6 ms·

As a 31 year old male, here is my message to tech companies with products to sell: If you have "booth babes" (I think she did a great job in the article of def

by JPKab 14y ago

As a 31 year old male, here is my message to tech companies with products to sell: If you have "booth babes" (I think she did a great job in the article of defining what that term means), I'm not going to buy your product. I hate it and always have. Its trashy and demeaning, and I resent being grouped into the lowest common denominator when I go to view a product I actually care about. As demeaning as it is to women, I think a lot of men would agree that its demeaning to be treated like a dog who can be baited with a doggy treat. If you have a good product, you don't need to lure in knuckle draggers who let themselves be led around by their reproductive instincts.

smackfu 14y ago
She's talking about "women who are pretty but not models, dressed in normal street clothes to push whatever product they have." Is that what you think of for "booth babes"?
jiggy2011 14y ago
Problem is, you see an attractive woman at a booth, assuming she is wearing regular business or casual attire. How do you know if she was hired because she was attractive or because of other skills/attributes or a mixture of both?
- waps 14y ago
  Talk to her. After the first sentence you will know the difference.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Depends if you start with a technical question. Though that might be a good strategy to discourage "booth babes", just keep asking shit they can't answer.
    - sirclueless 14y ago
      That's not really good for the booth babes or the technical women. The booth babes all get thrown out of their depth repeatedly, while the technical women have to deal with every single conversation starting out by getting quizzed live to make sure they belong in the club, which sounds totally stressful.
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  "Do you work here?" I ask that at the grocery store when I have a question and I'm not sure if the person is an employee of the store or one of the store's suppliers.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    If she's working the booth then she is working there in one way or another. Saying "Do you know anything about this product, or are you tits for hire?" doesn't seem like a great question either..
    - mkr-hn 14y ago
      I misread and thought jiggy2011 was talking about not being sure if she worked there. I would assume someone hired to work a booth would know something about the product, and know who to point me to if they don't have an answer to my questions.
jmharvey 14y ago
The problem she described is a bit tougher to solve than simply saying, "don't hire booth babes." "[W]omen who are pretty but not models, dressed in normal street clothes" describes a pretty big percentage of the general population. Under her definition, "If you have 'booth babes' ..., I'm not going to buy your product" is essentially the same as saying "If you have women selling your product, I'm not going to buy it," which isn't exactly an enlightened position to take. The problem the OP faced was that people at the conference were generally sorting people into the general categories of "technical and worth talking to" or "just trying to sell me something" and would make the Bayesian inference that a random woman they came across was in the latter category. I can see two solutions here, neither of which is very good: 1) In order to promote gender equality, everyone at a conference should avoid judging people based on their gender. This would be ideal, but it's hard to fight casual statistical inference. 2) The conference could make sure that the people selling stuff at the booths and the people attending the conference have similar demographic profiles, so a random woman you encounter at the conference is as likely to be technical as a random man. In practice, though, this would mean preferential hiring of men for the promotional jobs. Really, we need an option (3) of "get more women to be developers" but that's hardly news, and not something that can be solved in short order.
- theorique 14y ago
  Under her definition, "If you have 'booth babes' ..., I'm not going to buy your product" is essentially the same as saying "If you have women selling your product, I'm not going to buy it," which isn't exactly an enlightened position to take. It's almost as though you need to get ugly women - if the women are too attractive, then they are written off as "booth babes". Which is kind of sexist in its own way.
  - mitchty 14y ago
    It is entirely sexist to see an attractive woman and assume that she isn't intelligent. It's one of the hidden sides of sexism in our society that annoy me. I try to catch myself whenever I find myself doing that, and have been pleasantly surprised. A side effect of this is that those women that are attractive and intelligent tend to begin to hide it. So you get self-reinforcing behavior from society. Things like guys belittling smart women etc... The whole thing is annoying from the perspective of a guy that loves talking to non-white guys about programming or almost anything interesting. /squirrel banter mode off.

by JPKab 14y ago

smackfu 14y ago

She's talking about "women who are pretty but not models, dressed in normal street clothes to push whatever product they have." Is that what you think of for "booth babes"?

jiggy2011 14y ago

Problem is, you see an attractive woman at a booth, assuming she is wearing regular business or casual attire. How do you know if she was hired because she was attractive or because of other skills/attributes or a mixture of both?

waps 14y ago
Talk to her. After the first sentence you will know the difference.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Depends if you start with a technical question. Though that might be a good strategy to discourage "booth babes", just keep asking shit they can't answer.
  - sirclueless 14y ago
    That's not really good for the booth babes or the technical women. The booth babes all get thrown out of their depth repeatedly, while the technical women have to deal with every single conversation starting out by getting quizzed live to make sure they belong in the club, which sounds totally stressful.
mkr-hn 14y ago
"Do you work here?" I ask that at the grocery store when I have a question and I'm not sure if the person is an employee of the store or one of the store's suppliers.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  If she's working the booth then she is working there in one way or another. Saying "Do you know anything about this product, or are you tits for hire?" doesn't seem like a great question either..
  - mkr-hn 14y ago
    I misread and thought jiggy2011 was talking about not being sure if she worked there. I would assume someone hired to work a booth would know something about the product, and know who to point me to if they don't have an answer to my questions.

jmharvey 14y ago

The problem she described is a bit tougher to solve than simply saying, "don't hire booth babes." "[W]omen who are pretty but not models, dressed in normal street clothes" describes a pretty big percentage of the general population. Under her definition, "If you have 'booth babes' ..., I'm not going to buy your product" is essentially the same as saying "If you have women selling your product, I'm not going to buy it," which isn't exactly an enlightened position to take. The problem the OP faced was that people at the conference were generally sorting people into the general categories of "technical and worth talking to" or "just trying to sell me something" and would make the Bayesian inference that a random woman they came across was in the latter category. I can see two solutions here, neither of which is very good: 1) In order to promote gender equality, everyone at a conference should avoid judging people based on their gender. This would be ideal, but it's hard to fight casual statistical inference. 2) The conference could make sure that the people selling stuff at the booths and the people attending the conference have similar demographic profiles, so a random woman you encounter at the conference is as likely to be technical as a random man. In practice, though, this would mean preferential hiring of men for the promotional jobs. Really, we need an option (3) of "get more women to be developers" but that's hardly news, and not something that can be solved in short order.

theorique 14y ago
Under her definition, "If you have 'booth babes' ..., I'm not going to buy your product" is essentially the same as saying "If you have women selling your product, I'm not going to buy it," which isn't exactly an enlightened position to take. It's almost as though you need to get ugly women - if the women are too attractive, then they are written off as "booth babes". Which is kind of sexist in its own way.
- mitchty 14y ago
  It is entirely sexist to see an attractive woman and assume that she isn't intelligent. It's one of the hidden sides of sexism in our society that annoy me. I try to catch myself whenever I find myself doing that, and have been pleasantly surprised. A side effect of this is that those women that are attractive and intelligent tend to begin to hide it. So you get self-reinforcing behavior from society. Things like guys belittling smart women etc... The whole thing is annoying from the perspective of a guy that loves talking to non-white guys about programming or almost anything interesting. /squirrel banter mode off.