Sexist responses to an advertisement showing a female engineer have prompted a diverse range of people to post photos of themselves to Twitter under the hashtag, #ILookLikeAnEngineer.
The hashtag came about after the release of an advertisement for US engineering company, OneLogin. The advertisement shows a picture of a female engineer named Isis Wenger next to the quote, "My team is great. Everyone is smart, creative and hilarious."
After the ad came out, Ms Wenger wrote in a post to Medium that she had been surprised by sexist responses to the ad.
The ad featuring a female engineer that sparked backlash. (OneLogin)
"Some people think I’m not making 'the right face,'" she wrote. "Others think that this is unbelievable as to what 'female engineers look like'. News flash: this isn’t by any means an attempt to label 'what female engineers look like.' This is literally just me, an example of one engineer at OneLogin. The ad is supposed to be authentic. My words, my face, and as far as I am concerned it is."
She ended the post by asking: "Do you not fit the 'cookie-cutter mould' of what people believe engineers 'should look like?'"
"If you answered yes to any of these questions I invite you to help spread the word and help us redefine 'what an engineer should look like' #ILookLikeAnEngineer."
Many engineers related to her comments, posting images of themselves to Twitter in order to challenge stereotypes of what an engineer should be.
Ms Wenger said she was "not personally ready for the amount of attention that it has brought me," but wanted to use the opportunity to raise awareness.
"I didn’t want or ask for any of this attention, but if I can use this to put a spotlight on gender issues in tech I consider that to be at least one win," she wrote.
"The reality is that most people are well-intentioned but genuinely blind to a lot of the crap that those who do not identify as male have to deal with. To list just a couple personal experiences:
- I’ve had men throw dollar bills at me in a professional office (by an employee who works at that company, during work hours).
- I’ve had an engineer on salary at a bootcamp message me to explicitly “be friends with benefits” while I was in the interview process at the school he worked for."
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