The insular life of a start-up executive makes one wonder how any are able to make products that the everyday human want to buy. USAToday.com reported on tech a few days ago revealing the ratio of women in tech jobs remains at 20-23 percent. Although, it may be no surprise that women have been shut out of the tech industry from jobs and the board room, we reign when it comes to the overall economy. In 2012, a study done by Parks Associates found that : “Women are more likely than men to purchase tablets, laptops and smartphones – three out of the four top consumer electronics categories.” Women lag only in their interest in flat screen LCD TVs according to a new study.”
So as important as women are in the overall tech economy, it’s mind-boggling that any marketing department would come up with a promotion like OnePlus recently announced to celebrate a milestone in their forum registrations, but then again, the marketing department is most likely made up of all men so maybe this sounded like a great idea:
As we close in on the 200K mark for the number of registered forum users, OnePlus wants to give a shout out to the few but beautiful female fans in our community with our Ladies First contest.
In true gentlemen fashion and because chivalry is not dead, we are giving the lovely ladies of OnePlus a chance to skip the invite line and introduce themselves to us.
Ladies (and only ladies, sorry guys, ladies first), the rules are simple:
Draw the OnePlus logo on a piece of paper or on your hand/face/wherever (so we know it’s really you)
Take a photo of yourself with the OnePlus logo clearly visible
Post the photo in this thread
The 50 most well-liked ladies will receive an invite and a Never Settle t-shirt. Additionally, we will be giving out another 100 invites at random to any lady who participates in the contest. The contest begins today and ends on Friday. We will announce the winners on Monday.Ladies, no nudity please.
Wow that is a contest that is difficult to pass up, don’t you think?! We thought we’d include Wikipedia’s Monkey Selfie that recently caused all the copyright controversy. The OnePlus logo is right next to it right tooth.
Our photo’s just for fun. OnePlus cancelled its contest because it was so incredibly dumb.
Here’s the official statement:
Women make up half the world, and we want to help them be more involved in tech. We understand that our contest was in bad taste, and have therefore pulled it. All participants will be contacted for prizes. We apologize and we will course correct for the future. At the same time, we would love to hear your feedback on how we can better get women involved in tech.
I guess they had a woman write it.
