The Apple Event Had One Female Presenter—and All Anyone Talked About Was Her Pink Coat
There was good news for women and bad news for women at Apple’s conference Tuesday. The good: A female executive took the stage. The bad: All anyone could talk about was her pink lace trench coat.
Almost immediately after Senior Vice President of Retail Angela Ahrendts took the stage (the only female presenter during the two hour event, by the way), Twitter erupted with commentary on her Burberry pink lace trench—some of it complimentary, some of it downright offensive. Either way, you’d hardly know Ahrendts was talking about the retail plan for one of the world’s most valuable brands.
https://twitter.com/nickle4urdreams/status/907653277113753601
Apple often touts itself as an inclusive and diverse company, but its onstage presence tends to be anything but. In fact, just a handful of women have ever been featured onstage at Apple’s many events to discuss or demo products, while dozens and dozens of white men continue to circle through.
Even when women do get the chance to represent the tech giant, they only get mere minutes to speak. As Mic reported in June, women got just 7 percent of the speaking time at Apple’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference 2017 keynote. Men spoke for approximately 117 minutes, while female speakers received just nine minutes of speaking time. Yikes.
Meanwhile, public support for more female leadership in the tech world is stronger than ever. As The Cut reported, social media lost its collective mind in 2016, when Bozoma Saint John, Apple Music’s Head of Global Consumer Marketing, took to the stage. It finally felt like Apple was representing its consumers with smart executives, no matter their gender.
We can certainly applaud women like Ahrendts rocking their personal style on a big day, but it’s important to remember that Silicon Valley is suffering from a devastating gender imbalance—one that Apple CEO Tim Cook has even admitted being a part of.
“Women are such an important part of the workforce,” Cook told the student body at Auburn University in April. “If STEM-related fields continue to have this low representation of women, then there just will not be enough innovation in the United States. That’s just the simple fact of it.”
While Cook may say he’s willing to push for women in tech, Business Insider reports that just 23 percent of employees in technical roles at Apple are women.
As for why tech is so egregiously failing women, Cook told Mashable in 2015, “I think it’s our fault — ‘our’ meaning the whole tech community. I think in general we haven’t done enough to reach out and show young women that it’s cool to do it and how much fun it can be.”