Non-Booth-Babe Calls Non-Booth-Babe Booth Babe...Web Controversy Ensues

It all started with a photo.  This photo, snapped by Violet Blue of ZDNet, at the 2012 MacWorld/iWorld Expo:

The "Booth Babe" that launched a thousand...blog posts.

This photo appeared on ZDNet with the following accompanying article, written by tech blogger Violet Blue:

I was, in fact, looking at The Saddest Booth Babe In The World.

She sat on a stool in between two large monitors across the aisle from us. The pretty brunette was in one of those big corner booths that paid a few bucks for that sorta-prime real estate you know is a gamble for whoever forked over the money to sell wignuts or widgets or iPhone cases or other sundry USB landfill.

Her shoulders were hunched and her hands sat limply in her lap beneath breasts that were packaged air-tight in a tight, branded t-shirt.

She stared at the floor. Unlike her counterparts, she never smiled. Sad booth babe was sad.

Anyway, blogger Shawn King called Blue out, noting that the "booth babe" (the woman on the right side of the picture) looked more like a bored developer manning her booth rather than a pretty girl hired to attract male convention attendees.

I assume you're referring to the woman on the right side of the photo and not the one front and center (nice photography). How is she a "sad booth babe"? It looks like a developer manning her booth.

Blue then responded, claiming that she merely "put the woman in a social category based on the environment she was in" and that she was not the only one to do so.

To which I must respond: Seriously? 

I'm a female tech journalist, and I've been to multiple trade shows and conventions.  And I'll admit that I have been mistaken for a booth babe, numerous times.  No, not because I wear a bikini and heels to the show floor (I wear jeans and a ratty t-shirt, like a real tech journalist).  And I'm not offended -- I get it.  After all, most of the actual booth babes are close to my age and of...um, similar proportions.

But, as a non-booth-babe, and therefore as someone who knows first-hand that there are plenty of women working, and walking, the show floor who are not booth babes, I don't assume** that most women are booth babes (unless they're wearing bikinis and heels, but that's another story).  So, yeah, I think it's strange that a non-booth-babe female would put a woman "in a social category based on the environment she was in," when said female is in the exact same environment. 

Blue has updated her article to reflect that she is using the term "booth babe" as a job description, and not as a "gendered insult."

Blue previously wrote an article in which she lamented the fact that female attendees at tech events are regarded as "fellow women that got lost on the way to the shoe store, sperm bank and Baby GAP."  Blue also states that "[women in technology are] not threatened or intimidated by booth babes, and it doesn’t keep us from showing up.  We’re just annoyed, and the idiocy it encourages just makes our jobs harder."

But you know what makes your job even harder?  When people think you're an idiot!

** For what it's worth, I did once make a bad assumption by assuming that a hired model was a company rep.  I asked for a press kit and some information on announcements and received a haughty ice-glare and an "Um...what?  I don't do that."