Jesse, I was at the presentation and it was my first visit to a CLUG meeting. Overall, I thought your presentation was fairly well done (but you need to face the audience more often and not talk to the screen - :D sorry, I have some instructor training...).
With regards to the images, while I think they were tactful (the women portrayed were decently covered, and the pictures could be considered artistic and tactful poses), I have to agree with the consensus - from a business point of view, the images were inappropriate. From a personal point of view, I enjoyed them - but would never use them in a public presentation unless I were promoting bikinis. I think the big thing is to keep focused on the issue of the presentation, unfortunately the images had nothing to do with the topic and actually detracted from the presentation a little. Aaron, I don't think the fact that there are fewer women than men in the tech fields has much to do with a "boys club mentality". I think it has more to do with the fact that there are fewer women in math related fields - more because a womans brain does work a bit differently than mens, and as I understand it, most women do not understand the math and/or logic required. (disclaimer - that is simply my own observation based on my own experiences with women in the field, and a few reports I have read over time). On the other hand, I'm wouldn't be surprised if a woman in the audience had taken exception. So Jesse, you did good, but there are areas that can be improved - please take this as the constructive criticism it's intended as. Shawn -----Original Message----- From: Aaron J. Seigo [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 1:04 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: (clug-talk) some quick notes -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday 09 October 2002 12:37, Jesse Kline wrote: > > > call other OSes by their real names? should we not avoid presentations > > > that contain more female skin than is usually held to be in "good > > > taste"? > > OK maybe all the hardcore porn has desensitized me, but I don't think > any of the images were outside the realm of "good taste". I think this work for a respectable tech firm and put those pix in a presentation to show to the clients. watch how fast your boss fires you (or at the very least reprimands you, likely removing you from client relations altogether). so yes, they were outside the realm of good taste given the context. > has been blown (no pun intended) out of proportion. > I would also like to remind you of what the great man Al Bundy once > said, since the beginning of time, sex sells. al bundy is a fictitious charicature of white male stupidity. taking him on as a figurehead in your defense is probably counterproductive to your case. of course, unless your point was that stupid and insensitive men would agree that the pictures were fine. that i would agree with. > Lets face it, even in this > world full of Feminists and Liberals, this statement still holds true. the point is that such material does offend and allienate a large sector of the populace and that reflects upon CLUG. we learned nothing about your presentation topic from those pictures, so losing them wouldn't have hurt a thing, while the pictures you presented could very well be interpreted as objectifying, demeaning and misogynistic. these are not things CLUG should be faced with being associated with, for a myriad of reasons, including: - potential for legal action - respect for those who find such things offensive - not giving fodder to those who would paint Linux in an unsavory light - keeping the focus on technology, in particular Linux and Free software > Just look at the majority of beer commercials, they use good looking > women to sell their product to young-mid aged males. good thing we aren't selling beer or selling to their target market. in fact, we aren't even selling. we're promoting and supporting a specific set of technologies. > This would also describe a majority of the Linux population. hmmm.. i wonder why this is the case? (hint: because women are actively alienated from the technology world by the Boys Club mentality surrounding all things technical.) truly sad is that this even has to be brought up at all. =/ - -- Aaron J. Seigo GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" - Albert Einstein -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE9o9Tc1rcusafx20MRAiPuAKCFoEh5/f8Bdxp+B9uUMIXWIH+HSQCdEGkf B7qOtR9+XqJadwRLqIP1KzU= =rfvp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
