So, in the #drupal universe I work on there’s a controversy in progress: one of the regional events put copies of Playboy in the swag bag.
The reasoning for it (the regional Playboy site runs on Drupal) makes sense of the surface, if you ignore consider content or context.
Arguments that usually come up in situations like this include: “don’t be a prude” and “I’d be find if you put hot GUYS in it, too, whatevs”
Thing is, that is never where we actually find ourselves. At no point do we say, “Oh, this tech conference has hot speedo dudes all over.”
[This tweet is a placeholder for the inevitable counter-example linking to a 2013 SV unconference filled with oiled up hot guys]
All specifics of this conference/incident aside, this is a question that is worth interrogating, tech colleagues.
In a group that prides itself on thinking through complicated problems and sussing out root causes to avoid burning useless energy…
…Why is this particular issue (mass media sexualization of women in ways that are not commonly applied to men) such a blind spot?
I say it is a “blind spot” because ‘defense of sexualized images / treatment of women in professional contexts’ are rarely ‘perspectives’…
For a long time in tech, they came in the form of baffled confusion that one might object to the images or treatment in the first place.
Over time, as more people spoke up about it and it became less comfortably accepted, the idea that “some people might object” became normal.
Still, there’s a shared impulse to ‘debate from first principles’ on stuff like ‘should we put porn in the swag bag for an industry event.’
Those rousing debates are good debate-club fun for the types who enjoy hanging out on law blogs & collecting logical fallacy playing cards.
(Mind you, I am That Guy™ so it’s a self-depricating jab)
But the “debate club/first principles” approach is often blind to the fact that there is a bigger, fuzzy, societal context.
Which brings us back to “Why being okay with hypothetical sexy dude swag doesn’t make actual sexy lady swag unproblematic”
We live in a culture where sex-focused imagery of women is inherently connected to the current & historical treatment/rights/role of women.
That context — women have been objects of aesthetic appreciation and exploitation and only recently made gains as ‘equals’ — is kinda shit.
Until that context is unpacked and grappled with honestly, and addressed meaningfully, it can’t be treated as generic sexy stuff.
That doesn’t mean that you must have one opinion or another on things like ‘Is Playboy an appropriate showcase site for a CMS’
But it does mean that you’re ignoring the complex reasons it is such a hot button if you simply treat it as a question of ‘sexy/no sexy’