On Friday 09 April, EC-Council pushed out a ‘women in security’ survey poll on LinkedIn with three abhorrently sexist answer options. As the information security industry rallied to criticize this action, EC-Council blocked those daring to challenge and the subsequent outcry has dominated industry Twitter feeds. Eleanor Dallaway investigates…
On Friday April 09, in (an ironic) bid to promote an upcoming women in security webinar, EC-Council published a survey question on LinkedIn. I’ve shared the original tweet (Figure 1) as you have to see it to believe it. They asked: “What according to you are the most common challenges faced by women in the cybersecurity domain?”. The multiple choice answers? A: “Only men can do this job”, B: “Women can’t handle this job”, C: “Women aren’t encouraged enough.”
We’ll get into the problematic (to say the least) answer choices shortly. What happened next is arguably just as shocking…
On seeing this question asked, many members of the infosec community called out this inexcusable survey question, responding to EC-Council with feedback and many calling for an apology, or at the very least, an explanation. Complaints were forthcoming, not just from women, but from everyone, united in disbelief and anger.
Wow, this can’t get any worse, right?
Wrong. On seeing the commotion and backlash, EC-Council responded by deleting and blocking those speaking out against them – but, from what I’ve personally seen and have heard from others, they only blocked women.
Or whoever thought this was a good idea, and managed the project.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Am I reading this wrong? It seems the answers are just examples of the reactions women get from men that are barriers to them. Like the answers are in quotation marks to show its supposed to be something women get said to them to discourage them from the field.
__________________ Sweating on the streets of Woking
KMC Community Forums
May 11th, 2021 07:05 PM
Agreed!
or I did. The wording is bad either way tbh.
