Note, Brock, this is an edit of what was posted right before. What was posted right before this and contains much of the same thing should be deleted.
First of all, no one said that any arbitrary individual should go to a booth and ask anyone for papers, and the idea that this is all that could be employed is less than imaginative. This is just rhetoric that you are creating and these are straw men for you to attack. You never asked me for what I would suggest we do, and I get to that below. From your ramblings, it's difficult to determine whether you are against the concept of booth babes, or against the implementation of any rules against them as that would be sexist.
I can put words in your mouth about why I think you or your company might be interested in hiring women to sexually coerce men into showing interest for your products or services. And if this is not the case, then there must be some reason other than purely altruistic ones of why you would choose to go on a crusade about this. However, I will not delve here. Whether I am sexist, which is a rhetorically loaded term, or not, is irrelevant because we can't define what that means, and no, the Wikipedia article is not the authority on sexism and neither is a feminist college professor – everyone has their own biases and takes on the issue. What matters is that the issue is understood well enough for someone to have an informed opinion on it. Your style of argumentation has not been conducive to that.
Personally, I don't see any difference between your rhetoric and that which would provide justification for any business to employ other people in a similar direction which are more easily unacceptable, as it's a slippery slope. I mean why stop at booth babes, I think I want to bring strippers to the next DrupalCon. Now it's probably the case, Alex, with your ideals there is definitely a point to which strippers are okay. Perhaps if they leave on pasties and wear a thong it would be acceptable behaviour and I also have absolutely no right to ask them what they are they doing there, or to complain about it even for the fear of being labelled sexist. And why stop at strippers, let's go all the way and bring prostitutes to Drupalcon to serve the needs of nerds and then argue for the fact that no one has the right to ask them about what their commercial relationship is to the event. These are all jobs, we're talking about here. And perhaps you think this is hyperbole, but it doesn't seem like there are any limits in what you're purposing because anything you say about anyone's dress could potentially infringe on the rights and freedoms of people there not to be judged.
And yes economic coercion is a job, that's how I meant it. There may be socio-economic reasons why people end up in these professions, there may also be personal choices involved, and there also may be a trillion other reasons why someone ends up in a certain profession. From the perspective of hiring, there are theories that attempt to justify the idea that a job given to someone like a booth babe might go to someone more qualified if the company had not spent their money on a booth babes and it makes sense – an actual developer may still market the product without using sexual coercion, and that's a different game to play than a booth babe. And really that's what we want to encourage, for more women to be in the actual business of Drupal, rather than in the business of looking pretty and sexually exciting men in the commercial sphere* to increase their interest in the product -- men who they have no sexual interest in whatsoever. And that's the rub. To economically coerce people to be sexual objects, is sexist in some people's books -- but your definition runs counter to that; most likely because your argument is that being a booth babe is a personal choice, and to deny them that would be sexist. That's really where the divide is. The truth is that either position is theoretical, and you may be sexist either way depending on your understanding of the issue and the implications you draw from that. Also, and this is important, creating an certain economic environment changes people's behaviour – so we have these memes about kids saying fuck it, I'll be a stripper: see http://memearchive.net/memerial.net/2564/ill-be-a-stripper.jpg .
Another consideration outside of general economic freedom is a question of harassment. At some point people visiting the event are going to feel harassed by other people's actions because they may not have come to be sexually stimulated. And yes there is no way to determine who we try not to offend as it may vary a lot between people as to what is acceptable and what is offensive. Some people will be offended by certain business casual attire even – see Weird Al's Amish Paradise. However, there are general society norms that can be used as a guide for what is considered relatively normal for the times and labels such as business casual are commonly used to define what sort of attire is acceptable and what sort of attire is not. And that doesn't really get people riled up about being oppressed. We choose our venues, for instance going to a strip club, or not, depending on what we want. By saying anything goes, you take that choice and personal freedom away from some attendees while trying to give other individuals their personal freedom. I think we can all agree that one personal's freedom should not infringe on other people's freedom to a reasonable extent – and I don't believe anyone is attempting to be unreasonable here. I, however, threw this in here not to argue for some policy but attempt to understand and explain this issue better. It doesn't matter to me how anyone dresses. If they want to parade around naked, let them for all I care – I am not offended or harassed.
