Woman Hair Drying

Critics attacked IBM for its Hack a Hair Dryer campaign that called for girls to get involved in science and engineering by asking them to imagine what they could do with a hairdryer (besides dry their hair). The video featured women in lab coats and a blow dryer forcing ping pong balls through a series of tubes, slides and funnels as part of complicated looking Rube Goldberg machines.

But in this case it also made for a terrible cultural message. Women who saw the video saw not an innocent hair dryer, but a tool of sexist oppression. IBM had wrapped science and engineering in girly girl trappings. Women and men on Twitter quickly began tweeting their disdain for the campaign. IBM apologized and took the campaign down.