This article was inspired as a reaction to this WAPO article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/27/heres-what-its-like-to-be-a-booth-babe-at-cybersecuritys-biggest-conference/?tid=pm_business_pop
You think it’s frustrating to be a booth babe? You know nothing, Washington Post.
I spent some time this past week managing my startup’s RSA Conference booth. We’re not a huge company (yet!) so many of us are pitching in, marketing, selling, and demoing.
If you ever wanted to know why booth babes are poison to diversity in this industry, let me tell you first hand.
So, I’m literally the most technical person manning our RSA booth. (look up my bio, I’m worked in development/research/etc for infosec companies for > 10 years now). We have the sales guy, the other cofounder, and the product manager. Here’s a snippet of the joy I get to experience as a woman at an infosec conference, and maybe now you’ll understand why I am less than enthralled about attending them:
- Guy walks away from other employee after conversation: “I’ll let you get back to your booth babe.” wtf?? by the way we’re all dressed the same (company shirts and jeans)
- Subtle, but perhaps the most insidious scenario: guy comes up, looks at the other guy(s) and myself. Ask to speak to a technical person, if the other founder was there, almost *always* approach him, or come back with a question to the guy that deferred to me. Here’s the thing. 99% probably aren’t even consciously sexist. They are totally harmless, nice guys, and they don’t even realize they are doing it. They have been trained by the presence of booth babes to dismiss women.
- Some guy comes up to me, wanting to talk technical: “I want to talk to the CTO?” “That’s me.” “You’re sure? … You’re the CTO?” Seriously?
Look dudes, don’t be embarrassed if you were called out; as mentioned above, it’s not your fault and this doesn’t mean you’re not a nice guy. Just know this is one of the many deaths by a 1000 cuts your lady coworkers (usually quietly) endure. In this case, I felt compelled to say something because I genuinely believe booth babes are actively harmful and it’s hard at glance to see why it’s not just flirty fun.
So, shame on any of you security companies that are still relying on this crutch to get people in. You know who you are, with the dancing ladies, scantily clad or otherwise handers of swag, the high heels, the blue wigs, all of that gimmickry. The biggest farce is the fact the conference claims to ‘support diversity in infosec’ with panels of women and sessions and yet condones this. Seriously?
