Coredump

So the PCS has spoken: they made a boo-boo over the application form asking for “vital” statistics; they’re pushing through with the beauty pageant, er, what the heck are they calling it? (as Sacha Chua said, “if it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck…”); personality counts in IT, yadayada.

I still question their intentions, though, “honest mistake” notwithstanding. I think they should have told people outright that this was a popularity-slash-beauty contest.

The “Digital Pinay” moniker is just to generate buzz, nothing more. It has nothing to do with Filipino women striking their own in the digital plain. It’s got nothing to do with women in general asserting their equality in an already egalitarian field.

It has everything to do with the objectification of women, of putting forward (or is it backward?) the proposition that looks matter over talent and skills.

And I thought IT will be spared from all that feudalistic crap. Sad, really sad.

A recently launched contest by the Philippine’s premier computer organization, the Philippine Computer Society, is getting a lot of flak from the IT community.Dubbed “Search for Digital Pinay”, the contest is “a nationwide search in both the ‘Professional and Co-Ed Categories’ for the woman who best exemplifies the qualities expected of future women leaders of the Philippine information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Okay, so far, so good. But wait, there’s more: the application form asks for, among other things, years of experience in IT, height, bust size, waist measurement, etc. WTF?!

To add salt to the wound, the criteria for judging includes 20% for text votes (’people’s choice’?), 40% for intelligence, 20% for beauty and presentability, and 20% for poise and personality. As a blogger points out:

So let me see: that’s 60% for popularity and appearance based criteria, and 40% for intelligence and technical knowledge. Oh yeah, that makes total sense for an ICT professional award.[1]

And that’s not the only reason why people are fuming. Winners will be required to attend all PCS functions. The organizers rationalize it by saying that winning “translates to high visibility in the job market, (and) is virtually an endorsement for the winners that they indeed are the future female ICT leaders to watch out for.” Right, then. Why not just say that your looks matter in this industry now? And, oh, there’s also a height requirement for sys-ads. Coders should have long slender, well-manicured fingernails, etc.

Okay, I’m not exactly free of discrimination and objectification of women, myself, but this just takes the cake. I would have thought the industry would be color-, race-, gender-blind; that it recognizes talent and capabilities over looks. But this, coming from the foremost IT organization at that, is something else indeed.

I hope they cut this off, before total indignation erupts.

More sources:

[1] http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~hmw26/join-the-dots/2005/01/17/spectacular/

http://del.icio.us/sachac/digitalpinay