UPDATE: Dell has issued an apology.
Christiane Vejlø writes about attending a Dell corporate event in Denmark which was hosted by Mads Christensen, a "lifestyle speaker" who sounds like Copenhagen's answer to Rush Limbaugh: a troll known for doing routines about how women don't belong in the workplace (and worse).
From Vejlø's account of the evening:
“The IT business is one of the last frontiers that manages to keep women out. The quota of women to men in your business is sound and healthy” he says.
“What are you actually doing here?” he adds to the few women who are actually present in the room.
Dell’s moderator continues talking about his two Rolex watches and he then presents the next speaker from Intel. After the break Mads Christensen shares with us his whole “show” about the bitchy women who want to steal the power in politics, boards and the home.
“Science” he calls it and mentions that all the great inventions come from men. “We can thank women for the rolling pin,” he adds.
And then the moderator of the day finishes of by asking all (men) in the room to promise him that they will go home and say, “shut up bitch!”.
Here's his website. I do understand that some argue that schtick is self-parody in the vein of Stephen Colbert, but hey, this guy is no Stephen Colbert. And showcasing that sort of comedy material at a corporate event is a strange choice for Dell to make—unless they're in the business of alienating customers.
Dell has since apologized:
Dell apology regarding insensitive comments about women from Mads Christensen made at a recent @Dell event: del.ly/6018rX94
— Dell(@Dell) May 14, 2012
A related analysis is here.
(thanks, Nadya Lev and Mike Monteiro; photo via elektronista.dk)
