Last night I tweeted that I thought Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy.com, the ubiquitous domain name registrar, was a sexist pig. It might be harsh (and will do nothing to dispel the popularly held belief that I'm a hard-line feminazi), but I stand by it.

These were my tweets:

I'm a little creeped out by Bob Parsons of GoDaddy (clearly a sexist pig), but they've better service than most registrars out there.

and:

...why does the GoDaddy site have to be spattered with sexist homilies from it's CEO's personal blog? What on Earth is the relevance?

This was Bob Parsons' response:

@hawaiikaos2 A sexist pig? Wow Katharine! I'm really not such a bad guy. I do appreciate your kind words about our service. We do try.

And below are some of the things the annoy the shit out of me and prompt to the conclusion that Mr. Parsons is sexist:

Using the word "chick" to describe a woman, while a slightly affectionate sort of pejorative, is still a pejorative. At best, it means that Mr. Parsons is stuck living in the 80's when it was still somewhat socially acceptable and in common parlance, and at worst, it means he objectifies women. The addition of "HOT" leads me to believe that he is trending towards the objectification side of that narrow spectrum.

To his credit (or perhaps to some underling's credit who has better sense), there is also the "viewer discretion advised" stamp on the ad. But it begs the question, why is the ad there in the first place? The obvious answer of course is to drive some traffic to Mr. Parsons' blog. This doesn't seem like a wholly unreasonable idea until you consider how unconventional it is when you view GoDaddy in relationship to other companies that dominate a particular industry. In fact the only company I can think of that bleats about it's CEO unremittanty is in fact GoDaddy.

As a customer, I really don't give a crap about what the CEO is up to (unless it's Microsoft, which I ty my best to avoid anyway). I want to go in, get something specific accomplished, and leave. I don't want to linger and be subjected to someone's personal life philosphy, no matter how obliquely it is presented (and GoDaddy presents Bob Parsons rather acutely rather than obliquely). I do in fact support Mr. Parsons' right to free speech. On his blog I think he should be free to write and post whatever he wants. But should this carry over to a corporate website that has a diverse audience? I mean this is marketing 101: know your audience. Yet GoDaddy comes off as marketing itself solely to fratboy NASCAR fans.

I think the tone of the site is meant to be cheeky and unconventional, which is fine, whatever. But can't this be accomplished without demeaning and objectifying women (who are also customers)?

Here's some more evidence. In the legal matter on the website is listed:

Go Daddy is renowned for its controversial Super Bowl® commercials, the comely and accomplished Go Daddy Girls™...

Ah yes, the Super Bowl commercials. I've personally never seen them, mainly because I wouldn't be caught dead watching a Super Bowl (football is less interesting to me than watching grass grow). But every year there is some news generated by the controversy, and perhaps it is indeed a clever way to make the site more notorious than it already is. But again, does this alienate potential and current customers (who like me, will happily jump ship when some other solution comes along that is equally reliable)? Is this becoming conduct of a company that leads its field?

Finally, we come to the issue of the Go Daddy Girls™. First, I take issue with the use of the word "girls". Using the juvenile word to describe women is offensive and demeaning. We are still less than 100 years removed from a society that equated women the same status as children. True, men are increasingly called "boys" affectionately, but really do we need more of either in society? This is all also closely related to the issue of "sissy" and "buddy". The first meanings of these words are equal as "sister" and "brother", but the second meanings are "coward" and "friend" respectively (you could also compare "bitch" and "bastard" which are roughly equal in first meaning, but carry a negative connotation in second meaning for the former, and a postive connotation in second meaning for the latter). Female pejoratives almost always are more negative than male pejoratives.

Second, why bother with what are essentially cheerleaders for a website? How does this help anyone register a domain name? Maybe solely having say Danica Patrick (who has definitely made inroads for gender equality) as the spokesperson of the company makes sense, but why is every, for lack of a better term, mascot for the site have to be some physically attractive woman? Where are the spokesmen? Why are they excluded (and I'm a humanist, not just a feminist)? Of course I already know the answer. Men tend to respond positively to attractive women (the whole sex sell thing), while women tend to be ambivalent. There have been studies on this, and it's supposedly hardwired into our brains (though apparently, not mine). But this is still a question of relevance. Does there need to be that much sex on an a well-trafficked site having nothing to do with sex, and which has a broad, diverse, and global audience?