New website demonstrates glacial pace of gender equality progress in the tech industry.

We had so hoped this was April Fool’s Day idiocy, but it seems not.

“Hot Tech Today” is, it says, a digital magazine.

It offers tech news punctuated by pictures of scantily clad women, and is yet another example of the sexism that still abounds in tech fields.

It is clear that the creators of this website have not stopped to think that anyone would see anything wrong with their site.

It is exactly this type of attitude – the one that sees women as sexual objects rather than potential colleagues – that prevents women from entering technology and makes it difficult for them if they do; but there seems no rush to change it.

I work for an organisation that organises events for software developers, and the gender disparity is extremely obvious.

Not only are about 80 per cent of our delegates male, but the speakers are often 100 per cent white men.

I don’t think, as others within the industry might, that this is because women and minorities have no interest in or are no good at technology.

In my opinion, it is more likely because they are less recognised as being good at technology because of  subconscious biases and a vicious cycle of exclusion.

This article reveals examples of the undermining of women by people who cannot believe that they are good at what they do; the same kind of people who would probably dismiss Hot Tech Today as a harmless joke.

It is my belief that these sexist views have so permeated the tech world that when a woman displays the same brilliance as a male programmer/developer, she is nonetheless dismissed because her existence goes against the unconscious bias of her mostly male peers.

The cycle goes somewhat like this: The tech field is unwelcoming to women. Women feel intimidated and unable to participate. Many assume the lack of women is due to a lack of competence, and express this belief. The tech field becomes more unwelcoming to women.

And so it goes.

This is not to say that nobody is speaking out or trying to change this, but it is clearly not enough.

At best, it’s a thoughtless, sexist idea produced by the kind of people who contribute to the often hostile tech environment; at worst, it’s a cheap ploy to try to get women to undress.

This issue needs to be taken seriously by everyone who works within technology, because until it is, women will continue to be outsiders in their own fields.

Feel free to contact Amazon and ask them to stop selling the app.