RSA: Ban On Booth Babes Has Been No Big Deal (networkworld.com)

netbuzz quotes a report from Network World: In March 2015, RSA Conference organizers made news by contractually insisting that vendors pitch their security wares without the help of "booth babes," a first such ban for the technology industry. Next week's event will be third under the new rules. With the use of "booth babes" long a source of contention -- and some would say embarrassment -- implementation of the ban has gone smoothly, according to RSA. "Overall I would say this has been received well by our exhibitors," says Sandra Toms, vice president and curator of the conference. "Several have thanked us for having a policy." If you compare the policy's contract language in 2015 with the language now used by Toms, you'll notice how much it has evolved and how it has been accepted by various stake-holders. Here's an excerpt from the "short Q&A" between Paul McNamara, news editor for Network World, and Toms: Has there been any need to enforce the code or have all exhibitors complied? "Enforce" always makes it sound like armed guards have come into play and dragged someone off the show floor. We share these guidelines with our exhibitors and we're clear that this is a policy that is expected to be acknowledged and complied with. We take our attendee experience seriously and expect our exhibitors to do the same. If we receive a complaint about a particular exhibitor, we will send someone over to the booth and examine the situation. If the attire matches our dress code, then they can proceed and we can explain to the attendee why that form of dress is allowed. If they are clearly in violation, we will ask them to change. This policy is equally applied to both men and women -- from Sumo wrestlers to scantily clad models.

Comments

Re: Alternative to ban

[Kellamity]

Not just rights, this is just more misogynistic basement-nerds taking jobs away from women!

How so? A booth can still hire promo girls, they just need to dress them appropriately.

I used to do promo work back in my student days, we did heaps of jobs wearing hoodies and caps rather than short shorts and halter tops. You can still get peoples attention / hand out the fliers or whatever. I did do one job that required shorts but it was on the beach, so fair enough. Pay wasn't bad actually!!!

Re:Logic fail

[Ol Olsoc]

If you would get fired for wearing certain attire at your job, a woman would similarly get fired for wearing similar attire. Companies would be sued out of existence if they did not have measurably similar standards for their dress code. Your claim is a complete fabrication.

There are plenty of women who want to model and make a very good living doing just that. In fact women make on average over 10 times more than men for modeling work. Face it: You wish to deny women the right to work in a job of their choosing and force them into STEM jobs. You are a misogynist who does not believe in a woman's liberty. Shame on you!

Allow me to express this in a non-sexual obsessed context. It is the matter of dressing appropriately for the occasion. It is pretty obvious in a corporate, or educational system, that there are various mores that people use. That is why with the semi-random nature of what I was called on to do, I kept both a suit white shirt and tie in my office, and a pair of jeans and a work shirt. Some times I would get a call to come and do a meeting that was going on at the moment.

So I suited up and did it. I might get a call to crawl around in a dirty or otherwise nasty space later in the day, so on went the Jeans and T-Shirt. I dressed the way one dressed for the job.

Now where it gets interesting is a co-worker was the blue jeans and t-shirt type. She didn't present, but was sometimes asked to hang out at a meeting for a while. So she went up in her jeans and t-shirt. Which was not appropriate dress. One time it was mentioned to her about that, and she complained to me. I told her what I did, which was bring different clothes to change into, and she said "No way will I do that!" So when times got lean, her non-professional dress got her terminated. We need to dress for the occasion.

Now while I have always maintained that booth babes are silly, it's obvious that they serve some purpose. and that is to attract the attention of people at trade shows, and to keep them occupied until a sales rep could relieve them. To schmooze, so to speak. So they dress a certain way.

So to relate this back to the regular workplace, there really isn't a function in the workplace for women to dress like Hooter's girls (except at Hooter's)

So it's pretty simple. The maintenance staff dress in sturdy work cloths, the machinists dress in sturdy work clothes with short sleeves and no ties - a big danger. Staff Assistants and HR people dress in more dressy Professional, The suits dressed in conservative professional fashion, and the semi-professionals tended to blue jeans and T's or cotton shirts. The only thing I ever strayed from the suits norm as needed was that I wear black New Balance sneakies because of a fasciitis issue. But they were black and almost no one noticed. Booth babe is not a normal work dress standard.