Female Executives Fight Sexism In Silicon Valley by Posing In Their Panties

Sexism is something which plagues many sectors and industries in corporate America today, and the Silicon Valley is no exception to this unfortunate rule.

But now, a brave group of pioneering female tech bosses in the Valley are striking back and have come up with an ingenious idea to pose, looking all professional-like, in not much more than their panties. Yes, you read correctly.

Dear Kate, a well-known underwear brand across North America, decided to employ the female tech bosses to model its Ada Collection, a line reportedly named after Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician often credited as the world’s first computer programmer.

Takepart.com reported that the advertising campaign is sexy, to say the least, as it features the women wearing the “high performance underwear for high performance women,” typing away on laptops at the New York City headquarters of fashion website Refinery29.

One particular image shows Quiessence Phillips, an information security professional, wearing lacy underwear and includes the caption:

“It is important to have more women in technology because women want to solve different problems—the kind that are life changing.”

The Dear Kate brand has traditionally marketed everyday lingerie using nontraditional methods and models and their current campaign with the ladies from the Silicon Valley is no exception.

But not everyone is so thrilled with the portrayal of woman in this sexy light, Elissa Shevinsky, for example, the CEO of a tech start-up, groaned to Time Magazine:

“In Silicon Valley, now more than ever, there is a tension between being seen in a romantic or sexual way and in a professional way. Presenting yourself undressed has inherently sexual overtones, and undermines being seen as a serious technologist.”

There have been a number of sexual harassment cases out of Silicon Valley, making the Dear Kate advertising campaign that much more poignant at the moment.

Back in June, Whitney Wolfe filed a suit accusing her male colleagues at Tinder of sexual harassment and of taking away her title as a co-founder because it “makes the company seem like a joke.”

But one of the models in the campaign, Phillips, as mentioned above, rebuffed that criticism commenting: “We’re showing that women in tech come in all shapes and sizes.”