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

blog.katylevinson.com

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

#91

Post by bluehat »

danilocampos wrote: post #84
jblz wrote: post #23

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…

> If I'm understanding correctly You most certainly are not. The author is simply pointing out that ending the booth babe situation isn't a panacea. The real issue is the shortage of actual technical contributors who are also women: > Goodness knows, if I had the power to bring tons of other technical women at the conference that would be an optimal solution

(I added that after he posted, because s/he brought up a good point.)

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

#92

Post by Shivetya »

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…

As was mentioned on this site before, burqa or bikini, there is always someone telling OTHER women how they must dress, how they must act, what they must be. It does not matter which sex the speaker is, they should respect the choice another makes.

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

#93

Post by mtoddh »

mattmaroon wrote: post #71
roc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's a hard problem, but I think you're looking at the wrong one. The problematic assumption here is that a given woman was paid to be there. This was a reasonable assumption on the part of the other attendees, only because there are so few women in the games industry. So rather than the problem-to-tackle being a cat-and-mouse with vendors trying to get the most-effective promotions' staff to the venue,…

I don't think that assumption is safe of the women who aren't in costume. I think they're just female employees in non-technical roles. They're not eye candy. That's what I find so strange about the original post. She's assuming they're there as eye candy and they sure don't seem to be. It's odd to hear a woman assume that other women (especially since they're pretty average) are there for their looks. The few I've t…

The few I've talked to were far too knowledgeable to be some sort of incognito booth babes.

Perhaps it's because of the negative stereotype that the more attractive a women is, the less intelligent she is, or at least less likely that she's a technical person. And perhaps it's not just men that make this assumption.

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

#94

Post by roc »

mattmaroon wrote: post #71
roc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's a hard problem, but I think you're looking at the wrong one. The problematic assumption here is that a given woman was paid to be there. This was a reasonable assumption on the part of the other attendees, only because there are so few women in the games industry. So rather than the problem-to-tackle being a cat-and-mouse with vendors trying to get the most-effective promotions' staff to the venue,…

I don't think that assumption is safe of the women who aren't in costume. I think they're just female employees in non-technical roles. They're not eye candy. That's what I find so strange about the original post. She's assuming they're there as eye candy and they sure don't seem to be. It's odd to hear a woman assume that other women (especially since they're pretty average) are there for their looks. The few I've t…

I've seen the booth-babe role performed exactly as you've described, by dressed-down but attractive women at other conferences and trade shows.

And, yes, I'm distinguishing from actual staff who do know the product/service/industry and aren't just contracted short-term to draw people in.

Given the article's description, I figured that's what was going on. But, not having been there, I could definitely be getting the wrong idea from an unfair characterization.

Though it still sounds as though the core problem is the low number of women in the games industry, rather than what marketing departments may have done to skirt 'booth babe' rules.

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

#95

Post by jiggy2011 »

bluehat wrote: post #80

Hey guys, Katy here, just wanted to thank everybody for the support and super insightful feedback. I will continue to edit the post and post here with clarifications, mostly after work hours :) And yes, I know everybody's probably sick of gender issues, and that's why I almost didn't bring it up, but I hoped it would be a chance for a good civil discussion, and I'm really glad to see it turning into that. Hopefully s…

Your post was much more thoughtful and therefor conductive to reasonable discussion than the shitstorm we had last week.

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

#96

Post by calibraxis »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #85
calibraxis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's why you retaliate against such advertisers. Boycotts, public campaigns, etc. Through such efforts, corporations have become noticeably less overt about using people of color and women as inferior objects for the amusement of the dominating classes.

I'm not sure how such a boycott would even work, insist that all advertising uses ugly women?

No need for body-shaming terms like "ugly women". In any case, the US civil rights, feminist and leftist movements have all sorts of successful case studies, if you are seriously interested in helping pursue this.

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

#97

Post by jblz »

danilocampos wrote: post #84
jblz wrote: post #23

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…

> If I'm understanding correctly You most certainly are not. The author is simply pointing out that ending the booth babe situation isn't a panacea. The real issue is the shortage of actual technical contributors who are also women: > Goodness knows, if I had the power to bring tons of other technical women at the conference that would be an optimal solution

You're discounting the second half of the sentence you quoted:

> but barring that, selfish as it may sound, if I could have substituted all the plain-clothes promoters for traditional booth babes, I would have done it in a heartbeat.

Of course, progress isn't a panacea, but I'd take progress over the "old days," myself. I've personally seen the number of confidently technical women at conferences increase year over year for the past decade (please note, I'm not saying that the status quo is optimal, just that, in my experience, there _has_ been progress).

Moreover, the _title_ of the piece concludes with "Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse" which contradicts what you said.

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

#98

Post by SoftwareMaven »

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…

I think the issue is what it takes to convince a person you are technical. As a man, if I join a conversation while other people are talking technical, I will generally be assumed to be technical. I can easily imagine women not having the "technical" bit default to true.

You highlight a real issue, though. Given the percentages, if a technical conference has a large percentage of non-technical attendees, it is likely women will be seen to have the "technical" bit off. Certainly more women in tech would fix it, but that isn't the solution, because we won't get more women in tech if they continually feel uncomfortable.

Conference organizers could do more. Instead of "attendee"- and "vendor"-type badges, they could have more detailed badges that are noticeable quickly and easily. I know I would appreciate knowing at a glance, in any technical conference, how technical the person I'm talking to is. Saves us time talking past each other or covering ground we both already know.

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

#99

Post by physcab »

bluehat wrote: post #80

Hey guys, Katy here, just wanted to thank everybody for the support and super insightful feedback. I will continue to edit the post and post here with clarifications, mostly after work hours :) And yes, I know everybody's probably sick of gender issues, and that's why I almost didn't bring it up, but I hoped it would be a chance for a good civil discussion, and I'm really glad to see it turning into that. Hopefully s…

Personally, I'm glad you did. I'm a male engineer, but there are two women engineers in my family (mom and sister). They always bring up these situations to me that few seem to notice. And honestly its really difficult for them at times to be in this industry. More discussion is good.

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

#100

Post by DucktourDreams »

gavinlynch wrote: post #38

I think I'm missing where the friction is in dropping your credentials? You don't have to storm in and say, "Do you know who I am??!". Isn't it easy and actually very polite to introduce yourself and what you do? "Hi I'm {Name}, This topic fascinates me as I'm also a developer..." And go from there?

Thank you for succinctly stating what I used 9,000 words above to say. Sure, thanks to discretely-dressed marketing ladies, the author's life has become "harder than it used to be." She can no longer count on being on oddity. It was great while it lasted. Now, she can learn to introduce herself just like everyone else...
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