If everyone responded like Heroku did (immediately, firmly, and without apologies) when they saw such sexist behavior it would improve our industry. Please do so whenever you get the chance, and props to the Heroku team!
While I appreciate Heroku's quick and decisive response, I don't quite follow why they felt the need to muddle the message by explicating that their sponsorship is handled by women. That really shouldn't have any barring on anything.
In responding to something that further alienated women from the tech field, I'm assuming they felt it would make sense to reassure them that there are in fact women working in some of the best regarded companies in that field.
So? It's not hurting anyone. You know, there is a difference between an ad for a geek event that no one cares about and a woman not getting a job because she's a woman. These are not the same things.
I can imagine many women feeling unwelcome at an event that was advertised in that way. I don't want women to feel unwelcome at tech events for many reasons.
I don't see any evidence that they were just trying to be humorous. "Women" is listed right after "booze". If they were joking by advertising "women" as "perks", then they should have understood that most people are not going to find that particularly funny.
They advertised "friendly female event staff to get you a beer". Any reasonable person would believe that they were intending to follow through on that.
Well, did you expect to see a "WARNING! WE NOW WILL ATTEMPT A POTENTIALLY OFFESIVE JOKE" written in red print? Those things are supposed to be spontaneous, you know.
It took less than 2 hours for this to go from Twitter meme to Heroku and Apigee pulling out. If a sponsor pulled out tomorrow, I'd still be impressed with them for doing it. The simplest explanation for what happened here: this is an image Heroku gives a shit about not having.
So they're OK with scantily-clad booth babes handing out beers at sponsored events, but they're not OK with a poorly-written post about scantily-clad booth babes handing out beers at sponsored events?
I am sure Heroku cared, they're really classy company. As someone who sponsored 70+ events in Q1 at Twilio, I can tell you that we don't review every Eventbrite page and email that goes out. The backchannel of people who organize hackathons is small and well connected, word about this got around to everyone very fast.
This was a prank gone bad. No one got hurt (apart from a few egos). Pulling sponsorship because of that is just lame.
Don't get me wrong, I have the deepest respect for women but that doesn't prevent me from pulling (even sometimes sexist) pranks on my wife. She does the same to me and we smile at each other.
I dare you, everyone that's horrified by their prank say it out loud (and mean it!):
"I have never, ever made a sexist joke before in my life. At least not a kind that would in any way offend someone"
> Don't get me wrong, I have the deepest respect for women but that doesn't prevent me from pulling (even sometimes sexist) pranks on my wife. She does the same to me and we smile at each other.
Your wife presumably is comfortable in the knowledge that you respect her, because she knows you well. A woman showing up at a hackathon likely hasn't known the organizers for years.
I'll smack my wife on the ass, but if I walk up to random women and do it I'm going to get the cops called on me.
It's not even a prank. It's a couple of half-educated, drunken frat-boys who wanted to throw a frat party disguised as a hack-a-thon. For it to be a prank, there would have to be a punchline.
Had they hired a bunch of Chippendale's dancers to serve booze (because alcohol does wonders for your productivity) and big hairy bikers to give massages (as opposed to the girls in tight t-shirts they no doubt retained for the event,) would be a prank.
Why is that? Because I can't agree with big companies pulling their sponsorship because of a mistake? They apologized - which doesn't make it ok, but hey - now pretty much no one knows or cares how much effort has gone into the hackaton event. All it matters now is that they made a mistake.
So the whole industry is giving the message: Your effort is totally worthless (and unnoticed) if you make mistakes that offend someone.
