Dear Conference Organizers, Enough with the Bimbos

June 15th, 2012

The older I get the more I am irritated by the use of sex appeal in corporate events. People who know me personally can attest that I am FAR from a prude. I can be pretty darn crude and inappropriately-humored with the best of them. Yet, recent events have gone far enough that I thought I would put a thread out on the subject and see what others feel.

You can read here what happened at a recent Microsoft-sponsored party at NDC. This little event included a stupid rap was written including the words micro, soft, and penis. Give me a break.  What are we, all 12-year olds? At the same party were the dancing Azure girls. What the hell? Yeah, that’s right. That’s apparently a thing.

I would not be writing about this if it were an isolated incident, but unfortunately this behavior is far from unique to NDC. I will never forget a few years ago at a VERY large Microsoft-focused conference when 100 “professional minglers” were poured into the attendee party. They all looked about 18 and were wearing dresses that looked like one of my socks. The best part of that particular party was (wait for it) the POLES all around the room on which these young girls grinded and swung themselves to the amusement of the male attendees.

Imagine how I felt standing there between my two friends, Kate Gregory and Megan Marshall looking at this display as more than one idiot geek crowded around these women. Bottom line: I was ashamed. It’s one thing to see this in a magazine or in a video. It is quite another to look these women in the eye as it happens 4 feet away.

The image to the right about sums up the booth babe situation.

<EDIT>

Thank you to the more savvy readers who (as you can read in the comments) knew that an image I had here earlier was made by an idiot developer for a talk, not an idiotic marketing team. My apologies for the erroneous image being posted.

</EDIT>

I know how I sound. I sound like an old man yelling, “get off my lawn”, but I don’t care. Enough is enough. Organizations like Women in Technology exist because we already have a hard time attracting females to the technology field.

Marketing departments, please stop making it worse.

  • https://me.yahoo.com/bobmacneal#37831 bobmacneal

    This is shockingly unenlightened marketing. WTF is up with CouchDB? Marketing of this ilk is a troubling extension of the growing “brogrammer” vibe I’ve seen on software teams – a toxic vibe that’s offensive to women and crushes innovation and creativity by enforcing “hazing” of well-intentioned people for anti-bro behavior.

    • Jeffh

      The CouchDB thing was a presentation at a ruby confrence. Was not associated with CouchDB, just asshole ruby programmers.

      • https://me.yahoo.com/bobmacneal#37831 bobmacneal

        Thanks Jeffh. I’m glad to have that clarification.

  • http://twitter.com/OakParkGirl Angela Dugan

    As a woman who is quite technical, and loves herself a good, geeky conference, I am also dismayed when I run into this kind of thing at tech events that I have gone to.  It happens all over the industry, regardless of technology or vendor, but primarily when I see the especially offensive ones they are happening overseas and at events OUTSIDE the conference. It is the particularly egregious at the partner-sponsored after-parties.  I won’t say it’s perfect in the US, I’ve been made uncomfortable more than once at local tech conferences so it’s certainly a problem.  And let’s be CLEAR, I am not defending it, it pisses me off too, just saying we might be focusing on the wrong thing.

    Cultural relativism comes into play a LOT when it comes to things like this. I am not Norwegian, but do we KNOW that that kind of thing isn’t accepted there? Maybe they were just as disgusted, I don’t know. Think about planning conferences in Japan, India, the Middle East, South America, and how different the role of women is in those conferences. We’d probably dislike it for very different reasons, as Americans who find the objectification of women unacceptable. I often run into folks in tech circles who are clearly reacting to me as a woman in tech based on their cultural upbringing, which is not an American one, and so I have to always keep that in mind before I react. NDC planners might think we are a bunch of prudes who need to lighten up. To me, well that only takes a little (VERY little) of the responsibility off Microsoft’s plate to ensure things are professional, and GLOBALLY inclusive, but who am I?

    Lastly, and I only say this because I know David well enough to know he didn’t MEAN offense, but “bimbos”? Really? Great, defend women in an article where you immediately label them with an outdated, misogynistic term. I don’t care if they were dancing around in tube sock dresses, they were doing a job, and they are someone’s mom/daughter/sister/etc.  A little more respect please :)   I’m hoping that was just to piss people off enough to come read your article, but I still find it a bit crass.

    • ElegantCoder

      Dang it, Angela. A guy can’t win for trying :)
      I hear you. Does the fact that I am old help? 

  • http://profiles.google.com/mdpopescu Marcel Popescu

    Are you American? If you are, I’m sorry to inform you, but you ARE a prude. “Racy” jokes don’t count; being scared by good-looking girls does.

    What’s so funny as to be mind-blowing is that you wouldn’t have dared say anything if they were scantily-clad BOYS, because that would have exposed you to another American taboo.

    • Elgatovolador

      Strong this. Sex appeal has always been used to sell products. Would you prefer a bunch of fat hairy dudes doing the Full Monty, starting out in Tron outfits?

  • http://www.facebook.com/mel.reams Mel Reams

    Thanks for complaining about this. Every time a man speaks up about sexism in the industry, it takes a little more ammunition away from the jackasses who insist that men love seeing dancing girls and all the women who complain about it are just being oversensitive. 

    Also, I really don’t think it’s prudish to say sex appeal and scantily clad people of any gender are inappropriate at a tech conference. Even if both genders were given equal representation, it would still be inappropriate. Tech conferences are supposed to be about learning and networking, not about ogling  people.