Following up on my post yesterday, Joey deVilla of Tucows commented that he is a friend of Doc Searls, the Senior Editor over at Linux Journal. He emailed him about the advertisement and received the following reply:
“Hey, Joey.
I remember the last time this happened, and I’m surprised it happened
again.I’m notifying our publisher about it, and await the response.
Meanwhile, please pass my apologies along.
Best,
Doc “
Thanks Doc. Still no word from QSOL.
Sunday, Jul 15th, 2007 at 7:43
Is there a convinient way to personalise planet.ubuntu.com so that i don’t have to look at your posts?
I´d really appreciate that.
Sunday, Jul 15th, 2007 at 9:09
know: No. If you would like such a filter take it up with the administrators of the planet, not me.
Sunday, Jul 15th, 2007 at 9:26
It is regretable that any magazine will cowtow to the whims of the few. There is a belief that if even one person finds something offensive, then it is clearly, offensive. Perhaps Joey and the others should examine the FAQ here:
http://www.itgoddess.info/faq.htm
Sunday, Jul 15th, 2007 at 10:52
Joseph: The you might want to look at the advertisement, then you’ll realize your link to the ITGoddess website is misplaced. In those FAQ Sonja explains that her calendar is acceptable because it’s portraying women as sensual AND intelligent whole human beings, not just sex objects. The advertisement is not the same, the advertisement only uses a woman as a sexual object.
I alerted Linux Journal to the presence of the advertisement that had been previously pulled, but my problem was with QSOL itself. The content of the ad is pretty irrelevant, they pulled the ad and promised not to run it again, then they ran it again.
And quite honestly I’m pretty troubled by the fact that my posting information about a corporation lying to their customers has turned into a flurry of comments discussing sexism and whether we have a right to be offended. All these people are standing up for a corporation that lied simply because they don’t agree that an ad was offensive. Is it OK to lie if you have cool advertisements? Are people really that shallow?
Sunday, Jul 15th, 2007 at 16:04
If an ad like that intimidates you or makes you less of a person, you need to seriously reconsider life in general.
A secure, intelligent being would have no problem with that, and you just enforce negative stereotypes for women. Congratulations on encouraging exactly what bothers you.
You are not taking a stand on something meaningful or important, and the majority of people are NOT with you on this. I hope you know that.
Sunday, Jul 15th, 2007 at 21:10
I realize that getting more women into IT and F/OSS in general is not meaningful or important to a lot of people, but it is to me. This does not mean I’m not a “secure, intelligent being.”
And I also realize that a lot of people think it’s perfectly acceptable to offend people as long as they are a minority (like women in IT), but I simply don’t agree.
Monday, Jul 16th, 2007 at 10:02
Your conclusion is that they lied. There are other possibilities. The original ad was quite some time ago. I have friends who work in marketing and advertising, and according to them, not all ads are required to be approved by the highest management. This may or may not be the case with QSOL. However, jumping to the conclusion that they LIED (drums beating dramatically) is unfortunate, since there are in fact other possibilities.
However, your comments are not just about a company lying, as you are now trying to infer. You are talking about a sexist ad in your view. Were it a buff guy, this conversation would not really be happening.
Now regarding the comment that this ad potrays women as only sexual objects, well this is incorrect. It is correct that the ad itself is about sexual implication. However, ads that show mothers pouring milk for their children’s cereal should not be taken as implying that is the only capability of a mother. It is one capability. An ad is not a treatise on the entirety of human behavior. Ads are used to grab our attention quickly, and this one quite well accomplishes that in quite an amusing fashion.
Now, there seems to be an idea that if something offends one or more persons, it is in fact offensive. I find this preposterous. I showed the ad to several women, every single one of them laughed. I asked if they found it offensive and they were even perplexed that I would ask this. I informed them of your post and they rolled their eyes. From there conversations ensued about why so few women are in IT. Why were these women not in IT? The IT Goddess website explains the misconceptions that IT women must be frumpy nerds, and that is the opinion that was held by all of the women I spoke with.
You think that the post I had to the IT goddesses does not apply in this case. But I think it is fully relevant. Women are not just sexual or sensual beings. Nor are they just disembodied minds. Nor are men only one or the other of these things. Nor are people with or without gender. We are many faceted entities, with many sides to our personalities. This is exactly what the IT Goddess link emphasizes.
I think it is best said in this manner, You can find offensive in sensual portrayals of women if you can believe that women can only be intelligent, or they can only be sensual or sexual.
I am sorry that you find responses to your statements troubling, or that you find disagreement with your statements troubling. The facts are however that all people are not offended by the things you are offended by. Nor are all women (or even most) offended by such things as this ad.
What I find offensive in regards to these matters is when my partner and I are out, and the ticket is handed immediately to me. Or when we go to a store to buy something, and she is asking questions of the clerk, and he will look at me to answer, instead of answering her.
So there are real events that effect us and are reasonably considered sexism. Then there are events that are not.
Monday, Jul 16th, 2007 at 10:27
Joseph: You misunderstand and misquote me me in SEVERAL instances. This is probably intentional, and I really don’t have the time (or care) to correct you everywhere.
Mostly we simply disagree. Which is something I WILL correct you on. I don’t think that “disagreement with [my] statements]” are troubling. People are different, and most men within IT haven’t taken the time to understand the women in F/OSS issue. That’s fine, I wish I could live in such blissful ignorance, these discussions are tiring.