Booth babes is a term used to refer to women (mostly women, with the occasional exception) employed by brands to staff booths at trade shows. Booth babes are paid to dress in sexually revealing clothing for the purpose of enticing men to come over to the booth, and ideally view and buy the products being advertised. Booth babes are frequently required to wear clothing that is demeaning, and behave in a manner welcoming of the people sexually objectifying them. This usually include posing for pictures with male attendees that showcase how much the men are enjoying the sexually attractive traits of the booth babe.

Critique of booth babe usage notes that:

  1. it perpetuates the sexist, objectifying notion of women as decoration, meant for male titillation and little else
  2. it relies on the sexist notion that men are primarily sex-motivated at events that focus on their hobbies, interests, or work
  3. it ignores women of any sexual orientation as well as homosexual men who may be making buying decisions (see Invisibility)
  4. it can contribute to an uncomfortable sexualized environment for female attendees
  5. it can contribute to an environment where female employees working booths are ignored, either in favor of the booth babes, or in favor of male colleagues, or due to patrons mistaken expectations that female employees must be booth babes and thus will not have any technical background
  6. it relies on the fallacy that attention to booth babes converts to revenue.

Examples

Responses

Events with booth babe bans

PAX and PAX East 2011+ prohibits outright booth babes but have loopholes. Cosplay is okay.

Further reading

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