ASUS believes a woman with a computer is better than a woman with a kitten

Welcome to another episode of Social Media Managers Who Are Having a Bad Day. On todays episode we present Asus‘ assertion that a “cute girl” with a cat worse than a “sophisticated lady” with a Zenbook 3(tm) laptop. On the surface this argument might be a little specious – after all, cats are pretty cool – but what is Asus really saying?

First, they are suggesting that women who like cats are not sophisticated and in order to become sophisticated they must own a Zenbook. A bold assertion, to be fair, and not completely untrue given that sophistication requires an education that a laptop could provide.

But we must also note the first line: “Attention all men! Who would you rather date?” This suggests that women with cats are less worthy of attention, that laptops can define a woman’s worth, and, in a roundabout way, a woman’s laptop could be a guy’s if he plays his cards right.

From this point we can pose two questions: Is a woman worthy of more romantic interest if she holds a cat rather than a computer? And, more importantly, is Asus serious with this crap?

In the end this is a blip on social media and Asus has already deleted the Tweet. But it’s dumb stuff like this that keeps young women out of STEM and makes guys feel its OK to say women should use their initials when submitting tech resumes because it gives them a leg up over “sophisticated” guys who have both cats and laptops and have never been told that their sexual worth is based on owning either.