Desktops then and now (book review)

From: Frank McConnell <fmc_at_reanimators.org>
Date: Sun Jan 16 18:33:17 2005

Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
>> > That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and
>> > advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message
>> > could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer,
>> > and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make
>> > good computer ornaments".
>>
>> You're kidding! That isn't true?
>
> Are you being facetious?
>
> At any rate, no, in this rare case I am not kidding. The brochures and
> ads from the 1960s and 1970s were amazingly mysoginistic. If the editors
> of FHM were alive back then, they'd be doing computer industry ads.

You say that like there's something bad about it.

--- begin forwarded article ---
From: Crash Johnson <crashj_at_ezonline.spam.com>
Subject: Re: old ads (was Card...)
Date: 1998/11/21
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Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers


Lisa or Jeff wrote:
>
> > And a slightly off-topic question inspired by the comment upthread
> > about sexist terms: back in the 1960s there was a DP company that
> > ran a series of ads in _Datamation_ bragging that its (computer?
> > editor? whatever?) was "able to understand COBOL, FORTRAN, and
> > dumb blonde".
 <>
> If you were to look at business publications (ie trade journals and
> advertisements) from the 1960s you'd be shocked at the blatant sexism.
<>

In my sexist youth I kept notebook called "The Role of Women in
Engineering" which consisted of clippings from ads which featured
naked/seminaked/shapely women used to draw attention to products in
Mechanical Engineering, Design News, and Product Engineering from 1970
on. Many of these photos were shots by noted fashion photographers which
were used over & over again for different products. By 1985 these had
virtually disappeared from the technical magazines.
So since then I have had to subscribe to People Magazine.

-- 
Crash 'I'm so ashamed' Johnson
--- end forwarded article ---
-Frank McConnell
Received on Sun Jan 16 2005 - 18:33:17 GMT

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