IBM Asks Women In Tech To Hack Hair Dryers, Women Tweet Back To Tell IBM It’s Not The 1950s

Looks like IBM needs to reengineer what it thinks about women. A tweet went out on IBM’s official Twitter feed asking women in tech to, I kid you not, “Join the #HackAHairDryer experiment.”

Not hack computer software, math problems or something of social impact – a beauty product. According to IBM’s Twitter account, that’s “what matters in science” to women.

But do something dumb on social media and ye shall receive a proper thwacking.

https://twitter.com/cinnamaldehyde/status/673718946353168384

Hundreds of Twitter users immediately began responding to IBM’s tweet with some great retorts to the sexist suggestion that women with their lady brains are most interested in switching up the hair dryer, instead of anything else that is not about their looks.

https://twitter.com/joalabaster/status/673737520920662016

https://twitter.com/kav_p/status/673737708410310656

Not even the accompanying video does a good job of involving women. Instead it stars the mighty hair dryer, barely showing half the heads of women, hair flowing while the dryer blows at their faces.

We’re sure IBM’s marketing team thought this was a great way to get the ladies involved. Big Blue launched a campaign earlier this year to highlight more women in STEM. But the tone-deaf campaign backfired in a big way, with some hilarious results.

How did something like this slip through marketing? A source told us there weren’t enough women on the team. IBM told TechCrunch, “The videos were part of a larger campaign to promote STEM careers. It missed the mark for some and we apologize. It is being discontinued.”

Perhaps the company will realize how important lady brains are for more than just a hair dryer next time.