I don't get the argument here. Look at a fashion magazine geared towards women, what do you think the ads look like in those magazines?<p>Marketing copy with attractive people tends to convert better than marketing copy with unattractive people. Are we just supposed to sabotage our own marketing material in order to... what exactly?<p>If sex sells its not because IT is a male dominated industry, its because sex sells to the population at large. Why don't you go to Hollywood and tell them to start hiring more unattractive actresses in star roles, I'm sure that would have a much larger and more immediate impact than changing the marketing copy on a few landing pages.<p>You can't honestly expect IT to be the ones that pioneer more 'ethical' marketing practices.
Only the first photo really comes across as sexualized (Messages by Ramotion) -- I think a different photo should have been picked. The other two designs just have photos of pretty women smiling.<p>Also, the UIfaces service seems to be almost entirely pictures of men. Should we only have pictures of men in our mockups?
Images of faces and people aren't neutral placeholders - they will affect how attractive the whole mockup (and the advertised product) will be perceived.<p>In almost all cases (barring special messaging/targeting), using pictures of attractive people will give better results - if you're using pictures of average people for no good reason, then you're hurting the outcome, putting out suboptimal product; it would be just like using a less-than-readable typeface for your marketing copy - unprofessional.<p>Gender of the pictures matters - it should be adjusted for target message and audience, but more often than not (2/3?) a picture of a woman will be more effective (attract attention and positive emotion) than a similar picture of a man. Take a look at magazine covers - both men-targeted and women-targeted magazines will prefer to have women on their covers, since that is what will get them more sales.<p>And that is not an arbitrary bias of publishers, this is a reflection of the true bias of the viewers, and it probably will stay that way until we're not entirely homo sapiens anymore.
So, a few things. I'll start with the nit-picky. I think the Blurred Lines parody should be removed.<p>I've never seen it before, but decided to watch it (discreetly as I could at work), and I don't see the author's issue with it. That paragraph, instead of coming off as "we wouldn't sexualize men, so we shouldn't sexualize women" instead comes off as "I am slightly homophobic and don't like seeing nearly naked men".<p>Honestly, I dug the video and thought it was pretty clever and funny. If the author has an issue with nearly naked men and their junk, perhaps that's a personal problem the author should address outside of the context of how to treat women.<p>Now, on to the actual message of the article. I get how sexualizing women in a workplace is bad. But to say "remove sexuality from marketing materials" (mockups are marketing materials, after all) is just dumb. Sex sells. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter what you're selling. That's why Fruit of the Looms commercials have buff men in underwear (they're marketing to wives/girlfriends who actually do the cloth purchasing) and why beer commercials have women in bikinis (marketing to men who buy beer).<p>So, sorry, but the sheer economics of it means that there's going to be sexualized materials in marketing (with both men and women being sexualized depending on the target audience).
I'm not intending to offend or be sexist here but...<p>Do women actually have a problem looking at pictures of other women?<p>Whenever I see some media 'designed' for women, usually a magazine or a newspaper article, it's invariable about another woman. Either about fashion, health or just some celebrity gossip. The men that do appear tend to be unusually good looking.<p>The only conclusion I'm going to draw from this (and there are many), is that women don't seem to have a problem looking at pictures of other women.
I found The Hawkeye Initiative to be a pretty hilarious response to this issue (more geared towards representation in comics), not sure many people know about it. <a href="http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/" rel="nofollow">http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/</a>
<i>I can’t stand this video. Watching toned men parade around with their junk sticking out makes me feel very uncomfortable.</i><p>Obviously the author is not a fan of men in glittery pants, but I suspect that the video may not make quite the point intended.
Stopped reading at 'I'm a white male' as if it's some sort of a handicap (in the words of George Carlin - "happens to be").<p>Tired of white male guilt permeating every other non-technical post. To me this colors the author is too extreme in their worldview, hence I am unlikely to seriously consider whatever he says after that.
“Men can be our best advocates because the men who don’t respect women do respect men.”<p>I've never actually said that phrase, but if I did it wouldn't pertain to something as silly as this. Using super beautiful people in mockups or sexualized woman is immature but I'm far more concerned with people who think that woman 'just aren't smart enough to be programmers'.<p>Maybe this would have worked better in a more specific example. I interviewed at a place where there were so many little things like this that I didn't think I'd be comfortable working there. Sexualized images + servers named after porn actresses + the poster for the company holiday party included a scantily clad woman.
I don't get it. He gives the woman on the beach as an example of.. quote offending work unquote.<p>> the men who don’t respect women do respect men<p>There are people that don't respect anybody. If someone's being an asshole to a woman it doesn't necessary mean it's about sexism.<p>Btw, sexism != the discrimination of women. It's a discriminations based on person's sex - so it's discrimination of men as well e.g. implying they have to have particular qualities and behave in certain ways.
Wow... if you actually click the link to Meng To's "From Design To iOS7 Prototype" design post, you'll see that at least 1/2 the images are of men. You perniciously decided to cherry pick one example that happens to have a woman, and assert that he's sexualizing women.<p>Also, it's clear that you are projecting your own homophobic prejudices onto women when you write: "I can’t stand this video. Watching toned men parade around with their junk sticking out makes me feel very uncomfortable."<p>You assume that, because you feel uncomfortable looking at the skin of same sex individuals, all women must therefore share your prejudice. I think this article reflects more about your own assumptions and prejudices than it does about the difficulties women really face. You are contributing to the problem, good job.
Sometimes people just want to climb up on their soap box. In this case apparently based upon one single example (although even that one is arguable if you live in a progressive society).<p>The others look like my Facebook feed. Are we to believe that smiling women = sexualized? That is simply ridiculous, and rather than seeing this post as a reasoned petition for equality, it seems to almost turn women into need-to-be-protected caricatures, and sounds remarkably like something you would expect to hear in Saudi Arabia.