Sexy IT calendar causes uproar

The link does not work Robert, but I know which story you mean ;)

You might want to try http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19732970-1...

Weird, that link worked when I tried it but now isn't. I just replaced it with a Google news link.

And what's wrong about sex with smart women?

Dominik: I don't have a problem with that! My wife went to a better university, and got better grades than me, and is smarter than me.

But the real question is, would a sexy calendar get the same attention if it was full of male geeks?

Ross: well, the problem is that the developer world is heavily male. So, if you are aiming at that audience, I'd have to say no.

Doing something like that might get the geeks taped to a tree, though. :-)

Whatever. If a chick wants to post her cans, so be it.

Post-Feminism > Feminism

Reminds me of the Annalee Newitz on Slashdot episode.

It is great that the calendar is getting some awesome coverage. Perfect example of how to market a product these days - POLARIZE!

It is funny that by pulling its support fo the calendar due to some of the poses, the Australian Computer Society has indirectly ensured the success of the calendar... which will mean funding for some great initiatives to encourage women into IT!

Uproar? And sexy??? It's movie parody kitsch. Boring. El lameo artsy calendar about Aussie chiqlet techies? Heart be still...

Maybe two, if that, could qualify as half-way swimsuity calendar quality material. No controversy, they are trying to jazz that up, after the whole Mr. Argy prudishness, but they would need far far more provocative material and poses to dip into real controversy.

And doncha find it FUNNY? An 'American Beauty' take-off for an Australian offering? They should have thought that one thro, just on that basis alone. Suprised no one explored THAT angle. Well heck, America should just annex them already, 52nd state, after Canada, of course.

Ack, Passport came thro...meant to post it on Maryam's, but Passport was being glitchy, being no show, and then [no name]. Gawd, I'd forgotten how truly hellish that Microsoft Passport was. So now got dupes...sorry.

But the extra part...

And why does "Goddess" always give one the impression of the nature-based belief system earthy neo-pagan militant-feminist Wiccians, doing the neo-hippie, no-bath, unshaved legs and hairy armpits Ren Faire dances. I mean...buzzkill. Bad branding...for a "supposed" sexy calendar. "Goddess" in the real world, translates into model-rejects doing mall-store "glamor" shots.

World War III has started and people are getting upset over a calendar of beautiful women.

More calendars of beautiful women and less war please.

I'm with Christopher- this calendar is not even slightly 'sexy'.
It's just a bunch of movie parodies.
Things are getting pretty lame if this is what's causing controversy these days...

I agree with Scoble. Guys' views of women as sex objects needs to change. There is nothing wrong with being attracted to girls. I'm insanely attracted to women, especially Latin/Spanish/Greek women, but I respect them as equals at work. I know some girls who know more about the job than I do. More power to them. Guys are not at the top of the food chain all the time.
Admit it, men -- there is something definately sexy about a chick that can talk to you about OpenBSD firewalls or UTF-8 vs ANSI. You know it's true... :)

Mate, this is nothing new. These calendars have been around for a while... The thing I can't understand is why any geek would want a _paper_ calendar?

For what it's worth, I prefer the women out of GeekGorgeous.com, especially Chelsea:



Not only is she a babe she's also an expert in GPS and works as an engineer measuring tectonic plate activity all over the Western U.S. and Alaska.

Sweet.

My guess is the above image is going to get parsed so check it out here

I think that we don't see the controversy cause we ARE the intended audience. We are biased in our opinion by default.

Hmm... Being 12 years old, I don't have much to say besides: What is wrong with a sexy calendar?

"Unfortunately this isn’t an issue I’m willing to touch on my blog."
Aren't you touching the issue simply by posting about it?

Keith, you've only noticed now that this is the strategy that Scoble thinks is clever and most often uses?

"I don't want to hype it so don't listen to me..."

Issue what issue? Yawn. Very few (two IMO) of the women depcited were actually nude model material. None of the shots were cheesy "porno" shots. Beautiful men and beautiful women can be found in any profession. I have always presumed there was a high proportion of "hotties" among the women in cyber space. So when is the male version coming out?

hmmm seems likes it something out of nothing, its not exactly hard to see nude women on the internet is it??

>Aren’t you touching the issue simply by posting about it?

Yes, but I'm not willing to tell you what I really think on this issue. :-)

Some of us just think bodies are beautiful. It's OK for a woman to be beautiful on her own terms, not those of men or media. You don't have to be tanned, rake thin, made-up either. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/179127891/in/po...

Robert,

I would argue that this is an area where you should get involved, should comment.

This calender isn't sexist in any way. All of the women are successful and was a fun way for them to raise money and awareness. Indeed, lest we not forget, this type of calender was first made famous by the very conservative UK Women's Institute (and dramatised in the film, Calender Girls).

