At SXSW Interactive in 2008, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed onstage by journalist Sarah Lacy.
The style of the interview was widely criticized for being shallow and flirtatious, and some people claim that this criticism was sexist.
- "I think there’s some degree of sexism," he said. "Because she’s a chick, her ingratiating nature is taken as ass-kissing. If it were some guy at Forbes asking the same questions in the same manner, we just would have thought he was drawing Mark out."
- "Was it sexism? As I noted, I saw as many women as men complaining. She did a few things that raised this spectre — a strange flirtatious style that a man could not use, and even the women commented on her choice of a short skirt with associated leg flashing while up on a raised stage. But SXSW has a very solid female population, far more than the typical computer conference, and would be less likely, in my opinion, to errupt in a populist sexist witch hunt than the the typical conference."