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.

• She seeks publicity
• She has influence in the company at a senior level
• She dictates the style of web pages without a style guide
• She is a perfectionist over candidate selection
• She points to athletics as part of her life but her times aren’t great

And then… well, this:

“Did she really mean to invite media scrutiny of her athletic career? What’s really telling about it: In the handful of times where Mayer has competed on her own, without the backing of a billionaire ex-boyfriend and a pliant boss, she has proven to be an outright failure.

At the beginning of the piece, Mayer once again denies rumors of her impending departure from Google — rumors which Valleywag first reported. Perhaps she has realized that without Google, she’s nothing. Can you blame her for clinging to her job?”

The vindictive tone, the over-arching sense of misogynistic snobbery is just astonishing.

Let’s take another figure within the tech sector who is influential: Steve Jobs. He, for what it’s worth:

• Seeks publicity
• Has influence in the company at a senior level
• Dictates the style of some products, sometimes with a style guide, sometimes not
• Is a perfectionist over candidate selection

What about Bill Gates when he was at the helm at Microsoft? Well:

• He saught publicity
• He had complete influence in the company at a senior level
• He dictated the style of Microsoft software without a formal style guide (and it showed!)
• He was a perfectionist over candidate selection

Yet we call them symbols, heroes, geniuses even. Marissa may indeed have pointed to athletic engagement where her performance is not above-average, but is it wrong to aspire? Valleywag’s little dig by turning around Mayer’s words that “good students are good at all things” to mean she should be good at everything she does is frankly unfair.

She got picked on because – and only because – she is a woman.

I shouldn’t be surprised. This is a sector that struggles to attract and retain women. Given the tech sector now effectively runs Western civilisation, this is a problem beyond reasonable description. However, it seems that time and time again the women who get close to the top get torn down again.

Take Kathy Sierra whose articles on usability were perhaps amongst the best written in that area, well, ever. She was helping people understand how to improve software and services in real, tangible ways. Didn’t ask for a penny for it, just did the odd speaking gig and basked in the glory the majority of us held her in. Astounding writer. Anyway, you’ll never guess what happened? Well she got death threats and the occasional suggestion she should be raped. She shut the blog down and got out of Dodge. We as an industry are worse off as a result.

Gentlemen (and it is you who I speak to specifically): what the crap are we playing at here?

I believe in equality of the sort that means that women who genuinely screw up should be called for it as much as any man and should not be put in cotton-wool environments. But to pick out women for doing things exactly the same way her male peers do (or better) and then basically using the medium of the blog to bully them because they remind you of that cheerleader who wouldn’t go to the prom with you, is quite frankly despicable.

I not only want more women to be attracted to this sector, but I think as a society we need them. Not as social media analysts, but as real entrepreneurs, managers, engineers and designers. I was foolish enough to think the Sierra episode would be a watershed moment for us as an industry. The reality is we remain far away.

It seems Valleywag has found somebody else to bully and I have a horrid feeling this is going to get more miserable and vindictive before it gets better.