manipulation of the men in the same scenario. Are they not being manipulated through their interest in a base, sexual instinct? It can be clearly pointed out that all parties are being manipulated in some way. My point is that we show favoritism in what we decide to be justice and injustice.
I too feel that this is crass, unprofessional, ill-advised, and counter-productive to gender equality. But this behavior will continue as long as men and women continue to be motivated by self-interest.
Another neutral question would be: which would be more insulting? To fall prey to an overt manipulation, or is it different to be openly insulted by bearing witness to non-ideal characterizations of womanhood?
I have my own opinions, but to share those were not the intent behind posting this.
Certainly books could be (and have been) written to cover all the various ways in which settings like this are hostile, counterproductive and just plain stupid. I’m simply addressing my role. My role is that I’m a Mom Blogger. I don’t have partnerships with many brands and Yahoo was one of them. When I saw that this is Yahoo’s culture (here or abroad makes no difference to me) it was critically important that I separate myself from them. I won’t jeopardize my reputation by being associated with that disaster.
You said “fucking”, I as a minor demand an apology from you.
Thanks in advance.
Tell your mother to get net nanny and block my site. Not everything is for kids.
But if Yahoo would say something like this as explanation for the stripper-”scandal” you’d freak out, right?
Close your eyes, not every conference is for woman.. and as a woman, you fail to comprehend male sexuality.
The problem is that you lack a Penis.
If you had one, you would find this acceptable.. cut the censorship and let a few basement dwelling geeks like us enjoy some beautiful Asian girls rubbing up against us.
Please, if you don’t like it.. don’t watch, we didn’t ask you to strip for us, did we?
-Concerned hacker who is annoyed with feminists, men find the female body attractive.. get over it.
Good GAWD is that marketing? I mean I understand that geeks need lovin’ too, but really? Might as well have a pole, some ones, and a crystal ball going.
I thoroughly enjoy YahooHacker who thinks this is about feminism, more about what is the point the (Yahoo) are getting across with their “girls”? If your nerdy ass needs to get laid….call one of those professionals. Seriously if the woman’s body is to be enjoyed, use your geeky imagination. Well done again Jessica. Promoting women in a positive manner rather than ALWAYS sexual.
Oh noes, women are being portrayed as sex objects to a specific marketing group.
It’s not like this doesn’t happen with ads for shampoo, cars, guns, computers, and virtually any other product you can think of. Way to go, raging against the system. As pointed out earlier by someone else, this is happening at every tech event (CeBIT, E3, etc).
Maybe you should stop using your computer (due to Asus/MSI/HP/Acer boothbabes), your operating system (Microsoft/Apple boothbabes), your car (I don’t care what brand you drive, I’m sure they have used booth babes) and virtually any other product that’s marketed for men.
Everyone knows that sex sells. Unless you for some reason get women all around the globe to wear burqa’s whenever they go outside, men will always look at women as ‘lust objects’. Not because they think they are objects, but because they can appreciate the beauty of it. It isn’t like they’re automatically being forced into prostitution. These women make money of people looking at them, and who can blame them? Guys will look at them anyway, and if they can get some money out of it, good for them!
You really sound like an overprotective soccermom. If anyone is missing the mark it’s you. Loved the internet rage though. RAWR :-)
I’m glad not all men think with their dicks, like some of the dicks who commented here. The ones who do, well they can go spend some more time with their online porn. It may be the fastest growing internet market segment for a reason, but it doesn’t mean every woman has to be a whore. :-)
That’s where I’m from. cough cough. Sort of explained why I’m here. BUT sexism, overt and covert, sucks in different ways. On some days I wish the kind I experience is overt, blatant, like the kind demonstrated by the unfortunate photo so I know how to fight against it head-on. The covert kind just makes you worry whether speaking up is going to get you the label of being an “overtly sensitive biatch”. When I saw the photo, I just shook my head. It is a common practice for all the exhibitions to have one, or more, such “event” where female bodies are on display, in order to attract attendance, esp. the ones targeting gamers, computer hackers, yes, all presumably to be male. I’m not condoning the political incorrectness, just trying to “contexualize” Yahoo’s decision a bit. As a global company though, they will eventually learn that they have a global audience/market to account for. Now I wonder what about the Asian-owned companies: do they get to host these events because they are not obliged to answer to a global audience? When they want to become a global company, do they then need to learn a new set of rules? Now I also wonder: have we, women over there, all become so jaded now? We are so “accustomed” to such nonsense that we don’t even protest since it is “as expected”? I want to say it is because there is a far deeper root cause for this to be treated as “normal” and by merely protesting individual events, you won’t get too far with it. It is the fundamental, deep-seated, attitude towards women that we need to work on/with. Sorry this runs long. But I just want to add: I’d hate for my comment to add to the stereotypes of Asian women being lotus blossoms needing rescue and Asian men being male chauvinists. I see the same rampant, un-critiqued, objectification of women in Eastern European countries too. So there is yet another angle for how this discussion could go.
Thanks for making me aware of these pics!