The Digital Pinay Joke

Focusing on current issues worth mentioning in this blogspot, have all of you heard about the Digital Pinay contest? If not yet, take a look at my friend Sean's blog about this, as well as Sacha's (a cyberspace colleague way back when there was no such thing as the internet) blogs about it.

This may come a little late as the PCS has already decided to amend the "Beauty Pageant" part that caused the whole issue in the first place, but anyway...

I completely agree with Sacha's initial reaction/opinion. While I have nothing against beauty pageants per se, I have never really seen the whole point of proclaiming one person, either a man or woman, more "beautiful" over the other contestants. Even for the international pageants like Miss Universe or Miss Earth or whatever, while they try to make a theme and add big points for talent, personality and the like, it will always be beauty that is the first item on the list of appeals to consider. But then again, you expect that from beauty pageants, right?

Now, when you hear about a contest to find a woman who best embodies the skills and values of the IT industry, I really REALLY doubt that the beauty criteria would come to mind right away. I would be more interested in how she works, how she talks to her bosses and clients, how she manages her time between work and family, how deep is her knowledge of today's technology, how up-to-date she is with the industry, how her personality affects the people she works with, how this and how that.

It doesn't really matter what her vital statistics are, right? I mean, she could be an overweight, vertically-challenged woman managing a demanding career, a husband and maybe 5 kids. But she could be the epitome of a Digital Pinay, and looking her over just because she doesn't fit the beauty criteria would be just plain stupidity.

I applaud Sacha for her efforts in turning about the PCS criteria for this contest. I can't wait to see how things turn out.









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