Playboy image from 1972 gets ban from IEEE computer journals

mox@lemmy.sdf.org to Technology@lemmy.world – 299 points –
Playboy image from 1972 gets ban from IEEE computer journals
arstechnica.com
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https://www.yalescientific.org/2020/11/by-the-numbers-women-in-stem-what-do-the-statistics-reveal-about-ongoing-gender-disparities/

Down the bottom there are some statistics about how many women experience sexual harassment and gender based discrimination in STEM positions. They also tend to have worse outcomes in general and fewer will go on to work in their field.

While this might seem like a small thing, ignoring these kinds of outdated and unnecessary boys club attitudes is exactly the kind of thing perpetuating these sorts of outcomes.

If you can't see how using a cropped image from a playboy for no reason in an image processing paper is different from your made up examples and could make some people feel uncomfortable then maybe you're lacking common sense and empathy.

It wasn't chosen for no reason. It was chosen because it presents good test cases for image processing. Not great ones, just the best they had at that particular moment.

You're right, I wasn't particularly clear. That was certainly the case originally, I just don't think there is a good reason for it going forward.

Historical reasons. I personally used it in a project around 2015 because of its history. And you'd need to use it if you're comparing against anything else that used it, though given its age, that seems unlikely.

But like I said elsewhere, I'm ambivalent about its future use.

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The thing is that those reasons are made up just like my examples.

While this might seem like a small thing, ignoring these kinds of outdated and unnecessary boys club attitudes is exactly the kind of thing perpetuating these sorts of outcomes.

I don't think this is correct.

then maybe you’re lacking common sense and empathy.

Maybe I just don't confuse empathy with doing what idiots want me to do.

People were surveyed about the image, there are articles about it, an entire documentary has been made about it with the support of Lenna. How you can just come along and say that's all made up is honestly beyond me. And I'm pretty sure that the collective IEEE and the ethics researchers who have written about this aren't idiots. I really think you are confused about what empathy is, but I don't see myself convincing you of that. So uh, have a nice day.

Yeah, there's a reason experiments are not being replaced by voting.

You may consider this comment of yours valuable if you want.

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