As a community we are not really a suit and tie sort of affair. Whether that means a bikini, a nice cotton henley or your favorite cyberpunk cosplay - who cares?
In a similar vein, if I wanted to make a YouTube channel that appeals to true hackers, I might stop shaving and showering for a few days and wear the hoodie. That sounds like a great marketing strategy to stand out from the boring suit & tie crowd ;)
EDIT: Marketing agencies already beat me to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcLsNOMqyD8
One of the traditional hacker values is personal agency - doing things because you like them, not to fit in or sell.
In general we need to take people at their word and not supply our own beliefs. We diminish ourselves when we minimize the agency of others.
You will have a difficult time navigating the real world if you approach public personas with such a trusting approach.
"I just want you to know I’m not a pedophile" Jeffrey Epstein
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Bill Clinton
"I'm a benevolent dictator." Harvey Weinstein
In my opinion, Wu is a public persona, too, because the majority of her income directly depends on the public's perception of her. Also, her influencer marketing with the Creality printer brand is probably conditioned on her presenting in a certain way. So regardless of whether she dresses that way for guys or for girls, I'd argue that my point still stands: She made a calculated decision to publicly present herself in that way and given that she appears to be highly intelligent, she was probably aware of the consequences (including male attention) beforehand.
In case this hasn't been explained to you yet: Someones fashion choices are not an excuse to behave inappropriately or give them unwanted advances. If she wants to dress that way and someone behaves inappropriately towards her, the issue isn't with her.
Also, calling herself sexy and wearing a bikini is specifically aimed at males, so no defense of her should include the phrase "white male". Of course most people paying attention to anything she does are male--she's doing that deliberately!
Finally, the Halo Effect is a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect
I think this part of her complaint with western media is legit. They all just assume that she’s doing it for the views. Ignore the gay and lesbian scene in Asia entirely to come up with a fake narrative. Completely ignore that she has done some good work just because of the way she looks. Then go on and on about inclusivity and LGBT rights.
Even Adam Savage’s Tested.com seems to have snubbed her. They requested a few CR-30s be sent over for review but then <some shenanigans> And the review never came and I guess they never sent them back to her.
Calling yourself "sexy" and dressing in a bikini appeals to males, and males greatly outnumber lesbians, and that will lead to lots of male twitter followers who would not follow her if all she had were her actions and words. She can't not know this stuff.
You can argue that she isn't deliberately appealing to men, but at some point, "in the knowledge that" is indistinguishable from "deliberately" by anyone who can't read minds.
But what does that have to do with the work she does? And why is that her problem? Given the snubs she’s received, I’d argue that her appearance actually costs her. If she looked more like the western ideal of a female lesbian hacker she’d get more work and sponsorships.
She's doing something that makes it look like she's gaining fans for reasons unrelated to the quality of her work. People will be skeptical of the work of a person who trades on something other than her work.
After all this time the media, popular personalities, maker communities that espouse inclusivity didn’t once look at her work? Got the first mass produced Infinite Z printer to market - still skeptical? Got Chinese companies to comply to open source licenses - still skeptical? Makes a bunch of stuff - still skeptical?
Naomi certainly does seem right that all these communities are judging her on her appearance.
Women who are attracted to women exist. It's possible to think that yourself is sexy without desiring external attention. What you're doing here is projecting and victim-blaming.
I think that honestly underestimates the amount of work that goes into being a consistently successful tech-themed content creator: Wearing a bikini isn't enough to brave competition and short-lived attention spans in that space. Being attractive helps in media, for sure, but you can't go on without putting work into the essential content for very long.
P: "you really only have to read the comments in pretty much every thread about her to figure that one out. I can't even imagine what her inbox must look like."
And to P I'd like to reply that I agree with GP: It appears to me that she has voluntarily joined fighting the anti- white/male fight.