Should they have also hired male dancers for equality, or what is exactly the point in being angry with MS here? After all, MS gave them a paid job. How come a girl seeing dancing girls immediately feels unwelcome?
It would be much worse, I think, were I a woman and outnumbered 10:1 by men.
Would it be 4 women and 4 men, it would still be out of context and not right. I don't know if it's more jackass or more redneck, anyway it's not something that should be encouraged.
"Booth babes" demoing products are OK during the day, but if you dim the lights, perceptions change.
Were you not aware of that?
[1] http://icanwritefunny.blogspot.com/2012/03/gdc-2012-booth-ba...
People still do it, but by this time 5 years from now, everyone who does will be a pariah, trading on shock value. Those people/companies will always exist. Their existence isn't evidence that what they're doing is OK.
That said, this sub-thread is more nuanced. This article wasn't written because of "booth babes" offending someone at a conference that Microsoft helped sponsor.
These girls were not stripping. Is it so hard to tell the difference between dancers and strippers ? But your point illustrates the hypocrisy of those who feel outraged. Basically labeling any girl that works in the night industry as whores or prostitutes.
if you look at the photos, plenty of people were enjoying themselves, women included :
http://theralphretort.com/microsoft-dancers-outrage-culture-...
(scroll down)
only a tiny minority felt it created "an hostile environment". Well maybe these people shouldn't have attended a party in a nightclub, because that's the purpose of this kind of place. Go to a bar nearby if your goal is to network, you can't really make deals in a place with loud music. People use the argument that "it wasn't professional", well that's the point of a nightclub.
I don't get this generation of people outraged at anything mildly "sexual", yet never shocked by the day to day violence of our society, video games included.
--- ok, first, a good rule of thumb for dancers at professional events is, don't have dancers, but, anyways ---
--- if you HAVE TO ASK whether they're strippers, even if on a message board the answer seems straightforward, then, no, not a good idea.
See? Not too much to figure out.
Only puritains cannot tell the difference between a stripper and a dancer.
It was an after-conference party at a games conference. How much more "entertainment" can you get?
Mind you, I personally also wouldn't have liked it. But I also don't like most conference parties and I don't like games. But to me it seems perfectly OK if other people like conference parties or games or conference parties with dancers. And sure, male dancers would probably have been a good addition.
GDC is a business conference for people in the business.
(I'm not going to name the other unprofessional group because their biggest sin was 'being slovenly)
are we allowed to promote things with models? can we have scantily clad girls at the grand prix anymore? or are they professional events? do we need to change beach volleyball uniforms?
i feel like i missed my morality update patch... someone got the latest changelog.txt?
I live in Japan and I commonly see dancers during big club events. Clubs simply hire both male and female performers and everyone's happy.
The cringe factor is of the charts...
Is your question whether MS procuring the dancers was sexist, or whether any of the attendees were reasonable in their discomfort?
I'd say the second one is true, which makes the first one true.
Dancers aren't inherently sexist (in my opinion) but highly sexualised costumes like that bring out all sorts of feelings in the audience that can in some cases effect their behaviour.
Women make more conscious choices in terms of when and how they enter sexualised environments like that because of the shadow of harrassment and ultimately sexual assault. Having that sexualised performance dropped in out of context takes away that ability to choose.
In that light I think Microsoft's assumption that their audience are all horny nerds who'd love to see schoolgirls dance in their bra is a bit on the sexist side.
I'd also add "tacky" to the list of charges.