At Apple’s September 9 event, during which the company unveiled its latest slate of products, Adobe executive Eric Snowden managed to offend a slew of women across the internet as he presented Adobe’s photo editing tools on the new iPad Pro.
Hmm. What was he doing? Sticking nips on Hillary’s tits or something?
Of the many ways he could have demoed the new technology, Snowden chose to edit a photo of a woman to make her go from unsmiling to smiling — this at an event where women (and, notably, persons of color) were almost entirely absent from view.
Sorry, what?
Changing the woman’s face to a smiling one — and thus one that appears more pleasing to an onlooker’s gaze — was seen by some commenters as an act symbolizing male entitlement and sexism.
But, what?
There’s a well-known trope of a harassing male stranger asking women on the street to smile — and it was digitized by Adobe during the presentation. In the digital world, though, the subject is not asked to smile, but forced to through technology. The imagery made a lot of people uncomfortable.
Clearly there’s a lot of people who are stark staring mad out there.
I’m not writing to accuse Adobe or Apple of being consciously sexist, but I want to know if Adobe and Apple ever take a hard look at their ethical standards when they are in the pursuit of profit.
Have we hit peak first world problem yet?
And wasn’t Ezra supposed to be bringing us the future of news or something?
Apple have probably just figured out there’s no bigger and cheaper advertising than a campaign against you by the Perpetually Offended.
They could have tried reducing Kim Kardashian’s huge arse.
What ever his name is.
Off topic, but saw this (http://www.theguardian.com/global/shortcuts/2015/aug/16/doner-kebab-robot-invade-high-streets) and thought of your arguments about minimum wage vs technology…
Had they picked a man’s face, she would have whined “sexism!”.
And can you even begin to imagine what she would have done had they started with the woman smiling and made her unhappy?
So,yes,this is yet another situation where a whine was unavoidable.
Being born in the late ’50s I was for several decades unaware of just how many people around me were completely batshit. Come the internet and I am learning, but not yet acclimatised.
File this with the barking man lawyer who went off on one (in public) because a chap complimented her photo on LinkedIn (in private) and is now whining that her career will suffer while his won’t.
Well, yes, love, of course. He comes across as a normal chap, and you look like a raving harridan with mental issues.
On the one hand, I imagine there will soon be loads of people happily touching up (rape!) their holiday snaps, slapping smiles and open eyes on. And ~50% of those tweaked will be female. And frown-to-smile is easier to see on a far-away screen.
But it’s more important to point out that adobe may have been sexist. That there may be a culture of sexism in IT. without realising that crying Wolf all the time is guaranteed to drive women away from IT, so that it’s more likely that all future presentations will be made by men, to a female press pack writing for a male user-base.
What a waste…
Lol @ Machiavelli, though. Not that anyone would notice the difference.
And another who needs to get a life. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3228538/SARAH-VINE-man-t-compliment-woman-human-race-deep-trouble.html. No not Sarah Vine, but Miss Proudman who makes herself look attractive for a portrait and then complains when she is complimented on it.
And meanwhile ISIS continues to advance on numerous fronts, setting up franchises across the Middle East and implanting sleepers across the West via the refugee boats. On their takeover I am guessing Margarita Noriegs (I’m guessing she’s pissed at the CIA for ousting her relatives from a position of power in Panama) will have a lot more to worry about than doctored images! It truly is the fin de siecle of Western civilisation.
Given that Ezra Klein is a snivelling mangina with pretensions to intellect, this is exactly the sort of masturbatory clickbaiting I would expect him to run in his amateurish blog. Any publication that employs Matt Yglesias is ipso facto not worth bothering with.
The mistake here is that we are assuming these people are genuinely offended but have a ludicrously thin skin. They aren’t. They are just extremists looking for an excuse to justify the imposition of their ideology on their enemies (most of the human race).
It is as valid a reason as the nutter in the pub punching someone because they “looked at him funny”,
“…this at an event where women (and, notably, persons of color) were almost entirely absent from view.”
There a video of a woman being catcalled by blokes in New York over 8 hours walking about. With, I think, one exception all those doing the catcalling were black or hispanic men. But of course, it’s evil white men who are the problem.
A lot of non-nutty Americans would object to a woman’s image being manipulated in public without her consent.
PS The article says she’s a model; in that case Snowden should have indicated that she’d consented, e.g. by contrasting his edited image with one showing her smiling naturally.
I’ve always had doubts about people named Jeremy.
Regularly confirmed.
It’s almost getting to the stage where we men should consider withdrawing our, em, labour when it comes to servicing what I imagine are still the needs of women.
We need another nice, nasty, long, attritional conflict somewhere uncomfortably close to home, involving at least a couple of countries infected with the SJW virus.
We don’t, really, but it sure would put an end to this sort of horseshit.
“We need another nice, nasty, long, attritional conflict somewhere uncomfortably close to home, involving at least a couple of countries infected with the SJW virus.”
Don’t worry, I predict it’ll happen somewhere in Europe within the next 20 years.