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Comment by thangalin | Hacker News Reader

"If a professor makes a sexist joke, a female student might well find it so disturbing that she is unable to listen to the rest of the lecture. Suggestive pictures used in lectures on image processing are similarly distracting to the women listeners and convey the message that the lecturer caters to the males only. For example, it is amazing that the Lena pin-up image is still used as an example in courses and published as a test image in journals today." ~D. P. O'Leary, 1999

http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/oleary/faculty/node8.html

Alternatives:

http://sipi.usc.edu/database/database.php?volume=misc

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If you appease the complainers they will only find something new to complain about. They do not seek justice or a better world but only attention for themselves and complain simply for the joy of complaining.

I take offense in the proposed alternative pictures. There are lots of war related gear shown - military propaganda - potential disturbs pacifists. Also there is a pretty lady shown, too. (I actually did not get, why this is supposed to be sexist?)

Seriously, I doubt you can find any picture at all, where no person find reasons to be offended.

Bowl of fruit. Easy peasy. It's really not that hard to avoid using a photo from Playboy.

I would not be so sure about it. I am pretty sure, there are parents whose children have a (imagined or real) fructose malabsorption and therefore have to avoid fruits as unhealthy, or will investigate, that the fruits in the picture are from too far away, propagading a climate-harmful livestyle etc. etc.

And I bet most people did not know, that the picture in question is from Playboy, I did not. But still, so what?

It shows a attractive women in a slightly seductive pose. Is that really sexist? Why?

I find it disheartening that so many people object to changing a single picture.

I think this account by Maddie Zug [0] summaries most peoples objections to the image. Women just want to participate in tech, but the male dominated field already makes it hard enough, especially when images with a very sexual origin (again, it isn't the pretty woman, but the origin of the pretty woman) are used. It is that difficult to use another picture from the above database?

"I retired from modeling a long time ago. It’s time I retired from tech, too.” - Lena Söderberg

[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-playboy-centerfold...

[1]: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/How-a-Nude-Playboy-Photo...

I personally think the Lenna image has transcended it's origin and is to me not more sexist than, say, an antique nude statue. But if people are bothered by this - if they are weirded out or feel even a bit uncomfortable - then it is a no-brainer to just take a different picture!

Might I suggest using an image of used tampons and spatters of menstrual blood as a standard. Surely no one is disturbed by something so natural and none of the boy who like to play with their woodys under the desk while giggling over centrefold pictures will be discouraged from continuing with the class when forced to look at it.

How is Lenna's picture disturbing or suggestive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna#Criticism

That doesn't answer the question.

To elaborate, the wikipedia article cites some organizations moving away from Lena, but there's only one source calling things disturbing and suggestive, and that source is the exact same quote that's being questioned. Linking to that is not a useful answer. It does nothing to explain why that particular quote is correct.

What do you mean by "correct"? That Dianne O'Leary said it? It's up on her pages, here: http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/oleary/faculty/node8.html

If you mean "correct" as in "true", it's an opinion. I don't know what I could post that would sway you on a matter of opinion.

> What do you mean by "correct"?

Sorry I'll reword. The question asked was "How is Lenna's picture disturbing or suggestive?"

So don't focus on the word "correct" as much as the "explain why". They asked "how" and they did not get an answer.

You linked to a page that doesn't help answer that question, because it only has the same quote.

Lots of things are opinions. But you can justify an opinion, explain an opinion.

If I was going to argue against using Lena, I'd say things about the context of the image and why that's a problem. Any problems with the 512x512 image itself are much less obvious, and I think it's fair to want a more detailed argument on that front.

>The use of the image has produced controversy because Playboy is "seen (by some) as being degrading to women

That's pretty straightforward, from the link I posted, and not the same quote or person.

It's straightforward but it's not the same argument.

They didn't ask why not to use Lena, they were asking about that specific quote.

Heh. "How is Lenna's picture disturbing or suggestive?"

What heh?

There is a big difference between "the association with playboy is disturbing" and "the picture is disturbing".

The O'Leary quote seems to be talking entirely about the picture, the 512x512 one.

You've given a lot of resources for the former, but they were asking about the latter.

And while "suggestive" is pretty subjective, "woman with bare shoulder" is not self-evidently suggestive.

You're being overly argumentative, hence the "Heh".

For example, you said "If I was going to argue against using Lena, I'd say things about the context of the image"

Then summarily dismissed a quote about the context of the image. It's funny.

I dismissed that quote because we're not arguing about whether Lena should be used or not. That was never the question in this entire chain of comments.

The question is ""How is Lenna's picture disturbing or suggestive?"

The context is relevant to that, as you said yourself.

The wikipedia link gives some of that context. I provided one example. Cropping out the nudity doesn't change the context.

> The question is ""How is Lenna's picture disturbing or suggestive?"

Right. Which is a subset of the possible reasons to not use it. Everything about playboy is outside that subset, and does not answer the question, despite being a reason not to use it.

Much like "It's a violation of copyright" would also be a reason not to use the image that doesn't answer the question.

The full photo it was cropped from has her posing mostly nude:

http://www.lenna.org/full/len_full.html

While the test image itself doesn't show much, the fact that it originated from Playboy magazine is widely known – and presumably has contributed to the image's popularity. It's a sort of in-joke: you can't understand it just by seeing it, you need the context. But it's an in-joke that recalls sexist tropes.

> it's an in-joke that recalls sexist tropes

Sex-related sure, but why do you think that's sexist? Because playboy discriminated against male models?

We could use David Michelangelo (in it's full glory) and i bet not a single Man would be disturbed (maybe quite the opposite)...problem he's mostly white.

It's a shame that a ~naked body is "disturbing" for US-Females.

BTW: Why so many human killing machines as alternatives? I feel offended now.

The sources for D.P. O'Leary's references are all dead.

The links are dead, but the citations are valid. Here are working links:

J. Gutbezahl, How Negative Expectancies and Attitudes Undermine Females' Math Confidence and Performance: A Review of the Literature. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED380279

E. Spertus, Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists? https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/7040

So I looked into these links. On [3] there is no data that backs this quote of hers: "Suggestive pictures used in lectures on image processing are similarly distracting to the women listeners and convey the message that the lecturer caters to the males only."

The 30 (!) year old Spertus paper even states that most of the data collected was anecdotal.

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