'Ladies, take a quarter turn to the right, er, that's 90 degrees for you'
A recently launched contest by the Philippine's premier computer organization, the Philippine Computer Society, is getting a lot of flak from the IT community.Dubbed "Search for Digital Pinay", the contest is "a nationwide search in both the 'Professional and Co-Ed Categories' for the woman who best exemplifies the qualities expected of future women leaders of the Philippine information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Okay, so far, so good. But wait, there's more: the application form asks for, among other things, years of experience in IT, height, bust size, waist measurement, etc. WTF?!
To add salt to the wound, the criteria for judging includes 20% for text votes ('people's choice'?), 40% for intelligence, 20% for beauty and presentability, and 20% for poise and personality. As a blogger points out:
And that's not the only reason why people are fuming. Winners will be required to attend all PCS functions. The organizers rationalize it by saying that winning "translates to high visibility in the job market, (and) is virtually an endorsement for the winners that they indeed are the future female ICT leaders to watch out for." Right, then. Why not just say that your looks matter in this industry now? And, oh, there's also a height requirement for sys-ads. Coders should have long slender, well-manicured fingernails, etc.
Okay, I'm not exactly free of discrimination and objectification of women, myself, but this just takes the cake. I would have thought the industry would be color-, race-, gender-blind; that it recognizes talent and capabilities over looks. But this, coming from the foremost IT organization at that, is something else indeed.
I hope they cut this off, before total indignation erupts.
More sources:
[1] http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~hmw26/join-the-dots/2005/01/17/spectacular/
http://del.icio.us/sachac/digitalpinay
To add salt to the wound, the criteria for judging includes 20% for text votes ('people's choice'?), 40% for intelligence, 20% for beauty and presentability, and 20% for poise and personality. As a blogger points out:
So let me see: that’s 60% for popularity and appearance based criteria, and 40% for intelligence and technical knowledge. Oh yeah, that makes total sense for an ICT professional award.[1]
And that's not the only reason why people are fuming. Winners will be required to attend all PCS functions. The organizers rationalize it by saying that winning "translates to high visibility in the job market, (and) is virtually an endorsement for the winners that they indeed are the future female ICT leaders to watch out for." Right, then. Why not just say that your looks matter in this industry now? And, oh, there's also a height requirement for sys-ads. Coders should have long slender, well-manicured fingernails, etc.
Okay, I'm not exactly free of discrimination and objectification of women, myself, but this just takes the cake. I would have thought the industry would be color-, race-, gender-blind; that it recognizes talent and capabilities over looks. But this, coming from the foremost IT organization at that, is something else indeed.
I hope they cut this off, before total indignation erupts.
More sources:
[1] http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~hmw26/join-the-dots/2005/01/17/spectacular/
http://del.icio.us/sachac/digitalpinay
Let's spread the word around so that PCS would take action;)
ReplyDelete[...] I still question their intentions, though, “honest mistake” notwithstanding. I think they should have told people outright that this was a popularity-slash-beauty contest. [...]
ReplyDelete