Optus’s website has always been one of the worst in existence, but we never knew it was sexist. But apparently it was, with a glitch not only refusing females to use the title ‘Dr’, but doing so with a message that clearly stated the title didn’t match the gender. UPDATE: The glitch apparently blocks both male and female doctors.
Doctor Rachel Cook discovered the glitch on the Optus rewards website and took the issue to Twitter. Naturally, wild online outrage ensued, Optus offered a formal apology and tweaked the message, although didn’t actually change the fact that women can’t register as Doctors.
I’m sure Optus will fix this issue in the very near future, but it’s interesting that something like this could even happen.
So if you’re a female Doctor hoping to sign up for Optus’ Rewards program, maybe give it a few days…
UPDATE: Optus sent us this statement about the glitch:
Clare Gill, General Manager, Corporate and Government Affairs said:
· Following a system upgrade to our rewards platform, an unforeseen technical coding issue is generating an error message when the title ‘Dr’ is entered during the registration process.
· The issue is not gender specific.
· Optus apologises if this has caused any inconvenience or offence, this was never our intention.
· We are working to have the issue resolved as a matter of urgency.
[Optus via Courier Mail]