The New York Times stands by article mentioning Chinese women small fingers. The paper says Apple engineers privately talked about this

Comments

• shawn1122@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Young Chinese women have small fingers, and that has made them a valuable contributor to iPhone production because they are more nimble at installing screws and other miniature parts in the small device, supply chain experts said. In a recent analysis the company did to explore the feasibility of moving production to the United States, the company determined that it couldn’t find people with those skills in the United States, said two people familiar with the analysis who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

  nytimes.com/…/apple-iphone-trump-india-china.html

  They’re supposedly paraphrasing supply chain experts but they could definitely paraphrase better. It reads like a Reddit comment.

  source

  • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Maybe this is also a very subtle way of calling American workers fat?

    source
• MolecularCactus1324@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  My social studies teacher cited this 20 years ago as a major reason electronics manufacturing was done primarily in China and other Asian countries.

  source

  • shawn1122@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I would hope a social studies teacher would understand the pitfalls of Western orientalism and Western cultures obsession with describing other groups as ‘its’ rather than as whole persons.

    But if we’re going to objectify people, why don’t we get real technical about it. Why not move manufacturing to other east Asian countries? Even outside of East Asia, you can find many countries with less labor protections and large populations where you could select for millions of people with small hands. Why China? Anyone who is being intellectually honest knows that hand size was not the central reason.

    If this is widely accepted then Western culture has a long way to go when it comes to facing its history of racial objectification. Because this sounds less like a rationale and more like modern phrenology presenting itself as business and engineering acumen.

    source
• homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Y’know who else has little fingers?

  source

  • Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Image

    source
• SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I think the keyword here that might be being missed is “young” implying child labor.

  So as much as it’s probably just racism, it’s at least possible that it has more to do with them being children who are girls more than being Chinese specifically.

  The reason they can’t move it to the states being child labor laws.

  source

  • shawn1122@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The original article says women. Though its doubtful that children weren’t also employed.

    source
• MNByChoice@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If only there were tools that allowed large handed men to do delicate work with small parts.

  Lazy racists.

  source
• JcbAzPx@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It is a lie anyway. Apple favored China because they could pay next to nothing for the labor and didn’t have to worry about pesky safety rules. They’d have gone there even if the women had sausage fingers.

  source
• FauxPseudo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Does anyone else remember this fake commercial from a real life movie with actual brand names in it?

  Crazy People, Sony Commercial

  source
• raef@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It makes me feel a little better about myself seeing the New York Times communication department make a typo in a post

  source