> But that's not the point. Sexism, in reality, favours men and hurts women. That's why an image of Brad Pitt is okay, whereas an image of Emma Watson is not okay! (and by the way, they are suggestive)
> Any argument that goes "But if we switched genders, then it would be fine!" is completely missing the point that we are still living in a de-facto patriarchy, where objectification of men is not even an issue.
I'm talking about his co-workers reactions to said images (whether Brad Pitt or Emma Watson) not about sexism. As a matter of fact I don't see how the two are related at all, what in this scenario is sexist? But since you brought it up; I do not agree with you at all because I think sexism (or the "patriarchy" whatever you want to call it) hurts men AND women. Even if it might not be the same type of hurt or even have the same effects. I think the biggest problem for us as people (humanity) is when we start quantifying and differentiating between different types of "hurt".
> In any case, I found the choice of images immature and closed the website right away.
Pictures of an adult woman's face are immature? You say it is suggestive but I don't find them suggestive at all, does that mean I'm immature or not?
Like I mentioned in my original post I don't understand the standpoint of OP and neither do I understand yours. What makes these images immature and what validates the OP's reaction that he wanted to protect his female co-workers from this imagery. Or did he try to protect himself from the reactions of his female co-workers to this imagery?
Again none of this is meant to be taken as an insult or attack I would genuinely like to understand why you feel this way.
It's the fact that whenever there are sexy people as placeholders, it is always women and never men. That's sexism right there. We just got used to it.
At work, our main product is an image manipulation and display software so as you might expect we use a lot of placeholder images when designing the UI/UX flows.
If you peek over our leads shoulder, you'd see she nearly universally uses close up facials of 'sexy' men or whoever happens to be the latest group of fashion models on ANTM.
People use images that appeal to them. They're not going for broad universal appeal.
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Also I find it highly ironic that people in this thread are suggesting we replace fully clothed images of a woman who became famous for doing a children's TV series, with images of Lena Söderberg 1972 playboy centerfold because it is 'traditional'.
If people will take offense to Emma being 'sexy', I'm not sure what they're going to do if you use the full spread of images that the famous "Lena" shot was cut from. After all the point of this image viewer is to show different images, is it not?
> It's the fact that whenever there are sexy people as placeholders, it is always women and never men. That's sexism right there. We just got used to it
Always and never are strong terms that I'm not sure of in this context but I understand and agree (to an extend), thank you for explaining :)
As far as whether OP's reaction was justified I guess we'll have to agree to disagree or something...
EDIT:
Although I'm not sure that your "solution" to the problem (looking at picture galleries of hot males) is one that works...
Well, I tried to remember if I ever saw a sexy male in a tech presentation or demo, and I couldn't... but of course, it's not actually "never" and "always".
There are more people of middle and upper class economic status posting on HN, we just got used to it, etc. etc.
The majority of fashion is targeted at women, therefore there are more female models, therefore there are more quality pictures of women out there than men, therefore it makes sense to use it as a test image gallery.
Also, if the code is being used to display test images, this is probably closer to the normal subject matter it'll be used for.
I actually complained once to my favourite label about their very limited choice of fashion for men. They replied that it's because men don't buy very much, which is funny since men don't even have the choice to begin with.
> therefore there are more quality pictures of women out there than men, therefore...
It's a bad reason to use the status quo to justify itself.
> Any argument that goes "But if we switched genders, then it would be fine!" is completely missing the point that we are still living in a de-facto patriarchy, where objectification of men is not even an issue.
Is not an issue to who? Just because women face it more, does not mean that men do not face it. Winner does not take all, everyone just loses.
> Any argument that goes "But if we switched genders, then it would be fine!" is completely missing the point that we are still living in a de-facto patriarchy, where objectification of men is not even an issue.
I'm talking about his co-workers reactions to said images (whether Brad Pitt or Emma Watson) not about sexism. As a matter of fact I don't see how the two are related at all, what in this scenario is sexist? But since you brought it up; I do not agree with you at all because I think sexism (or the "patriarchy" whatever you want to call it) hurts men AND women. Even if it might not be the same type of hurt or even have the same effects. I think the biggest problem for us as people (humanity) is when we start quantifying and differentiating between different types of "hurt".
> In any case, I found the choice of images immature and closed the website right away.
Pictures of an adult woman's face are immature? You say it is suggestive but I don't find them suggestive at all, does that mean I'm immature or not?
Like I mentioned in my original post I don't understand the standpoint of OP and neither do I understand yours. What makes these images immature and what validates the OP's reaction that he wanted to protect his female co-workers from this imagery. Or did he try to protect himself from the reactions of his female co-workers to this imagery?
Again none of this is meant to be taken as an insult or attack I would genuinely like to understand why you feel this way.