How Apple Messed Up Big Time at This Year's Event

Another keynote from Apple and another letdown as the company had a total of three women on stage at today's special event announcing new products. That's also not counting the first woman who appeared on stage: a female from a photo that Adobe Director of Design Eric Snowden photoshopped from having a serious face to a smile.

Immediately after the demo took place, people on Twitter were outraged at the blatant oversight from Apple. It was clear that the company didn't realize beforehand that it's pretty problematic to photoshop a woman to smile. For many women, being told to smile is a form of harassment, much of which comes just from walking down the street. It is also yet another reminder of how men tend to want women to exist in a certain manner solely to please them.

It's not a complete surprise that this happened to Apple at a live event. The company's most recent diversity report showed that its employees are overwhelmingly male and white, with 69 percent of its overall workforce identifying as men. If you compare the data to 2014, you'll find that demographics have barely changed. Many have also pointed to this data as to why the initial launch of HealthKit did not include a way to track reproductive health — it only happened this past June. After all, if there are barely any women in your company, how would you even know that this feature should've been included in the first stages of a product?

Back to Apple conferences — only two women spoke on stage back in June at WWDC and only three did at today's event that included more than 10 presenters. For a company as large and influential as Apple, the time is long past for it to continue making mistakes that ignore what might be the largest issue facing the technology industry. As a female technology reporter, it's also painful to watch.

Apple, we know you can do better. But hopefully it won't take several years before it finally happens.