Then she comes on -- full screen of her face. Pale skin, long tumbled red hair - she looks at you at an angle and you hear her sultry whisper, "Ria..." Click. The sound of a camera shutter and we see Ria from the waist up in a blue sheath with pencil-thin straps. A nanosecond later and Ria's gone, replaced by neon green, a beebopping disco beat, and the Flash text ... "Rackmount.....Integrated....Appliances." The frenzied frames stop with a final whispered "Ria" and one last camera click.
Sorry folks. Turns out RIA is a high-density server, a black box designed and marketed by the Crystal Group. And what marketing! After the Flash intro, the screen stills into black and offers a menu with the following choices: "Meet RIA," "How RIA stacks up," "Getting connected with RIA," "RIA has it all together," "Contact RIA," and "You'll never forget RIA." Still sounds like a cheap dating service. Click on "Meet RIA" and the bright purple dialog box that pops up says "She's a development platform. She's an Internet appliance. She can be anything you want her to be."
Wait. Now I'm confused. RIA's a woman, right? No, she's an Internet appliance. No, wait. According to the Crystal Group....hmmmm... a woman IS an Internet appliance. Or, is RIA a black box that will "be anything you want her to be"? Oh, no. I'm confused again. Can a machine be a prostitute?
Let's leave this metaphysical mess and go back to the menu. Drag your mouse over "How RIA stacks up" and sex talk gives way to tech talk: "A side-by-side comparison with 1U computers." The rest of the menu offers tech sound bytes until you reach "You'll never forget RIA," which prompts the pop-up dialog of "Get your FREE RIA poster." And when you click on this amazing offer, you'll find more astonishing text: "This full-length RIA poster will brighten any office. Just don't let your boss see it. He may try to steal it for himself." Just when you thought women were making headway in IT businesses, Crystal Group reminds you that bosses are men who like pin-up girls.
I first heard about RIA on the systers email discussion list for women in computer science. Founded in 1987 by Dr. Anita Borg (innovative computer scientist and founder of the Institute for Women and Technology at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center), systers offers a great resource for a wide variety of women in IT. Several of these women were not happy with RIA and they let the Crystal Group know.
When I first visited the site, the Flash intro included the same female voice that whispers "Ria" also saying, "Click me. Click me, now. You know you want to." Perhaps Crystal Group knuckled under public pressure and got rid of those lines. But what about the rest of it?
In a response to one of the protesting e-mails, the CEO of Crystal Group replied that sex is used in advertising all the time. So what's the big deal? No, he wasn't about to change the ad. And, lest we jump to the conclusion that all men are pigs, a quick look at Crystal's marketing department shows several women as top execs.
A lot of the talk on the systers list centered around women as consumers, women as IT professionals - women with the clout in their businesses to boycott Crystal products. Threaten Crystal with loss of sales and they'll change their advertising soon enough.
This conversation took place on systers in mid-March 2000. We're in the middle of September and nothing's changed. Except that RIA no longer asks to get clicked.
Still, as a professor teaching a women's studies class called "Cybergrrls and Wired Women: Gender & Information Technology," I couldn't have asked for a better example of what I call "sextech" advertising -- even if reading RIA as sexist advertising is just too easy. I prefer a good challenge in my critical exercises. But simply scoffing at the heavy-handed marketing and dismissing the Crystal Group ad is something I do at my own peril, because RIA teaches valuable lessons, if we're willing to take her seriously.
first published: september 2000
last revised: 9 august 2001
webspinner: s.d.shattuck