Here is a summary of what I’ve been saying about this topic in the past 12 hours. The following comment appeared on The Guardian, Mesh.org and Loïc’s blog.
I am in that video and Loïc actually linked to a post on my blog. I don’t find it offensive. I’d be offended only in case someone was actually mocking women’s intelligence in it.
I think that the worst thing we can do as women is to make a big deal out of it. Come on, it’s just a nerdy video about girls attending a conference. There are loads like that on the Web and we won’t change the reality by reacting this way.
Showing respect to women doesn’t mean NOT making videos like that or having 50% of women speakers to events. This is just pure hypocrisy. Women should not be treated differently or deserve more attention and protection just because they are women.
Thank god we are no longer in 1920.
And women who say they won’t attend conferences because of stupid videos like that are even more stupid. It’s actually good that they stay at home. The only ones to ostracize tech women are tech women themselves. If a woman is talented there’s no way she can be ostracized nowadays and she won’t become less talented if she appears in a video like that.
I have been working on the Web since 2005 and I have never experienced neither discrimination nor sexism. Pure luck? No, I think that I just take it easy and go on my way without caring too much about these ridiculous polemics.
Maybe I’m a weird girl (call me anything you want, it doesn’t matter) but there are more important things that matter to me in life and in my job.
By the way, now that the video has been removed, I suggest to all of the offended people to go on Flickr and take a look at the way more offensive hundreds of pictures of women taken at LeWeb3. If you think that this is the only way to earn respect and dignity in the world… act upon your words.
P.S. a censored version of the video has been posted here.
