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Yahoo Offered Lap Dances At Hack Event
Fotograf writes "Yahoo's latest embarrassment seems like a sign that the company is just trying too hard to be cool. The latest debacle is earning the company some additional publicity. After Yahoo hosted Taiwan Open Hack Day, a special event for engineers and developers that was held last weekend, a series of photos found their way onto the internet — as ill-thought out decisions often do. Yahoo offered lap dances to the attendees of the hack event. Since the pictures have come out the company has decided to apologize."
Company sponsored AT the actual event - yeah, that's a bit over the top. But it's pretty common for guys to head to a strip club after a business meeting. Heck in any large-ish town there will be several clubs with varying reputations (almost a caste system of sorts). Invariably there is almost always one that caters to the business crowd where you walk in and it's pretty much universally guys in suits.
Yahoo took the next awkward step, but the idea overall ain't that far-fetched.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
This kind of stunt has become a common play in the PR handbook. Do something moderately outrageous, just enough to piss off some special interest group, and your company gets a ton of free publicity as a result. Pepsi did something like this a few months ago with an iPhone app: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33310411/. You can't tell me that nobody in charge knew this stuff would be controversial. They knew exactly what they were doing and that it would get them more publicity than they were willing to pay for. The company can always fake an apology later to make it look unintentional.
the new feminism is about self-empowerment
such that grad students who work in strip clubs are seen as feminist icons: its all about exploiting silly weak men for lots of their cash by doing nothing but shimmying around
and no, that doesn't mean the new feminism is the same as pre-feminism. because the feminist who strips is CHOOSING to strip for fun and titillation (pun intended), rather than being FORCED to do it for economic difficulties
not that women aren't forced into exploitation for economic difficulties anymore, i'm not describing reality. i'm describing philosophical trends in feminist thinking. in feminist thinking, porn actresses are the new pioneers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Forget the feminist wing, I'm looking forward to the lesbian wing showing up! I don't need a lap dance, I just want to watch.
On that note, did anybody see Gretchen kiss Claire on Heroes? HOT!
Dexter has been replaced by Heroes as my favorite TV show!
"Lame" - Galaxar
Heck, I'm a woman and I think it's kind of funny, albeit inappropriate. Not necessarily an event I'd want to be at while this was going on--simply because lap dances and this kind of sexually charged thing is generally considered part of one's personal life, and this was a business/professional event. Some women and and even more privately-minded men would feel uncomfortable. If a man wants to go to a strip club, that's his business and I personally have zero problem with that. It's just not really appropriate for this event, in the same way that overt sexual advances, talking at length about one's sex life, etc are not appropriate for the professional office.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
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If they're going to offer lap dances, great. Objectify away. But they should also include male dancers.
You know why they don't do that?
'Cause probably if they did try that, the male dancers wouldn't have any takers at the event, and afterward the decision would be made that the whole experiment had been a waste of money.
Bow-ties are cool.
Had the cheerleaders for an NFL team been there in tight shirts and tiny skirts waving pompoms nobody would have said a word.
Um, no.
Women (try talking to one sometime) are very widely offended at the whole phenomenon of Booth Babes, scantily clad spokesmodels, etc. The difference with this is that because it was lapdances, it actually makes the news.
It's just as hostile to the women who want to be treated as colleagues (instead of sex objects) to have micro-bikini models hanging around, but that won't make the papers.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
This. And the "They hate us, for our freedoms!" comment which is for once accurate.
Because really, feminism has mutated from defending women rights to attacking male nature, a good feminist should complain that there were no male strippers, not that they were female ones.
When I first saw that submission and noted the comment count was over 600 after just a couple hours, I decided it was better to just not even open that one.
I think you'd be -very- surprised by how wrong you are.
You equate selling sex to letting someone punch you for money. I see it the same as a construction job, where you sweat and work hard to deliver on your contract. Selling sex isn't the same as selling violence. Most sex work isn't violent.
I've dated a sex worker, and lived with another. Both enjoyed their jobs and made GOBS of loot.
One was a single 'cougar' who managed to pay off her house in three years, she was a nurse making $40K before, and she returned afterwards.
She said that it was great because you set your own hours and limits, there's security to make sure you're safe, and you get a hell of a workout dancing, etc.
I'm in a state where we're about to make indoor prostitution illegal (it's been legal here for 30 years), and my extensive research into the field has led me to believe that this whole notion of 'it's bad for you' is just not true. We have massage parlor workers testifying to keep their jobs at legislative hearings, we caught the Craigslist killer because the sex workers can call the police when they're abused or robbed, and we have virtually no street (read: crackwhore) prostitution.
Selling sex, for most of the people in the legal industry is a steppingstone between coming to this country poor and not knowing the language, to home ownership, and paying to raise your kids right or meeting a nice American to get married to.
Check out our site on the issue: http://citizensagainstcriminalization.org/
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I too think the lap dancing is distasteful, but this is a fine example how corporate culture is heavily distorted by the country's own culture as well. I think Yahoo! Taiwan organized the event autonomously without any collaboration with the US head quarter, and that the US head quarter really has nothing to do with this.
In Taiwan, hiring scanty show girls for any event like trade show, religious celebration, new year, and funeral is very common. You even see that in weddings (especially in the country-side). Imagine how the bride feels about that!
I once had a signature.
In fact, it was a feminist that I know who prosed this question to me:
If you have a person who actually enjoys doing housework, or even go so far as to say enjoys being dominated and kept as a slave. These people exist, they are not that hard to find.
Now lets say that person is a woman. Hell lets say she is black, and her chosen mate is a white man.
It may make people feel weird, but if the values that we hold dear are liberation, and choice. Then why can't a black woman be submissive to a white man? Because she is a woman? Because she is black? Because we think she should want something different?
I think the real problem is that labels seldom apply well to people. One group of people calling themselves feminists make a few outrageous statements about all men being rapists, and next thing you know, every feminist is seen as a man hating battle axe.
Frankly, I take maybe a pessimistic view. However, I don't really think talk of ideals changes people for the most part. Asking people to change their behavior seldom does much. However, economics kind of required women to go to work, and once they did, it was hard to argue that they couldn't do the job anymore.
Essentially, realities change, then people accept them, seldom the other way around.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
That makes sense. While the appropriateness of it *is* debatable, the culture is different over there. People in this country would be better off just not having an opinion on it really.
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It's always going to end up embarrassing or offending or excluding someone, so best keep it out of work functions.
Dear lord - I'm a woman, in IT, and it being male dominated (seriously, sorry if it hurts your egos, but most IT guys really aren't intimidating) just isn't the reason. A few half naked girls are far more awkward to be around for the guys than me (I see more female flesh than that on display in the gym changing rooms every day)
Most girls just aren't interested in this kind of job, I'm normally the only female dev, and any other females in the office are in admin and happy with it.
In taiwan, pretty girls dressed in very little really are culturally acceptable. In my office in Malaysia one of the guys would have phone calls discussing what he was getting up to at the weekend (or had got up to), invited my boyfriend to a 'spa' once, and there were no complaints. My Caucasian boyfriend however had numerous compaints against him, despite being a total sweetheart because they found his face scary (it's a normal face, just very expressive compared to an asian guy)