Unreal. The phrase "What a bunch of Yahoo!s" comes to mind.

Although I agree that lap dances were a dumb thing for Yahoo! to engage in, I wholeheartedly disagree that Yahoo! "[treated] women like pieces of meat." Those women were not forced, and they treated themselves like pieces of meat. Its true that money and big companies perpetuate the demeaning stereotypes of women, but so do women themselves.

Very shocking indeed. And inappropriate! As per response, I agree 24 hours is a long time, and while it does take a while to go through the 'chain of command' in a large company, a simple "I'll look in to it and get back to you" goes a long way.

Highly presumptuous and imperial to presume that lap dancing is demeaning, typical superficial feminist advocacy that frankly most of the 52% don't find offensive. When are we going to let all women live and let live!

"Hack Girls from Y!'s Taiwan event don't reflect our values."

Oh, I see: The GIRLS don't reflect their values. Not the men who got the dances; not the employee who set this up; not the men who cheered the whole mess on; but the girls, who were doing the job they were hired to do.

As a 12-year Yahoo user with a bunch of websites hosted there, I'm far more worried about the changes new management may bring to site-building tools and hosting, than I am about a minuscule par-for-the-course trade-show non-event in Taiwan. OK they goofed and they were slow. But slowness is why we love them - good old dependable plodding Yahoo - whenever you fire up your computer everything's working and in the same place, day after day. How many can you say that about after 12 years ?!!. And I'm ready to demean myself by dancing on any lady executive's lap, just to prove it.

Norm Matthews, women (and men) have every right to make a living as erotic dancers, porn stars (and, in my opinion, prostitutes). I might not have chosen "pieces of meat" to describe the phenomenon of lap dances at a corporate event, but the problem isn't that the dancer's were abused in some way. It is that Yahoo! was celebrating a culture where the role of women is to please men and turn them on, while the role of men is to use their brains to hack things. That's where the outrage comes in. As a woman, I'm already going to stand out like a sore thumb at a hack day (even in the US). If you bring in scantily clad female dancers as entertainment, I'll get the message loud and clear: I am not your intellectual peer. I'm an overclad object of desire. (Overclad until I strip down to my own bra and underpants, I guess.)

Point is: it isn't the dancers who are objectified and insulted. It is women in technology.

Travis ... same response. Frankly, the guy in the photo above looks more embarrassed than anything else. Kind of demeaning to men to suggest that 1) lap dancing is the way to get horny and 2) horny is the way to program. Sex has a place. That place is not work.

As a 12-year Yahoo user with a bunch of websites hosted there, I'm far more worried about the changes new management may bring to site-building tools and hosting, than I am about a minuscule par-for-the-course trade-show non-event in Taiwan. OK they goofed and they were slow. But slowness is why we love them - good old dependable plodding Yahoo - whenever you fire up your computer everything's working and in the same place, day after day. How many can you say that about after 12 years ?!!. And I'm ready to demean myself by dancing on any lady executive's lap, just to prove it.

煩死了！
1) Yahoo! did not have the experienced PR people then to know not to directly associate the brand with lap dancing. 2) United States prudes need to keep it's slavish Puritanism on the other side of the Pacific and especially off of Taiwan, which has a history of gloriously serving exhausted GIs since the Vietnam War. Mike Harrop has the spirit! 3) FastCompany.com editors should have passed on this Paparazzi-style article. Shame on you KAPIN for this exposition of young horny nerds!!! Why don't you write a script for Quentin Terrentino instead?

Amanda

"As a woman, I'm already going to stand out like a sore thumb at a hack day (even in the US). If you bring in scantily clad female dancers as entertainment, I'll get the message loud and clear: I am not your intellectual peer. I'm an overclad object of desire. (Overclad until I strip down to my own bra and underpants, I guess.)"

Is that not largely a message that you've chosen to interpret yourself?

It's clear from other evidence (including the link in the article itself about the 2006 Hack Day) that Yahoo! doesn't consider women to be intellectually inferior or objects of desire. In fact the evidence from the 2006 Hack Day seems far more relevant a measure of Yahoo!'s evaluation of women in IT than the use of non-IT working lap dancers at another event.

David: I think the reason it is interesting to fast company has nothing to do with the nature of the problem (lap dancers at a tech event) but the nature of the web (that in a twitter-glued world, 24 hours is a "slow" turnaround) which is relevant and interesting whether or not you care about lap dancers, misogyny, objectification or women in technology.

Robin: Ah. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Do let me know: how should I interpret the message?

Thanks for taking the time to comment on the article.

@Norm - While my article is not about the sex industry, you raise an interesting question. Are women, particularly children and young women in Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, India forced into the sex industry? For many yes. The estimated number of children in the sex industry by ECPAT Taiwan is about 100,000. In India the estimate is 400,000. Many young children (including girls and boys) who are also poor grow up in this environment and never escape it. Girls under 13 have been made to undergo hormone injections by brothel owners to hasten their physical development. Taiwan has been a known sex tourist destination for years dating back to the Japanese military presence. And while no one has ever said that prostitution took place at these Hack Days in Taiwan, paying young women to dance around in scantily dressed clothes and give lap dances to men is not acceptable at industry events. Period. End of story.

@Travis – When you get insight into what women "really" think and feel, let us know.

@Mike - You should be concerned about this issue too. Besides bad press can damage companies reputations, which can hurt their bottom line, which means resources can be cut and impact products that you like.

@Amanda, @Tyler and @Kelly and @Jill - Great comments. Thanks!

@David - You make me laugh dude.

@Robin - So companies can't send mixed messages? How do you think the women at this event felt when the women were performing lap dances for men? What kind of message does that send to everyone who attended the event and everyone who has viewed the photos and videos?

@Amanda - I wrote the article for two reasons - Having lap dances on Yahoo's dime at their events is not acceptable and their response to the backlash was slow in today's environment. Both are poor ways to manage global brands. Many lessons to be learned here.

The thought that also occurred to me as I read this article and saw the pics was, "Gee great way to reinforce stereotypes about the place of Asian women in society."

@Allyson
;-) Have you seen me do my impression of The Emperor in ESB?

@Emma
Among the organizers at the event were women in their 30s, from my intel. BTW, Taiwanese boys and girls break dance at SYS Memorial hall in public and no one things differently. Break dancing is not so racy, but dance is fast becoming a national past-time over there.

This could present problems for future employee recruitment of women candidates. Some people even commented that they were going to stop using Yahoo's search engine