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'Hot Tech Talent' IT job board ads caught up in sexism allegations
You can't respect women and work in IT, duh
An IT jobs site in the UK has been criticised for running an ad campaign featuring women in languorous poses with the strapline “hot tech talent”.
Dice, formerly the IT Job Boards, said it intended the images, which feature both men and women, to be light-hearted. Part of the drive behind the campaign was to counter the notion that people working in technology were "nerds".
Talking to the Evening Standard, Dice's marketing director for Europe, Jamie Bowler, said: "The creative is deliberately light hearted and provocative to catch the attention of the tech community. We’re looking forward to seeing how it is received across wider Europe."
Only time I'd be posed like this 'hot tech talent' = when extraordinarily drunk. So not sure what this ad is saying. pic.twitter.com/VaVsXqUwsf
— Jennifer Cownie (@cownifer) March 13, 2016
Hot tech talent. Front End Developer. Front-End-Developer? Really?!? #SoWrong #Lol #DiceJobs pic.twitter.com/QE8gdzQOzp
— Asad Shaykh (@asadshaykh) March 18, 2016
@Dicedotcom @EverydaySexism women are not 'hot' tech talent to be presented like pieces of meat - zero professionalism & excludes women
— Stephanie Bradley (@StefBradders) March 11, 2016
Dice has claimed: "The models in our #HotTechTalent ads are all real tech pros working in their specified roles!"
Writing on the issue of how women in business are represented, Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway opined that "if a company wants to show that it really values women and wants to prioritise action in the gender equality landscape, it will show pictures of them in which they don’t always look cool or gorgeous. They just look like professional women at work." ®