Indonesian tech media rates top female founders

Indonesian tech media Teknologi.id landed in hot water when it published a series of articles about Indonesian women in the tech industry that rated them based on factors that included physical looks. These people included startup founders, executives at leading local startups such as Go-Jek, Traveloka and Bukalapak to employees at global tech giants like Tesla and Google.

Published on December 1, 27, and 28, the three-part series included a short biography of the founders and executives, listing their career journey and achievements, before giving them scores on the following factors: Brain, Beauty, Popularity (on social media platforms), and Experience.

At the end, the article ranked the founders and executives based on who had the highest scores.

Each article contained profiles of five to six founders or executives.

By the time this article was published, the second part of the series had reached the top of the site’s trending articles.

Also Read: The startup world’s moments of ignominy; chronicling the sexual harassment cases that shamed the industry in 2017

Aulia “Llia” Halimatussadiah, the Storial.co and NulisBuku.com co-founder who was listed in the article, commented,

“For a tech media like Teknologi.id, I think there is no context of beauty rating in their article about women in technology.”

She had also shared the link to the article to encourage discussion about it.

The article had also received comments from Facebook users on her page, who are calling it “inappropriate” and “the lowest.”

TechNews has reached out to Teknologi.id for their comments on the issue and will update accordingly.

Basically everywhere in the world, women face discrimination, harassment, and objectification when working in the tech industry.

As recent as October 2018, the Tech News published a report on how the tech giant Google covered up sexual harassment cases by its executives.

The case led to a global walk-out by Google employees around the world, demanding for better ways to handle harassment cases.

In Southeast Asia, Cheryl Yeoh, Founding CEO of the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC), had also spoken up about being assaulted by 500 Startups Founder Dave McClure.