However, you Robert are involved in a business which is quickly becoming known for its sexism. Take the recent shenanighans with RocketBoom. After Amanda left, lots of people including yourself (http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/07/05/who-...) listed names of people to take over. Not a single male name was mentioned. Secondly, look at how everyone was falling over themselves to sign Congdon - a strange thing considering her presenting experience was just RocketBoom, a fully scripted show. There are surely many, many more talented actresses/presenters out there without any work, so why is Congdon so highly rated. Is it, as you once said, because "she has a nice set of, erm, archives"?

You've got to realise that you are in the content business now and eye candy does figure. Whether you like it or not, if you make a decision to put a man or less attractive female on as presenter of a male-audience based webcast (such as tech-biased vlogs like RocketBoom, on10 or your own Geek Entertainment TV), you will get significantly less viewers than if you put an attractive female presenter on as presenter. As Congdon proved, competency of said presenter doesn't matter that much.

So, yes, I think its something you should definitely comment on.

Cider: good points. I do study human behavior. I'm not sure I like what I notice all the time. But, part of it is that people different from us stand out and are interesting.

I noticed this at the first VBITS conference I did. 425 men, 2 women.

But to say that Amanda isn't smart is demonstrating you totally don't grok what she did. Yes, she's pretty, but she also is generous and fun and interesting. Those things didn't happen cause she looks good.

Or, look at Irina. Did you realize she went to Columbia School off Journalism? That she worked her ass off to get here?

Don't just pay attention to the skin.

Amanda was in big demand because she built an audience. Pure and simple. If you built an audience you'd be in big demand too.

Oh, one of the 2 women? I hired one to speak. Why? Not cause she was pretty. But because she stood out of the crowd. And, she continued to go on to impress, regularly scoring #1 ratings. Pulling that off in front of a crowd of programmers isn't easy. You gotta deliver the goods, no matter how pretty you are.

eh hem. lol very funny and sort of weird.




daniel comstock (friend of pat scoble)
Http://dantheman123ya.wordpress.com

Try this experiment. Have a competent authoritative man give a tech talk in front of programmers. Then have a provocitively dressed female that is perhaps less competent and authoritative give the same talk to programmers and see who scores higher.

Elvis, if you put a less competent person on stage in front of programmers they'll get eaten alive during Q&A. You can try that, I sure won't. I know how it'll work out.

Comment number 17 is the hammer on the nail.



I'm a woman and I don't need scantily clad women to sell me my career, thanks, and it's -offensive- that people would think that sex is necessary to sell a career where brains are supposed to be valued more than being able to look nice spread-eagled on a calendar.

The whole idea is to encourage women to enter the I.T. field, but how is this in any way encouraging?

I want a job because I can-hack-it, not because I know I can get shit done because men are staring at my tits instead of listening to my speech.

If nothing else, sexualizing female geeks is only increasing men's interests in female geeks, not increasing the female geeks' interest in the I.T. field.

I sure as hell am not any more interested in the I.T. field than I was earlier. If nothing else, I'm having my own doubts.

I don't need sex to sell my image, thanks.

I cannot see the problem with the calendar (and I say this as both a long-time geek woman in IT, and the mother of a teenage geek girl). Geez... we're not talking about a Penthouse "Girls of GNOME" feature! I'm with Maryam on this one ; )
A woman's IQ doesn't plummet just because she's wearing a sexy lace bra, and I have great faith that most men in IT are capable of recognizing that. There may be a lot of issues with women in IT, but I seriously doubt that men seeing us as too sexy is one of them!
I say anything that adds just a shred of fun non-serious glamour to a decidedly unglamorous field is not all that bad.

So make them equally competent, but the female provocitively dressed. Then see what the scores are. Hell, just make the female is even marginally attractive and conservatively dressed. The compare the scores. Remember, these are geeks we are talking about.

Why do vendors use females to attract visitors to their booths at trade shows?

@31. As much as you may not like it, the reality is, sex sells, even in the IT world. At a mimimum it generates interest. Been that way since the beginning of mankind. Not gonna change now.

Like an earlier post mentioned, Rocketboom wasted little time in hiring a female replacement. Any guesses on how many males were auditioned?

Putting things into different terms I'll end up with a Randy Newman or Steve Martin type instead of ...hey, are there really any sexy composers/writers out there?

How about a song...Does IT Matter?

A cat calendar works best in our house. And we are all "goddesses...17, 49, and 83" :)

PS...I've seen some hunky IT's at our local coffee shop with a noses in thier laptops. Line up ladies!

Sexy is in the smile, and wrinkles around the eyes!

Want funny, adult geared humor...check out a musical in progress.

What is funny is that right this moment a million garages and grease shops are filled with greasemonkeys putting up penthouse pets and other "tasteful" calendars.

And here people are getting all riled up over some movie parodies. Did anyone force these women to pose in these (fairly lame) movie parody shots? I suspect NO.

