IBM Face Backlash Following Sexist Female Engineer Recruitment Drive

IBM has faced heavy criticism following their latest campaign – encouraging women to hack a hairdryer as part of their recruitment drive. The #HackAHairDryer campaign was designed to encourage more women to apply for jobs within science and engineering, but the video campaign has left a sour taste in jobseekers’ mouths after implying women don’t like science. As well as causing a backlash amongst online users for the choice in technology, The Telegraph adds that the video accompanying the campaign featured slogans including "Girls don't like science?", Women can’t code? Only men wear lab coats?" Understandably, women were not impressed by the campaign launch:

Calling all #womenintech! Join the #HackAHairDryer experiment to reengineer what matters in #science https://t.co/4Bc9CR1Tgv

— IBM (@IBM) December 4, 2015

Taking to Twitter, women started tweeting their own interpretations of the #HackAHairDryer campaign:

Meanwhile at @IBM headquarters #HackAHairDryer pic.twitter.com/zYVtU1FLlz — Lienka (@Lienka8) December 7, 2015

@IBM no one is asking male scientists to hack beard trimmers. #womenintech #womeninSTEM

— RebeccaDV (@della_rebecca) December 7, 2015

Could someone let @IBM know it's not the 1950s any more? #hackahairdryer #womenintech https://t.co/KzhAHGd4Xy — ☆ Cinnamaldehyde ☆ (@cinnamaldehyde) December 7, 2015

Oh no @IBM, really? Is this the best you can do? #embarrassing #everydaysexism #HackAHairDryer https://t.co/MPEk6OAUMz

— Sue Black (@Dr_Black) December 7, 2015

@IBM #HackAHairDryer Wow. Just. Wow. Maybe I can hack the dishes next? And bring you a sandwich? — Eilís Ní Fhlannagáin (@dirtycitybird) December 7, 2015

Maybe if you want to encourage women and break some stereotypes you shouldn’t opt for a beauty product to make your point. Women are still vastly under-represented in the tech fields – with women making up just 30 per cent of Google’s workforce, and 31 per cent of both Facebook and Apple’s workforce.