Samsung Puts Women in Their Place During Galaxy S IV Launch

The Galaxy S IV launch event verged on offensive when the emcee used a group of bridesmaids to illustrate all the woman things the phone can do, like cooking and weight loss and wedding planning — oh my.

The launch event for Samsung's new Samsung Galaxy S IV phone verged on offensive when the emcee used a group of bridesmaids (pictured above) to illustrate all the woman things the phone can do, like cooking and weight loss and wedding planning — oh my. For example, Samsung used the gaggle in heels to introduce S Health, which, as the name suggests, uses sensors to monitor your health. As one of the women sipping wine on stage squealed, women would like this because... "weight!" And that was just the end of it. At one point, a burly man distracted a woman who used one of the photo features to take a pic of him. Then, he took off his shirt. In another demo, the women talked about how the air gesture controls would come in handy while cooking because of... "sticky fingers." (Possible double entendre sex pun there?) At one point the phrase "while the women are cooling off" got thrown in there. Sigh.

This kind of alienating-to-women stuff happens all the time at tech events and shouldn't be taken as a surprise. And yet, it is a surprise. While it might seem like a way to draw in female customers, it's just another reminder that tech is a dude's club.

We're not the only ones to notice, either: At least a few on Twitter have voiced similar opinions, with one person even saying that Samsung is losing customers thanks to this fiasco. We knew the event would be bombastic, but this is just over-the-top in a bad way.