Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse • Hacker News Board

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#21

Post by blhack » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 8:58 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #18

onemorepassword wrote: post #6

Seems like a hard problem to solve. Sending people to do product promotional is perfectly legitimate depending on the type of event. Even if you weren't deliberately targeting a male audience with attractive females (although I'm sure that was the case), odds are that if you were recruiting for that kind of work 90% would be outgoing and attractive young women. Just like recruiting programmers will get you 90% geeky…

Lets make it really, really simple. 1. Do not hire eye candy as eye candy. Of either sex. Dressed up or dressed down. 2. Product promotion staff should be clearly labeled as such.

Good luck with that first one. This isn't tech, this is every business since the beginning of business.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#22

Post by blhack » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 8:59 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #8

I can't imagine how frustrating that must be. But I hate the concept of giving up fighting for yourself. Why not put a few people in their place? If that's just not in your nature, fair enough; but I say make a few guys feel like idiots by stepping up to the plate with your expertise. If they don't like it, that's their problem. And if that fails, I like davidrobert's idea as well -- maybe wear a shirt that has a rea…

Got my HN shirt a couple of days ago, wearing it right now! Hooray!

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#23

Post by jblz » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 8:59 PM UTC

If I'm understanding correctly, the author would prefer it if non-technical female expo floor workers were scantily-clad so she would be less likely to be assumed by other conference-goers to be non-technical herself..? I'm sorry, but I find that pretty offensive.

I don't claim to know what it's like to be a woman in a heavily male-dominated field (or just your de facto patriarchy, for that matter), but I also don't assume anyone I'm talking to at a conference has any reason to believe I possess any sort of prowess or authority without my convincing them of such even while donning my geekiest T-shirts.

More importantly, I assume anyone representing a product or service at a show is knowledgeable about its inner-workings until they give me some reason to believe otherwise regardless of their gender or attire.

While I appreciate that it is often difficult dealing with misogyny at conferences, I think it's unfair to lump a proper PR employee in with a model in a Princess Leia slave bikini who knows nothing about the product.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#24

Post by Tichy » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 9:00 PM UTC

Since in general few women are developers, I rather doubt the hiring of pr women has any bearing on the situation. If it is really so frustrating, maybe dressing accordingly would alleviate the pain - don't know, carry a Linux book, a T- Shirt that says "no, I won't fix your computer", or something like that.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#25

Post by iy56 » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 9:01 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #15

saraid216 wrote: post #3

I wish we had more men who dressed up as booth babes. Don't we have enough body builders in the game industry yet?

I just hired a split of both genders for the booth of a client at an event next week. Not sure if it's a coincidence that no-one else around me thinks of doing that and that I'm gay, or not..

Even if you hire a 50/50 split, it doesn't solve the problem because the ratio in conference attendees is far from even. The conditional probabilities still lead to the conclusion the article complains about.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#26

Post by scott_s » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 9:01 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #8

I can't imagine how frustrating that must be. But I hate the concept of giving up fighting for yourself. Why not put a few people in their place? If that's just not in your nature, fair enough; but I say make a few guys feel like idiots by stepping up to the plate with your expertise. If they don't like it, that's their problem. And if that fails, I like davidrobert's idea as well -- maybe wear a shirt that has a rea…

People who want to do their work don't want to spend time "putting people in their place." And once you do, you haven't gained much - there's still many other interactions throughout the day, and are you going to put them all in their place? That's the point, and the frustration: she wants to spend her effort talking about technical things.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#27

Post by onemorepassword » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 9:01 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #13

onemorepassword wrote: post #6

Seems like a hard problem to solve. Sending people to do product promotional is perfectly legitimate depending on the type of event. Even if you weren't deliberately targeting a male audience with attractive females (although I'm sure that was the case), odds are that if you were recruiting for that kind of work 90% would be outgoing and attractive young women. Just like recruiting programmers will get you 90% geeky…

Are PR people really 90% attractive young women? I would be very surprised to find that out.

I'm not talking about PR people, I'm talking about promotional staff usually hired on a temporary basis. Most of what they do is hand out leaflets and goodies, and persuade people to visit the company's booth were the companies actual PR/marketing/sales people are.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#28

Post by Tichy » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 9:01 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #18

onemorepassword wrote: post #6

Seems like a hard problem to solve. Sending people to do product promotional is perfectly legitimate depending on the type of event. Even if you weren't deliberately targeting a male audience with attractive females (although I'm sure that was the case), odds are that if you were recruiting for that kind of work 90% would be outgoing and attractive young women. Just like recruiting programmers will get you 90% geeky…

Lets make it really, really simple. 1. Do not hire eye candy as eye candy. Of either sex. Dressed up or dressed down. 2. Product promotion staff should be clearly labeled as such.

Because it totally doesn't matter if the person trying to sell you something is good looking or not.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#29

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 9:02 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #7

Wait, I don't get it. I'm at GDC. A very large portion (maybe even a majority) of either gender is non-technical. It's an industry event so there are lots of salespeople, hr, biz-dev, etc. I wouldn't assume a man I met here was a developer. There are some pretty obvious booth babes (the energy drink girls, ones with swords, etc.) There are women who, while perhaps non-technical, legitimately work for the companies th…

So GDC isn't the Game Developer Conference? I thought E3 was for the marketing and sales types.

Re: Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse

#30

Post by unethical_ban » Thu, Mar 28, 2013, 9:02 PM UTC

I'm not familiar with this kind of event, but are there not usually badges that designate different kinds of participants? The writer could have a "attendee" badge, while advertisers and pushers would have a different color/label on their badge.