It is simple to put a policy in place that says if a company employs someone in such a capacity as a booth babe or a stripper they, the company and not the individual, will be banned from exhibiting at DrupalCon in the future. Now you could be totalitarian about this and police it, but why bother. The policy is in place, and you take it on good faith that people are not going to violate it. It is much like the law, there are all sorts of laws on the books that are extremely broad with harsh punishments, but most of the time they are not enforced. Once in a while, it's so blatantly obvious that it is easy to bring down the hammer and not feel bad about it.
So in my opinion, the point is to foster a commercial culture* that is about business, commerce, and development. Not about sex and marketing, at least that's my position on it. I do not want a sexualized commercial sphere*, well at least in terms of Drupal and technology in general, and I want policies that try to encourage companies not to do that. Should sex not be in the commercial sphere* at all, that's not something that I can comment on, there is probably so much sex in the commercial sphere* that it's stupid to attempt to do anything about it or even argue against it – it's just a fact of life these days. Is that sexist? It's again open to argument.
The point then is not to make people feel harassed for the way that they dress. And again if in the case where it's obvious, and we are wrong, like I said, it's easy enough for the organizers to ask them for them to disclose the nature of employment relationships with the company -- privately and confidentially. To me it's no more than saying all visitors must declare if they are visiting for a company and what's their role with the said company and I have no problem disclosing that to anyone and would not feel harassed if so asked.
* Note above, I used commercial sphere and commercial culture, and that's probably not a good term for it. At the moment I can't think of a better term. I think it's more or less understood what I mean, essentially commerce related with business to business, business to employee, employee to employee interactions, etc.
As complicated as simple!
Note, Brock, this is an edit of what was posted right before. What was posted right before this and contains much of the same thing should be deleted.
First of all, no one said that any arbitrary individual should go to a booth and ask anyone for papers, and the idea that this is all that could be employed is less than imaginative. This is just rhetoric that you are creating and these are straw men for you to attack. You never asked me for what I would suggest we do, and I get to that below. From your ramblings, it's difficult to determine whether you are against the concept of booth babes, or against the implementation of any rules against them as that would be sexist.
I can put words in your mouth about why I think you or your company might be interested in hiring women to sexually coerce men into showing interest for your products or services. And if this is not the case, then there must be some reason other than purely altruistic ones of why you would choose to go on a crusade about this. However, I will not delve here. Whether I am sexist, which is a rhetorically loaded term, or not, is irrelevant because we can't define what that means, and no, the Wikipedia article is not the authority on sexism and neither is a feminist college professor – everyone has their own biases and takes on the issue. What matters is that the issue is understood well enough for someone to have an informed opinion on it. Your style of argumentation has not been conducive to that.
Personally, I don't see any difference between your rhetoric and that which would provide justification for any business to employ other people in a similar direction which are more easily unacceptable, as it's a slippery slope. I mean why stop at booth babes, I think I want to bring strippers to the next DrupalCon. Now it's probably the case, Alex, with your ideals there is definitely a point to which strippers are okay. Perhaps if they leave on pasties and wear a thong it would be acceptable behaviour and I also have absolutely no right to ask them what they are they doing there, or to complain about it even for the fear of being labelled sexist. And why stop at strippers, let's go all the way and bring prostitutes to Drupalcon to serve the needs of nerds and then argue for the fact that no one has the right to ask them about what their commercial relationship is to the event. These are all jobs, we're talking about here. And perhaps you think this is hyperbole, but it doesn't seem like there are any limits in what you're purposing because anything you say about anyone's dress could potentially infringe on the rights and freedoms of people there not to be judged.
