Apple has just concluded its big Thursday media event, at which it unveiled new iPads, a new iMac and a few other things. And it once again managed to conduct the entire show without a single female speaker.
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One of the only women that appeared on stage at the event was in the video demonstration of the new iPad Air’s photography capabilities—and she was taking a photo, turned away from the camera.
Considering Apple kicked off the event by patting itself on the back for “record” sales of its new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, you’d think the company’s head of retail, Angela Ahrendts, might have made a fitting appearance. Ahrendts might even have had something to say about Apple Pay, the company’s new mobile-payment system, since Apple’s retail empire is an internal customer for both in-app and in-person payments.
No such luck.
Making matters worse, two male developers took to the stage to show off their iPad applications—Pixelmator and Stupeflix. I’m not saying these applications aren’t great, but with 675,000 applications for iPad in the App Store, surely there are some created by developers who could’ve added diversity to this event. (The only two women on stage at any WWDC event in the past were giving app demos, so it makes sense to welcome more.)
https://twitter.com/selenalarson/status/522814813244641280
Apple, along with other prominent tech companies, has made significant strides to improve diversity in the workplace. In addition to updating its executive profile page to highlight female and minority company leaders, it also released diversity data that suggests it has some work to do.
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While these efforts will help, if Apple is really serious about improving diversity, it should start at huge events like this. Show people around the world that the people who make Apple products and services look like the people who use Apple products and services.
Lead image courtesy of Apple
