My morning scan of tech blogs revealed a post on Valleywag about the woman-owned porn company's sponsorship of the upcoming Girl Geek Dinner here in San Francisco.  I'm not surprised that the scampy Gawker property supports the dinner's tacky sponsor.  [side note:  co-sponsor Facebook, where are you?]

I am surprised, however, that Valleywag is letting the porn company founder get away with this gem: "I'm a tech vet, and I used
to be very similar — you want to strip your sexuality and just live in
your brain, and be a talented, smart individual so you can compete in a
male-dominated space. You become sexless — but why can't I be both? Why
can't I be beautiful and sexy and be smart?"

This is specious logic at best, and I think the women of Silicon Valley know it.  Heck, women around the world know it.  At least those who have been in the workforce for a while.

Since when did it become necessary for any woman to demonstrate her femininity by stripping off her clothes in public for pay?  This company may be trying to position itself as an agent for artists [their word for the women on their site], but we all know what they're selling.  And will the so-called artists achieve the same level of profit as the VCs and the founders for permitting themselves to be exploited?

Girl Geek Dinners, you're being used.  Just like the women who are being told that an element of liberation is using your power over your body to expose it for pay.  Go ahead and accept this company's sponsorship and convince yourselves that whatever any woman does as an entrepreneur is OK.  Go ahead and roll down that slippery slope.  You won't like what you find at the bottom.

By the way.  The above quote also made me laugh.  I've been fighting — and winning — the argument that a woman can be beautiful and sexy and smart for years.  I had hoped it would be over by now, by virtue of my own maturity and what I figured would happen in society as well. 

Never in my wildest nightmares did I expect that I would read what I did this morning from a person of my own gender.  But, I guess we have come a long way.  Women now get to live and smirk on the dark side of a free market, too. 

I don't think this is what Susan B Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt had in mind.