Innovation in Software

I know we’ve been here before, and in some cases it’s been more directly offensive but it seems that some guys are still idiots when it comes to dealing with women in technology with a modicum of respect.

Hoss Gifford’s recent presentation at Flashbelt caused many in the audience to feel more than a little offended. From the mail Courtney Remes sent published at the above link, his presentation was not exactly family-friendly. For those of you who want a slightly cleaner version of what happened than the version Courtney described, it involved:

• Photos of women in high heels with legs spread, genitals visible through see-through underwear and Hoss’ face photoshopped on underneath, captioned “Drink Me” at both the start and end of the presentation
• An invitation to a woman in the audience to draw something on-screen which he remarked looked like male genitals
• Several drawings of his own of male genitals in a childish manner showing semen covering a face
• Lots and lots of swearing, lots of references to genitalia
• The phrase “if you are easily offended, then f[…] you”
• An animated movie of a woman’s face that is positioned as if she’s having sex with the viewer that gets closer to orgasm the quicker you move your mouse.

Many in the audience apparently laughed at this. If that’s what the Flash community is like these days, frankly, I’m going to steer clients away from Flash so we don’t have to deal with such juvenile behaviour whilst doing our work.

Some in the “community” (which frankly doesn’t exist as such if this is their collective attitude), suggest that feeling offended at such a presentation at a professional conference marks you out as being prudish or “too politically correct”. What? Politically correct? Since when has it been acceptable at any professional conference where people are expecting professional material, to be this crass and obscene?

It seems the conference organiser has unreservedly apologised, but that’s not the issue: it shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and the fact it did is only partly his fault.

There is no other industry on the planet (with the notable exception of the porn industry), where this behaviour and attitude would even be remotely tolerated. Collectively we are going to have to deal with this, and sooner rather than later.

We all have the capacity to make off-colour humour sometimes, but not in a professional context in front of an audience of industry professionals paying good money to hear your keynote. What jokes you tell down the pub are between you and your drinking buddies, but when you are going out of your way to offend and disenfranchise a whole section of your professional community because you have the “professional” mind of a 15-year old, you need to reassess what the hell you’re playing at.

We need more diversity in this sector for it to thrive and this attitude is just going to make fewer women interested in being involved in future. Quite frankly, I don’t blame them. If we can’t act as grown-ups, treat women as equals deserving of professional respect and at least hold back from the knob jokes when we’re delivering a keynote presentation at a conference they paid $399 to attend, we don’t deserve their skills and the industry almost deserves to whither and die.

Many in the industry aren’t remotely like Hoss. Those of us who feel we need to act as professionals need to start standing our ground and talking about these issues more. We are not prudes, we’re not being “politically correct”, we’re just trying to build an inclusive and professional industry everybody can be proud of.

That all said, some of the feedback on Twitter has gone beyond the pale. Yes, it’s offensive and we need to constructively address the issues, but is this really called for?

• gabbyhon: If you waterboard this Hoss Gifford asshole, he sure as hell will never pull that vile crap again. I’m just sayin’.
• kwatson49: I heard the birth of Hoss Gifford was the reason that birth control was invented. Interesting.

This isn’t constructive in the slightest. It doesn’t help the situation one jot, and it doesn’t make the people who think this behaviour is acceptable reassess their attitude – it just makes them more keen to defend the indefensible. I suggest we concentrate on finding something more positive and constructive to take away from it.

We are a powerful and influential industry – it’s time to behave like adults and treat everybody with some respect. Here’s hoping this is all another educational experience for the whole sector.