Apple’s iPhone 7 keynote only featured about eight minutes of stage time for women, but after being confronted about its lack of diversity, the company says its definition of the subject is a lot more flexible than normal apparently.
According to an Apple spokesman, both Canadians and British citizens should be counted as a sign of how diverse the iPhone maker is, even though most of the people of color and women that shared the stage don’t actually work for Apple.
“There was a lot of diversity on that stage that you don’t recognize,” an Apple PR rep told Mic in an email. “Unrecognized by you was the fact that we had a gay man, two African-Americans (Instagram and Nike), a Canadian and a British woman, Hannah Catmur.”
Diversity in Silicon Valley
Like many Silicon Valley companies, Apple has pledged to be more open about its hiring practices and workplace diversity. While the company’s latest diversity report shows Cupertino is making progress, Apple’s U.S. workforce remains mostly white and male.
That can be especially obvious during high-profile events like last Wednesday’s iPhone 7 unveiling in San Francisco, which activists and journalists alike might view with a stopwatch in hand.
In a story headlined “Apple is committed to diversity, but it fails on the biggest stage in tech,” Mic reported that “men spoke for over 99 minutes” at the event, while women spoke for eight.
That report prompted the email from Apple. In it, the PR guy (whose name was not printed by Mic) also claims Apple has made more progress than any other tech company in its hiring of African-Americans and Latinos over the last three years. They just don’t get stage time because the company’s leadership is dominated by old white dudes.
Apple tried to keep the email private by writing “off the record” at the top without reaching an agreement with the journalist beforehand.
You can read the entire email below:
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
12 responses to “Apple’s interpretation of diversity includes Canadians”
Good. Sounds like they got the definition of diversity right.
1) Hiring someone based on the color of their skin isn’t diversity, it’s textbook racism.
2) That GD GIF is making me sick to my stomach, so thanks for that. What’s a page view without an epileptic seizure right?
The problem stems from the Government, since THEY have to do it, they expect everyone else has to do it. Personally, if I was the CEO, it would be based on education, experience, talent and communication skills, which is how it should be. PERIOD.
I worked for a company that hired people that spoke a different language and these are highly technical positions that are interacting with the customer and they can’t speak English for beans. It was hard to deal with, because any time one talks about technical details about a product or something related, people have to fully understand, otherwise it could very jeopardize a very expensive project.
it’s hard for me to tell the manager that we have a language barrier with certain employees as they might see me as a complainer and racist, when it’s not being racist. It’s called learn how to speak ENGLISH if the country you live in SPEAKS ENGLISH. That means no Ebonics, no French, no Mandarin Chinese, no this or that. If they are bi-lingual, great, I’m all for that, but these people couldn’t speak English, other than “hi”, “yes”, or “no”. And their writing English wasn’t that great either. How can I do my job if the people they force me to work with can’t speak English?
The tech industry has ALWAYS been male dominated. It probably will always be male dominated. Why? Most women aren’t interested in technology like men. It’s like the auto industry. How many women are interested in grease, car engines, etc. compared to men? Technology is just very male oriented.
Selling women’s clothing, accessories, make up, hair styling has a lot more women because more women are more interested in that stuff than men. Go to Macy’s or Nordstrom’s and go to the women’s clothing/shoe department/accessories and make up sections. Women is what you typically see, not men.
I’m not suggesting that women can’t become interested in technology or be competent in that field, but it’s just one of those industries that typically attracts more men than women. It’s just been that way and probably will never change all that much.
Hiring people based on their race, color or gender is deliberate, intentional racism and genderism. However, to socialists and liberals it’s not viewed that way–it’s being “diverse”. What I heartily protest is the ASSUMPTION that Apple’s majority white male staff was purposely hired due to racism and genderism. In this age of political correctness and “fair to all” liberal thinking, if you don’t have a certain quota of women, gays, blacks, Latinos, Asians and any other minority group who feels they’ve been left out or persecuted, you’re being racist and genderist.
A company should hire ONLY on training and ability, not on sex, race or any other point. By demanding that a company hire a quota of women, gays, blacks, Asians, Latinos, etc. it automatically creates a situation where a person of inferior ability will get a job because they’re specifically not white and not male! How more racist and sexist can you get?!
Get over yourselves. No racism or discrimination here.
Oh how I wish they would just stop whining already. Stop distracting Apple from building awesome products, idiots.
A Canadian though, eh?
It will come to an end when the CEO of that company wants it to come to an end. If Apple wants a diverse workforce, there is nothing you can do about it you little fascist pr…k.
Your comment is like music to my ears brother. Have a pleasant evening and God Bless You for speaking the truth to these bewildered people.
It’s so hilarious how some insecure idiots are ranting about the fact that women and minorities are being hired, get promoted etc.
Can’t stand competition, eh ? All the best from Canada.
How is diversity a strength? People whom ache for diversity are the true race baiters. They only want diversity in ethnicity and not diversity in intellect. Empirically in every facet of life diversity is a massive failure,