Reason #2 Why There Aren’t More Women in Technology [Updated]
These mousepads were reason number one, this is reason number 2…
Click the ad to see it on its original page at full size.
Update
I did a little Googling and found that Qsol ran this ad back in 2000 in Linux Journal. After receiving complaints (and increased sales), Qsol’s president Joe Safai apologizes and promised not to run it again.
After finding out that the ad originally ran in 2000, I decided to give the copyright notice at the bottom of the ad. I could’ve sworn it said “Copyright 2007″. It does.
More Googling led me to Elizabeth Bevilacqua’s LiveJournal, where she wrote:
My employer recently footed the bill for a subscription to Linux Journal for me (how cool is that?). I received my first issue this week, dove into it, and was floored by the 5th page.
No, not by some fantastic article, not by the ToC, by an advertisement. An advertisement by QSOL.com Server Appliances. WARNING, implied sexual content: see it here.
I sighed and figured this was going to be par for the course for a tech magazine. I mentioned it to the LinuxChix and that’s when someone said “Isn’t that ad really old?” Nope, August 2007 Linux Journal!
Elizabeth has sent letters to Qsol and Linux Journal. Perhaps I’ll drop my good buddy Doc Searls — he’s their senior editor — a line.
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Global Nerdy is Joey deVilla's technical blog. It covers all sorts of nerdy things, whether they have to do with life, work or play -- from a short blurb on the latest tech news to a book or game review to full-length articles on some aspect of programming that he finds interesting.
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Oh my. Terrible. Tsk. Tsk. Sexual jokes in IT. I can’t believe it. Those hooligans are ruining our beautiful Victorian visage and alienating women in IT everywhere. I, for one, insist that we have completely non-descript humor in our marketing that appeals to everyone and alienates none. Haha, did you hear the one about Harold the WASP? He bought a pear. Haha. Oh man, hilarious and ironic.
Anyway, seriously… it boggles my mind that people are unhappy about this (again). If it was an ad sporting a lanky male geek in some hilarious predicament as a result of his physique and sex , like that found in Apple’s commercials w/ super kawaii Japanese cameras being totally disinterested in the PC, it would be perfectly alright. Yet once we factor in sex and females… ZOMG we can’t have that!
Speaking of which, isn’t this something that should be offensive to the male sysadmins in the audience and NOT the feminists? I mean, its implying that the sysadmins who read this magazine don’t get *ahem* serviced. Oh well, I also note that the background is black. That’s racist! I think that I’ll write in too.