

Booth Babes Don't Wear Glasses - lmacvittie
http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2010/07/15/booth-babes-donrsquot-wear-glasses.aspx

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jgrahamc
When I first started going to computer trade shows (in the 1980s) the booth
babes were strippers. That was, at least, an honest approach.

Personally, I like looking at attractive women, I guess I was wired that way,
but I'd be happy to have no booth babes at these shows. They are an
anachronism and can't provide any useful information (which as what I'm at the
trade show for, in the first place).

And while we're on the topic of men reacting to attractive women. Can we
please stop with the "men don't make passes at girls that wear glasses" and
"gentleman prefer blondes" nonsense? The women that turn my head tend to be
glasses wearing brunettes. People have different visions of what's attractive.

But I do agree that there are men (idiots) who can't see that there are
intelligent women. But please, women, don't tar all men with that brush.

~~~
Jun8
So is your suggestion, based on 30 year-old anecdotal evidence, that they are
strippers now, too. If not, why do you think the current approach (using a
non-stripper as a BB) is dishonest? Do you think all attractive females used
in advertising should be strippers for it to be honest? Should Danica Patrick
change her profession?

Sorry, maybe I come across too strong but the BB ~ stripper analogy just gets
to me. You are doing the same sin that you are condemning, namely judging
people by the cover.

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dinedal
Unless, you know, they actually were hired from the local strip club near the
conference.

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Jun8
AFAIK, recently that was just one incident like that at OSCON. Do you have
many more examples of BBS being hired from "strip clubs near the conference"?
If so, I'll create another user and downvote myself.

~~~
eli
I once worked for a place that just put an ad for female models on the local
craigslist. I don't want to assume to much, but I'm pretty sure at least some
of the models who showed up were used to being asked to do a lot more than
stand in a booth for an hour.

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philk
I'm not sure if I'm in the minority here but I always find the concept of
booth babes awkward as hell. Just the idea of interacting with someone who's
been paid to endure my company seems rather unpleasant.

~~~
jgrahamc
I agree. In the early 1990s I was working at a company where I spent a lot of
time on the road with sales guys. One time I had to take a customer to a strip
club as part of landing a deal. Both the customer and the sales guy (who was
going to expense the trip) were really happy to be there.

As part of being a team player, I had to have a lap dance. Sitting in a chair
having a woman shove her breasts in my face after paying her was simply
horrid. I remember feeling physically sick.

~~~
philk
Urgh. That sounds rather awful.

Out of interest, why were the customer and sales guy so pleased to be there?
Was there any rationalization going on[1], or did they just see tits and not
think any further?

[1] ie "I think that one really liked me"

~~~
jgrahamc
I don't know. Maybe the liked having boobs shoved in their faces. This was
something that the customer specifically requested that we do for him, and he
was well known in the place. So, I guess he liked it.

But, yes, I do recall some rationalization or at least attempts to 'connect'
with the women.

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timf
This post is not actually about a "booth babe problem", it's making the point
that they are a red herring in discussions about women and technology.

 _"It’s about the reaction of men to a technically competent woman, no matter
what she’s wearing. It’s the surprise and the shock in their expression and
voice. It’s about the assumption that no woman is technically competent – at a
trade show or on a conference call. That’s at the heart of this debate and
others like it, and whether booth babes are present or not is unlikely to have
an impact on those assumptions."_

~~~
tomjen3
The reason one has that reaction to a woman is the same reason a person look
strangely at a rock he has fallen over when he realize it is a diamond:

Because it happens fucking far too seldom.

~~~
Jun8
Really!? Then, you definitely have not been around (or maybe from outside the
US where mileage may vary). Just go to any big tech company campus, e.g.
Google, Apple, Microsoft, sit on a bench and observe. My guess is that 10-15%
of any large company's tech-heavy departments (labs, etc.) are women. Now,
_that_ is more probable than a diamond falling on your head.

~~~
Tichy
In normal life I don't hang around on the campus of Google or Microsoft a lot.
Of course people you meet there are likely to be more tech-savvy than the
average population.

If you go to a diamond mine, odds of stumbling across a diamond are probably
also slightly increased.

~~~
Jun8
Hmm, I thought we were talking about technical conferences, not "normal life".

~~~
Tichy
Sure, but people going there come from normal life, which might have shaped
their expectations.

Anyway, I am not really interested in the subject, so I shouldn't have
commented.

Edit: I am confused what the discussion is even about. Apparently those men
were surprised. What is the point then of arguing that they should not have
been surprised? Doesn't the fact that they were surprised kind of imply that
they don't meet many tech-savvy women on average? What is there to discuss?

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neutronicus
I am surprised at rare occurrences, and will continue to be so.

The author is treated the way technical men have learned, through social
pressure, to treat average women. The intersection of the sets of women who
are technically competent, and _want_ to converse with me about technology is
small. I've spent 22 years learning that the average woman will disdain me if
I so much as open my mouth about some of my interests. I'm sorry, I can't
magically intuit for which few it becomes prerequisite as a demonstration of
respect.

~~~
efsavage
This is key. The number of encounters with women where my technical aptitude
was an uninteresting quirk outnumbers those where it was a conversation point
by probably 100:1 if not more. With men, that ratio is far lower.

I think this whole situation is a very slowly unraveling catch-22 where women
aren't interested in tech because they don't feel welcome, and they aren't
welcomed because they aren't interested. These days, tech is so pervasive
(even the girliest-of-girls probably has a very powerful computer in their
purse by way of their phone), that I think it will work it's way loose over
time.

It can't happen fast enough, IMO, it's hard enough already to find talented
people, I'd like to see the pool doubled.

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telemachos
Last summer at OSCON Kirrily Robert gave a keynote which discussed gender and
open source projects. The keynote itself was interesting (I only read about it
from slides - didn't see it), and an O'Reilly Radar write-up about it led to a
long and varied set of comments about "booth babes" and girls hired/invited to
socialize at parties.

For anyone interested, here's some links:

[http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/07/oscon-standing-out-in-
the-c...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/07/oscon-standing-out-in-the-
crow.html)

[http://infotrope.net/blog/2009/07/25/standing-out-in-the-
cro...](http://infotrope.net/blog/2009/07/25/standing-out-in-the-crowd-my-
oscon-keynote/)