And yes economic coercion is a job, that's how I meant it. There may be socio-economic reasons why people end up in these professions, there may also be personal choices involved, and there also may be a trillion other reasons why someone ends up in a certain profession. From the perspective of hiring, there are theories that attempt to justify the idea that a job given to someone like a booth babe might go to someone more qualified if the company had not spent their money on a booth babes and it makes sense – an actual developer may still market the product without using sexual coercion, and that's a different game to play than a booth babe. And really that's what we want to encourage, for more women to be in the actual business of Drupal, rather than in the business of looking pretty and sexually exciting men in the commercial sphere* to increase their interest in the product -- men who they have no sexual interest in whatsoever. And that's the rub. To economically coerce people to be sexual objects, is sexist in some people's books -- but your definition runs counter to that; most likely because your argument is that being a booth babe is a personal choice, and to deny them that would be sexist. That's really where the divide is. The truth is that either position is theoretical, and you may be sexist either way depending on your understanding of the issue and the implications you draw from that. Also, and this is important, creating an certain economic environment changes people's behaviour – so we have these memes about kids saying fuck it, I'll be a stripper: see http://memearchive.net/memerial.net/2564/ill-be-a-stripper.jpg .
Another consideration outside of general economic freedom is a question of harassment. At some point people visiting the event are going to feel harassed by other people's actions because they may not have come to be sexually stimulated. And yes there is no way to determine who we try not to offend as it may vary a lot between people as to what is acceptable and what is offensive. Some people will be offended by certain business casual attire even – see Weird Al's Amish Paradise. However, there are general society norms that can be used as a guide for what is considered relatively normal for the times and labels such as business casual are commonly used to define what sort of attire is acceptable and what sort of attire is not. And that doesn't really get people riled up about being oppressed. We choose our venues, for instance going to a strip club, or not, depending on what we want. By saying anything goes, you take that choice and personal freedom away from some attendees while trying to give other individuals their personal freedom. I think we can all agree that one personal's freedom should not infringe on other people's freedom to a reasonable extent – and I don't believe anyone is attempting to be unreasonable here. I, however, threw this in here not to argue for some policy but attempt to understand and explain this issue better. It doesn't matter to me how anyone dresses. If they want to parade around naked, let them for all I care – I am not offended or harassed.
It is simple to put a policy in place that says if a company employs someone in such a capacity as a booth babe or a stripper they, the company and not the individual, will be banned from exhibiting at DrupalCon in the future. Now you could be totalitarian about this and police it, but why bother. The policy is in place, and you take it on good faith that people are not going to violate it. It is much like the law, there are all sorts of laws on the books that are extremely broad with harsh punishments, but most of the time they are not enforced. Once in a while, it's so blatantly obvious that it is easy to bring down the hammer and not feel bad about it.
So in my opinion, the point is to foster a commercial culture* that is about business, commerce, and development. Not about sex and marketing, at least that's my position on it. I do not want a sexualized commercial sphere*, well at least in terms of Drupal and technology in general, and I want policies that try to encourage companies not to do that. Should sex not be in the commercial sphere* at all, that's not something that I can comment on, there is probably so much sex in the commercial sphere* that it's stupid to attempt to do anything about it or even argue against it – it's just a fact of life these days. Is that sexist? It's again open to argument.
The point then is not to make people feel harassed for the way that they dress. And again if in the case where it's obvious, and we are wrong, like I said, it's easy enough for the organizers to ask them for them to disclose the nature of employment relationships with the company -- privately and confidentially. To me it's no more than saying all visitors must declare if they are visiting for a company and what's their role with the said company and I have no problem disclosing that to anyone and would not feel harassed if so asked.
* Note above, I used commercial sphere and commercial culture, and that's probably not a good term for it. At the moment I can't think of a better term. I think it's more or less understood what I mean, essentially commerce related with business to business, business to employee, employee to employee interactions, etc.