The reason I titled this Sexism in Tech was because the story was about tech companies dealing with sexism. I was trying to offer advice to companies who may encounter this int he future. It's not because I think all tech companies are sexist. It's just that I work for a tech company and feel more comfortable talking about this industry. Sorry for the confusion.

I didn't mean to say individual workers at HyperMac are responsible for the sexism, but rather that the company HyperMac most certainly is responsible, esp. those in charge of that company who made to call to run with this marketing.

Absolutely, my issue here is the "Sexism in Tech" headline. "Sexism in Hypermac" or "Sexism in marketing" would be far more appropriate I think.

Except HyperMac worked VERY closely with their marketing company. AND the vitriolic response was posted by HyperMac's CEO.

....Riiiight. That is probably why I said the headline that specifies HyperMac would have been a better choice...

It's not like this is an isolated incident though, it seems like every other week we see yet another tech company with a sexist ad campaign, sexist convention booth, or sexist job advertisement flyer.

I'm really still not seeing what any of these things have to do with tech.

Tech is only the thing that all of these incidents have in common if you include only tech companies in your survey.

Well, this is another example of tech company that not only sees nothing wrong with employing sexist marketing, but the CEO doubled down on it and attacked anyone who disagreed with what HyperMac did. We aren't saying that only tech companies do this kind of thing, but rather why is it that so many tech companies do this kind of thing at all and why is it that the CEO of this company can get away with this kind of sexism without the whole of the tech community calling that out?

Obviously, a site like hacker news will be reporting stories about tech companies far more often than other kinds of businesses.

I suppose I have never really agreed with the equivalence people on hacker news make between tech, and companies that do tech. To me, they are completely different topics. I don't consider CEOs my peers, no matter what sort of company they are in charge of. A jackass CEO of a "tech company" says absolutely nothing about tech to me.

I know what you mean. No matter where I work, big or small companies, I never really feel in the same peer group as CEOs. I am working in tech, though, so even if I don't feel like I'm a part of what they are doing I recognize that people outside of tech don't really see it that way.

As unfortunate as it is, businesses produce a lot of technology and hire most of the people working in tech on a daily basis. Even if I don't like it, those businesses are a part of the field I'm in and what they do affects me, esp. if they are contributing to alienating women who already have a hard time breaking into or working in tech.

Many readers of HN are in startups whose small teams have to deal with all aspects of running a tech company, from engineering to handling customer complaints like this. On the Keen IO blog we write about all aspects of starting a tech company, and many of our non-technical posts have been very popular here (e.g. negotiating salary, pitching).

It would be interesting to see the breakdown of HN readership. I always assumed a large portion are YC companies and other startups who would be able to relate to these kinds of posts.