Isn't the term "Babes" demeaning?

The "IT's Million $ Babes" name was chosen to confront and expose two critical errors in thinking — (1) that women can only be "babes" or (2) that to be taken seriously they have to deny acknowledgement of their femininity. These are merely two faces of the same fundamental error — an assumption that there is a dichotomy between career and self, work and person, mind and body.

The purpose behind the award is not only to honour women of accomplishment in the IT arena, and not only to provide positive role models that will encourage girls to seek out careers in IT — but also to show that one's gender is neither a barrier to any career one wishes to choose, nor something to be denied or hidden.

No attempt to encourage girls and women into IT can work by evading reality, and the reality is that girls are female and do care about their femininity. One of the aims of the IT's Million $ Babes Awards is to show girls that there needs be no conflict between what they are as a person and what they choose as a career. That they can be powerful executives, while remaining women who are as feminine as they wish to be.

Does a certain type of man look at all women as "babes"? - YES they do. Will denying the femininity of women in the workplace prevent this? - NO it will not. The proper response to such attitudes is the untouched contempt that should come naturally from any woman of self esteem who encounters it.

If these awards encourage wide-ranging debate of these issues, then we will consider them a complete success. As for whether the use of the term "babes" in the name is demeaning: the calibre of the women who have accepted the award is living proof that it is not.