People need to get over themselves.

What's all the fuss? These women look great and look like they had a lot of fun doing it. Surely there are more important things in the world at the moment to get hot under the collar about. One thing I will say though is that maybe the "controversy" is the fact that they are women in the IT industry firmly establishing and celebrating their identity...that ruffles feathers.

So, what's the problem if it happens that way or even if it stays that way?

As a feminist who was an active member of Queensland’s Women in Technology for many years, helping promote IT as a career opportunity for girls and women, I am absolutely gobsmacked at this local fundraising effort.

I believe this initiative is appalling. Interestingly, the image that head of Australian Computer Society - a man - is quoted as being concerned about is the one where it almost reveals a woman’s nipples. That doesn’t concern me.

What concerns me is the calendar as a whole. What concerns me is that women are under enough pressure to be gorgeous and perfect and super attractive and intelligent and sexy AND mothers and we (and young girls) don’t need an extra pressure to make us feel we have to be beautiful AND successful in our careers. The naked image is only a tip of the iceberg. All the images fail to reflect the reality of women in the profession.

Additionally, women are not going to be the ones buying this calendar. The men are going to be buying it - further affirming the place of women in the IT professional as “simply eyecandy, no IT savvy” and in the workplace as sex objects.

They say they’re doing this to smash through the perception of the geeky technologist.

What’s wrong with being a geek? Let’s celebrate smarts, savvy, diversity and denounce aspirations of material success, fight against media hype and dispell beauty myths.

Women and men, mothers and fathers and the IT profession as a whole should be encouraging girls and women to spend less time grooming and striving to please society’s and the media’s unrealistic expectations or how they should look and instead encourage and educate girls and women to increase their knowledge, ability and independence to achieve fulfilling careers.

I'm no boring, politically correct stick in the mud. I relate to our Sinead O'Connor when she sings: "And I feel real cool and I feel real good; Got my hair slicked up and my black thigh boots; I stand up tall with my pride upright; And I feel real hot when the makeup's nice; I get sexy underneath them lights."

But we're talking about the workplace here folks and providing inspiring role models for girls and women.

Feel free to read more of my thoughts on this at MY blog: http://www.elissa.info/political/blog/

Brains are like money. Im only really interested when my girl doesnt have any. who cares if she has a brain in her head, if she knows whats going on and her actions , let them do what they like.

I fall into the "what's the fuss about" category. This year will be my 20th as an Australian woman in IT&T (or should I say gee-goddess) and I think that this sort of exposure (excuse the pun) is not a bad thing. When I started in the industry as a 21 y.o. attending meetings and conferences was "good afternoon gentlemen and Leah" and thankfully now it is a little more balanced.

The question I have is who is this calendar really for - it is to show others how nice the girls in IT are? Is it to show girls considering technology courses that you don't have to be all glasses and braces? Or is it a way for the women already in the industry to feel good about the image of who we really are versus the image that the media and other have of us?

This calendar was supported and launched by FITT (Females in Technology and Telecommunications) and was put together by a woman that is actively involved with AWISE and WIT, that sounds like a lot of women who are IT have supported this. So my attitude is who cares what anyone else things?

I dont think a calendar really says much about women in IT, its just the same old thing with a different theme - possibly not appropriate to the work environment but nothing all that morally wrong with it elsewhere. I suppose it was meant to be a little humerous to people who know geeks or are geeks. As for not touching the issue, why bother, everyone is saying their piece and its much as I would expect.

A lot of fuss for nothing. This idea was well concieved and adapted as required. Nowadays you can't do anything without creating a lil' controversy...

Easy way to get tons of free advertising about a calendar that wouldn't be mentioned otherwise.

Howdy just to let you know the calendar initiative has announced some intriguing tech geek competitions related to technology placed and hidden in each printed image. more on http://itgoddess.info/competitions.htm

There is also a screensaver version available for purchase now as well.

have fun - we did:-)
Sonja

I don't even see the relation between the layouts and they are somehow true techies. The better tech/geek calendar out ther right now is the Data Dreams calendar at www.surfgeeks.com Not techies but models displayed with excellent balance of beauty and true IT tools of the trade. there really isn't any comparison at all, not oddly posed techies but correctly posed models making computer equipment look great.

*ok, which one of you goofs sent Texas a Canadian Cold front as a gag gift*

Damn I was just going to create one with girls of IT as the theme. Someone beat me to it! You women really take yourselves too seriously. Common it's not like women are perfect angels, they are just better at hiding their shallow selves and the media kept pushing the ideas of only men are perverts! And why do you guys keep stroking the egos of these women? How do you measure how smart a woman is to be smarter than you? If you think you would like a woman smarter than you, and if she is with you, what would she think of you?? Answer is that she probably don't think highly of you.