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Comment by roc | Hacker News Reader

I agree that it's a hard problem, but I think you're looking at the wrong one.

The problematic assumption here is that a given woman was paid to be there. This was a reasonable assumption on the part of the other attendees, only because there are so few women in the games industry.

So rather than the problem-to-tackle being a cat-and-mouse with vendors trying to get the most-effective promotions' staff to the venue, the problem-to-tackle is women in gaming.

If women could hit even a respectably-sized minority of the attendee audience, the assumption would no longer be safe.

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I don't think that assumption is safe of the women who aren't in costume. I think they're just female employees in non-technical roles. They're not eye candy.

That's what I find so strange about the original post. She's assuming they're there as eye candy and they sure don't seem to be. It's odd to hear a woman assume that other women (especially since they're pretty average) are there for their looks. The few I've talked to were far too knowledgeable to be some sort of incognito booth babes.

Booth babes are usually given a few talking points and know little to nothing else about the product beyond that. They pass you off to the nerd the second you appear interested.

I've seen the booth-babe role performed exactly as you've described, by dressed-down but attractive women at other conferences and trade shows.

And, yes, I'm distinguishing from actual staff who do know the product/service/industry and aren't just contracted short-term to draw people in.

Given the article's description, I figured that's what was going on. But, not having been there, I could definitely be getting the wrong idea from an unfair characterization.

Though it still sounds as though the core problem is the low number of women in the games industry, rather than what marketing departments may have done to skirt 'booth babe' rules.

"I've seen the booth-babe role performed exactly as you've described, by dressed-down but attractive women at other conferences and trade shows."

That's not a "booth babe", if they're being dressed down they've generally been giving training on the actual products. In that case, they're just spokespersons like the attractive marketing dudes with the excellent veneers.

The few I've talked to were far too knowledgeable to be some sort of incognito booth babes.

Perhaps it's because of the negative stereotype that the more attractive a women is, the less intelligent she is, or at least less likely that she's a technical person. And perhaps it's not just men that make this assumption.

I didn't say they were dumb, just that they aren't very knowledgeable about their product. They don't work for the companies they promote and don't get much training. They work for an agency that is hired by the company. They're given some talking points and then told who to point anyone to who needs to know more.

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