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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.
Just have booth babes of both genders. Equal Opportunity Oogling.
Table-ized A.I.
"No babes for you"
For the script kiddies its a Seinfeld reference
**Life is too short to be serious**
Hiring a model to wear very little clothing in front of an IT stand doesn't mean she's included in IT...
So, at the more hardcore geek conference (Supercomputing comes to mind), there has never really been an issue with booth babes for a simple reason: geeks are scared to talk to them. Every now and then a company will hire one, only to see a nice exclusion zone form around their booth. Sure, sales guys from other booths will stop by, but none of the intended audience will risk talking with an attractive female.
A ban on booth babes would mean that the people in the booth are there because they have knowledge and information to offer rather than for their attractiveness. The summary makes it sound like the booth babes just wear more clothes, but they are still booth babes. Their primary purpose is to look nice and then refer people to those with actual knowledge. It's a sales tactic that seems to work but the push back against booth babes is that people want to be valued for their humanity rather than their sexuality. Of course this is somewhat of a case of being careful what you wish for. As somebody who has been said to "look like he knows what he's talking about" I can say that I wouldn't mind being valued as a sexual object but that's somewhat of a digression.
If there's a booth babe wearing little compared to man wearing a suit and tie a few feet away... what temperature do you set the thermostat to? This resembles a problem found on most dance floors including high school proms...
So MEN are now dictating what a woman can or cannot wear?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
*sputter* Sales .... meritocracy?
Next you're going to try to tell us that the better product should make the sale. That's crazy talk.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
IT is her employer, or at least subcontracts her, and IT pays her salary. To me, that's pretty much working for IT.
Sure she's not going to be a programmer or network admin, because she lacks the essential education in these domains. But it isn't like removing her current workplace will change that.
Nor will that make the actual IT jobs (as opposed to jobs profiting from IT) more accessible to women. These, who claim "they can't work in IT due to the male-oriented environment, lack of respect to women, and general misogyny" usually lack the education needed, and absolutely lack the mental fortitude for the stressful job. Never mind, if still hired, make the workplace miserable to the current male staff by constant nitpicking at imaginary offenses, and misandrous attitude.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Let me simplify your statements: You work in an environment which does not attempt to attract strangers to your product in a bazaar type atmosphere. Your first anecdote fails because the environment and circumstances are completely different between you and a "booth babe".
Your complaint in this recent post is that you and a woman both dressed in long pants and shirts of a different cut and style. Yours was a suit and hers was jeans. After a whole lot of rambling, you did eventually admit that in your job your dress codes were actually supposed to be similar and her under dressing resulted in termination. That matches my statement about having to have measurably similar dress codes for each gender, does it not? Seems to me that you are more upset that she was invited to begin with. I'll also guess that she was far more attractive to the audience than you, so there is a pang of jealousy involved.
I gave all of the links to psychological studies in this (thread which show repeatedly that attractive people sell more products. People automatically have trust for attractive people without ever knowing them. That is called human nature, and it works universally world wide. It does not insinuate that the people trusted by their appearance are actually trustworthy, because countless people use (and have used) this to their advantage and deceived consumers, but that does not take away the normal psychological responses to attractive people.
Your last statement is quite baffling. Yeah, HR sets dress codes for the company. Your HR person is not a "booth babe" and does not hire them. Your dress code is different than that of a Modeling Agency who hires the Models who are "booth babes". Were you attempting to be overtly obvious? Most "booth babes" are models who travel from show to show and don't want to sit in the cubicle next to yours all day. They actually like to travel and tend to be good at meeting people and conversation. Being a model is physically demanding, so while you might be studying the latest spread sheet they are at the gym busting their ass to look good. It's also intellectually challenging. They may be practicing speeches and reading through product materials for their next gig while you are diddling away trying to figure out a system call. You like yours, they like theirs, all should be well in my opinion.
Again, shame on anyone for demanding everyone work the way they want them to. People should have liberty in job choices even if someone else does not like that job. FWIW, I'm all for a person _choosing_ to be an adult actress or professional escort (as long as she is not forced into it for any reason). Another field where men tend to do tremendously worse than women financially and there are far more women working in the market than men. I know and handle my morality, they can handle theirs.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"Enforce makes it sound like an armed guards have come into play"
right after
"if we receive a complaint we'll send someone over and if they are in violation we'll ask them to change or leave"
So.. yes... ENFORCED.
How long do you think this round of tedious moral busy-bodying and policing is going to last?
.
Won't someone PLEASE think of the poor booth babes now out of work???
Seriously....so, this is now a war on the good looking females that model and made some good side money, perhaps even a living for events like this?
I guess if you're in shape, attractive...no one cares if you lose your job, eh?
Political correctness takes its toll again.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well, lessee....I'd dare say *most* of the audience and attendees are male.
Males generally like looking at pretty women.
This will attract them to your booth....and there you go.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........