A bare breast on a t-shirt at a conference

[poopsqueak]

I was at a conference yesterday with many speakers.

The audience was of a digital nature.

One speaker came on stage with a t-shirt with a woman with a bare breast on (faded and 'artsy') and I didn't think much of it. He was 35, male and talking about an organisation he had founded. The talk was very interesting.

When the next speaker started the conference organiser came on stage and apologised for the t-shirt of the previous speaker and said he hadn't seen it prior to the speaker going on stage and mentioned a 'Twitter incident'

When the next speaker started half the audience were on their phones seeing what the 'incident' was. I found this very rude to the speaker who was speaking while lots of people were looking at their phones.

Turns out a person had left in the prior speaker posting on Twitter saying that they were 'shaking with anger' at the t-shirt and 'crying in the toilet'. They used the official conference hash so people could see. People began discussing and the person who was upset sent a lot of tweets about it.

I'm really in two minds about this. I don't think the t-shirt was great, but the guy said he was jet lagged and had come straight from the plane so maybe hadn't changed. I feel torn between the sides of a speaker wearing a sexualised t shirt on stage and what I see as a another person who I think has had gross overreaction that has cause upset for the conference runners.

I feel like the guy who ran the conference apologised as soon as he could and did what needed.

To further confuse me, the person who was upset then accosted the guy with the shirt outside and they had words. The person then tweeted that they had felt victimised by the shirt wearers language.

Really I just want some others perspectives on this incident as I am I two minds. I am all for (and talk actions to ensure) the progression of women in tech, but feel the slightly hysterical reaction to a t-shirt mire the message? What do you think?

Usual reversal

Men saying women are offended by "nudity" and what a bunch of prudes

Is actually a knee-jerk reaction to men being offended when women suggest that maybe there is a time and a place for soft porn imagery of women and the workplace isn't it.

Have you seen the meltdown some men have if women don’t wear heels or if they dared show a hairy leg.

The fact this man can go to a presentation and not think about what he wears to the point he can ‘accidentally’ wear a picture of a naked woman just shows the double standard.

thebewilderness in the absence of getting no days without rape I don’t think 1 day is a big ask. I can get why the scum manifesto might raise some heckles as didn’t the author actual shoot and severely wound Andy Warhol? I don’t think in this context the violence against men was meant hyperbolically. I mean if I wore a T-Shirt with select quotes by Elliot Rodgers I’d expect a sound verbal hoofing if I were in public with it.

Women have been adamant for over 100 years in stating WE ARE NOT THINGS, and men's response is still, YES! YES YOU ARE!
I think e should all take the advice of Maya Angelou in these situations and when they show you who they are, believe them.

Sorry but what is the drama here. Women have boobs. A guy had a picture of a woman with boobs on his tshirt. Had anyone died? Was anyone hurt? Did the hysterical woman over react? There are worse things happening in the world than a guy wearing an "offensive" tshirt and I wish these amateur dramatists would get over themselves!

It’s still not appropriate in the workplace....

40isnew50
You bumped the thread to say "shut up"? Brilliant!

Sorry but what is the drama here. Women have boobs. A guy had a picture of a woman with boobs on his tshirt. Had anyone died? Was anyone hurt? Did the hysterical woman over react? There are worse things happening in the world than a guy wearing an "offensive" tshirt and I wish these amateur dramatists would get over themselves!

Yes women, get over relentless objectification and undermining of your body. You should be happy about boobs on a t shirt. You’re just being hysterical.

🙄🙄🙄

13th rule of misogyny: Women are not oppressed! Rape and catcalling and objectification are all compliments, not oppression.

I’m going to start wearing a t shirt of a passive looking young man with his cock out and see how long it takes for men to feel uncomfortable.

Dear Lord, some of you people really need to get out more. I honestly cannot believe that a tshirt has caused such a stramash. If you feel "objectified" because of a woman's boob on an item of clothing I really do feel sorry for you.

Women have boobs and in most of the world don't go out in public with them showing.

Women - from the age they start growing breasts - are all too well aware with how many men essentially fetishise this part of us and are very able to reduce us to nothing more than a pair of tits. They look at our tits when they talk to us. They shout stuff about our tits when we're walking down the street.

We don't need to be reminded of all this when at a work conference. We KNOW that men like tits, like looking at our tits. We prefer this NOT to be in our faces, as it were, at a professional conference. It's never a good time to decide to remind women that some men view them as primarily sexual objects, ornamentation, this situation though it's just not on.

Many men can't see the problem. There's a reason for that. They're not interested, they can't be bothered to empathise, they don't care how women feel, and most of all, they don't want to lose their "right" to wear t-shirts with hot women on them, what's the world coming to?

You do seem outraged 40isnew50.

You obviously don’t know what objectified means

40isnew50

You really ought to google sexual harassment in the workplace, sooner rather than later, for your own good, eh?

Oh Jesus wept I can see why it’s out of order and I’m the fucking MRA....

I’m personally of the view sexism isn’t as rife as it used to be and there is this constant narrative about how women are constantly under assault from men, but if we can’t actually lock down and call out genuine occasions where it occurs then that makes life incrementally harder for everyone.

How the woman chose to communicate her distaste wether by crying, hiring a plane with a banner flying behind it or projecting it on the fucking moon isn’t really my buisness cos she kinda HAD A POINT.

If you feel "objectified"

Women feel objectified because men objectify us, openly, blatently and obviously, starting from when we are young.
It's everywhere as well, in imagery. Parts of bodies not a whole person. The submissive poses. Even when men are less dressed they are usually looking at the camera, a person.

Anyway. Probably not any point in arguing on this point. This is the feminism chat board though, right? So, feminist viewpoint is the norm here. Feel free to add opinion, but this whole page 3 sytle "nothing wrong with nudity, you're probably jealous and / or a prude" is nothing excatly new, is it.

I agree that in many ways things are better -

No more "lads mags" or page 3 on the bus, no more glamour calendars up in shops, I don;t think they have the thing any more where you buy the peanuts in teh pub and each packet reveals more of the scantily clad woman underneath...

I suspect other things are there that are just as bad. I am age of invisibility now (which is brilliant in my opinion, I feel so much more relaxed when out and about) but my older DD has started developing (she's still in primary school) and I wait to see what she is in for. I hope things are different to how they were, better. We'll see.

This is the feminism chat board though, right?

That explains why there are so many misogynists here every day telling us to shut up or mansplaining their "perspective", eh?

I should qualify that things do appear to be worse in some contexts I think porn has a lot to answer for.

@40isthenew50, when I go to a conference or any other professional environment, I do not expect to be reminded that there are men out there who consider me and other women to be nothing more than fuck dolls or wank fodder. That t-shirt reminded every woman present of that attitude. TBH I'm not surprised that the complainant was upset, I would have been.

It's like having a computing degree and years of linux systems administration / software development / database administration / insert your expertise here means NOTHING to these guys if you have a uterus. It is dehumanising and insulting.

Wow weirdos alert - people used to fight and die and now snowflakes are hysterical about a tee shirt - pathetic. Grow up

Wow weirdos alert - people used to fight and die and now snowflakes are wearing a naked woman on a tee shirt - pathetic. Grow up

I think the t-shirt people are also the same fight and die types.

So can't we find something for all the t shirt guys to start killing other t shirt guys for? That would be brilliant.