I would have felt uncomfortable, too. It would gross me out to be at an industry event that the vendor had deliberately sexualized, and on several levels, most notably "this vendor thinks I am the kind of person who wants to see dancing girls at an industry event."
It would be much worse, I think, were I a woman and outnumbered 10:1 by men.
Yeah, how come, what do you think? Can you imagine any reason? Sometimes a good exercise for understanding others' points of view is to actively try to empathize. What kind of reason can you imagine for a girl to feel unwelcome at a post-conference party full of guys and sexualized female dancers? Or does it completely stump you?
I think you highlighted the main issue: it's not sexism, it's simply misplaced.
Would it be 4 women and 4 men, it would still be out of context and not right. I don't know if it's more jackass or more redneck, anyway it's not something that should be encouraged.
Misplaced sexualization very often is sexism. Sexism is more than singling out a particular person for their gender; it is also presenting an environment that is unwelcoming to those of a particular gender.
"Booth babes" used to be a staple at every conference. Over the last 10 years, they've become sharply disfavored, because staffing your trade show booth with scantily-clad women with no connection to your company is a fucking creepy thing to do.
People still do it, but by this time 5 years from now, everyone who does will be a pariah, trading on shock value. Those people/companies will always exist. Their existence isn't evidence that what they're doing is OK.
Oh, I wholeheartedly agree that they have "creepy" elements.
That said, this sub-thread is more nuanced. This article wasn't written because of "booth babes" offending someone at a conference that Microsoft helped sponsor.
If they were going to a strip club, sure. But they weren't. This was a professional event. How would you feel if there were a leather-clad male stripper in your cubicle at work. I wouldn't like it... and probably less so if the women at work said "why are you so angry about this?" Because I'm trying to work and this guy is thrusting his pelvis around.
> If they were going to a strip club, sure. But they weren't
These girls were not stripping. Is it so hard to tell the difference between dancers and strippers ? But your point illustrates the hypocrisy of those who feel outraged. Basically labeling any girl that works in the night industry as whores or prostitutes.
if you look at the photos, plenty of people were enjoying themselves, women included :
only a tiny minority felt it created "an hostile environment". Well maybe these people shouldn't have attended a party in a nightclub, because that's the purpose of this kind of place. Go to a bar nearby if your goal is to network, you can't really make deals in a place with loud music. People use the argument that "it wasn't professional", well that's the point of a nightclub.
I don't get this generation of people outraged at anything mildly "sexual", yet never shocked by the day to day violence of our society, video games included.
It was an after-conference party at a games conference. How much more "entertainment" can you get?
Mind you, I personally also wouldn't have liked it. But I also don't like most conference parties and I don't like games. But to me it seems perfectly OK if other people like conference parties or games or conference parties with dancers. And sure, male dancers would probably have been a good addition.
I was at GDC last year (did not go this year due to family emergency) and thought that, with a couple exceptions, everybody there was extremely professional. There was only one booth staffed with 'booth babes' (I don't remember who, but they were Russian).
(I'm not going to name the other unprofessional group because their biggest sin was 'being slovenly)
sure but my moral code is out of date, so booth babes, and dancers at video games are out. what about cosplayers and female promoters?
are we allowed to promote things with models? can we have scantily clad girls at the grand prix anymore? or are they professional events? do we need to change beach volleyball uniforms?
i feel like i missed my morality update patch... someone got the latest changelog.txt?
Is your question whether MS procuring the dancers was sexist, or whether any of the attendees were reasonable in their discomfort?
I'd say the second one is true, which makes the first one true.
Dancers aren't inherently sexist (in my opinion) but highly sexualised costumes like that bring out all sorts of feelings in the audience that can in some cases effect their behaviour.
Women make more conscious choices in terms of when and how they enter sexualised environments like that because of the shadow of harrassment and ultimately sexual assault. Having that sexualised performance dropped in out of context takes away that ability to choose.
In that light I think Microsoft's assumption that their audience are all horny nerds who'd love to see schoolgirls dance in their bra is a bit on the sexist side.
