Stupid Boys

I have a female coworker who is a badass tools developer. And at CanSec not only was it assumed she must not be here for the conference (female), but that she was the shiatsu massage therapist stationed at the con (Asian).

Eventually this retarded attitude at conferences has got to change. There were so many women at CanSec that Dragos ran out of ladies jackets and had to rush order more. Speaking of which, the jackets are pretty awesome. Probably the best con swag I've gotten in my 7 years of attending security conferences.

Bioethics, meets Sports

Wow. I'm fascinated to see what comes of the case of Caster Semeyna. She is an 18 year old female who apparently is sterile, as she has internal male testes instead of ovaries. But she apparently also has a uterus. She is dominating her track events because she has massive amounts of testosterone, but is not guilty of steroid use and hasn't broken any competition rules.

So now what? Let her continue to compete against women? Make her compete against men? Don't let her compete at all? She is at an advantage compared to the other women, but is it truly "unfair" if nature made her that way? Is it any more unfair than a swimmer with ridiculously large flipper like feet, or a bicyclist with unusually large heart/lungs?

I'm curious about the chromosomal tests that were run. Regardless, a very interesting situation.

What I hated about Black Hat this year

I’m on my way home from Black Hat and I have to say, some things have improved since CMP bought the conference a couple years ago. But that is a different blogpost. This is about the things that SUCK now. Like the vendors. Now vendors in and of themselves aren’t so bad when they have technical representation at their booth to talk to con attendees about their products or services. It’s the Booth Bunnies, or in some cases, the Booth Whores, that I find offensive. I’ve gone on record in the past about hating RSA because of the obnoxious marketing overload. I really hope Black Hat isn’t going that direction. I understand that the majority of Black Hat attendees are male, but it is still horribly annoying to watch companies use Cherry 2000 style bimbos try to lure potential customers to their booth based on sex appeal. And the mere fact that booth bunnies exist on the con floor makes it harder to be a woman in this industry and not have the gen pop assume you must be there purely as eye candy.

McAfee had the Security Barbie style booth bunny. I guess to distract you from the fact that their product sucks. I wonder if she comes with the Malibu Beach House.

Cenzic had a Booth Bunny ACROSS the hall from their booth (very sneaky!) stopping people walking by with “are you interested in Web Application Security?” and handing them puzzle pieces you could take to their booth and possibly win a prize. This was really funny, since I was walking with someone who works for one of their competitors (and has better products). As expected, I didn’t win anything. At least she wasn’t dressed up like a tart.

Some company had a Booth Bunny dressed as a Vegas showgirl, which I can at least respect for its theme appropriateness, even if I still hate the Booth Bunny philosophy. She was running different games where people answered questions to win prizes.

The most egregious offender was EdgeOS. When I stopped to snap a picture (and lets be clear, this was the best looking of the three Booth Whores I saw there), one of the guys working the booth asked if I’d gotten an invitation to their Saturday night party. Here is how the conversation went:

EOS Guy: hey, have you gotten an invitation to our party yet?
Me: No.
EOS Guy: you haven’t? how’d that happen? (this was kind of creepy the way he said it)
Me: probably because I didn’t stop by your booth to chat up your booth bunnies for one.
EOS Guy: they aren’t booth bunnies.
Me: no? when they wear pleather they aren’t called booth bunnies anymore?
EOS Guy: no, they’re booth babes (hands me invitation to party)
Me: whatever you call them, they make it harder to be a woman in this industry. (walks away)


You might think calling them Booth Whores is a bit harsh and judgmental. Maybe Goth Booth Bunnies is more sensitive. But this was the most direct sexual marketing I’ve seen at a non-sex industry conference, and if you get paid to dress like that, stick party invitations in your bra, and leverage sexual energy to get geek boys to stop at the booth of your temporary employer, I’d say you are selling your body for profit. AKA whoring.

Anyway, I assume the pleather girls were on display at the EdgeOS party, I don’t know for sure because I didn’t go. If I had, I’d have been the bitchy attendee who just spent the evening giving the hosts and their pleather clad prickteases shit all night, and I didn’t want to waste my time on that even if they were buying the drinks.



Just in case there is some confusion let me be clear: I have no problem with pleather, fetish wear, or pretty girls. That isn’t what I’m complaining about. When vendors bring in booth bunnies it perpetuates the stereotype that the women at cons are not there for the con itself. I have a problem with the fact that every conference I attend, at least one person assumes I must be marketing, PR, or sales. All of those fields are useful and I respect the marketing, PR, and sales people where I work. The problem is that people assume I am something I am not based on my gender. They assume I can’t possibly do anything technical or relevant to their work because I’m female. And that fucking pisses me off. Let me repeat: It isn’t that I don’t respect marketing professionals, its that I get pissed at the discrimination and bias. I understand that guys are surprised I’m a geek, that I game, that I quote sci-fi movies and know what Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep led to. I understand that compared to the average woman you might meet in the mall or coffee shop, I’m an anomoly. But at a security conference, why WOULDN’T I be just like everyone else there?

Other things I hated:
Dan Kaminsky getting a pwnie. Black Hat overhyped his talk in a frenzy of media whoredom, then he got kicked in the balls by being awarded the most overhyped talk pwnie. He worked his ass off on this issue, did all the right things to try and protect people, and instead of earning the respect he deserved, he got made fun of.

Smells Like Teen Spirit transitioning to Saturday Night Fever. FAIL

French press sniffing creds

Snacktime crowds clogging the halls, making movement impossible

Talks that span 2 hours. I don’t want to commit 2 hours to one talk. C’mon people, tighten it up. There are too many interesting things to see to put all my eggs in one basket for 2 talks. By having a 2 hour talk you are not competing with 4 other tracks, you are competing with 8.


Not enough time or space to talk with everyone I wanted to. The size of Black Hat is a blessing and a curse. You see everyone in one place, where you might only see half as many people you want to at a smaller con. But everyone is circulating so there isn’t time for talking with any one person very much. There are a great many people I wish I’d had time to sit down and talk with more.

words of wisdom from the Frag Dolls

A couple weekends ago I was playing an online game with some friends (hi Vyxxen and Strix!) and we got to chatting about being a girl gamer. One of my friends had just that evening been chatted up by another player, and things started innocently enough. But before she knew it, he was describing himself and asking her for a description of herself, asking if she was hot, etc. This sucks for a girl. There you are, having fun in a game, chatting with someone who you might be able to trade items with or help out on a quest, and next thing you know he is telling you he has great pecs and likes rockclimbing. If you aren't interested in enabling the world of one-hand-typers, yet want to be friendly and not piss someone off who might trash talk you as a bitch in forums and the game, how do you politely get out of this discussion? Really, if you know, please tell me! I don't feel like I should have to pretend to be a guy online to avoid this sort of thing.

Valkerie over at the Frag Dolls has some words of wisdom, but they are more for the guys than helping the girls out of this situation. Check out The Top 10 Most UNORIGINAL Things You Can Say to a Girl Gamer.

~Elphie

I hate girl clubs... but not this one.

I've never been a fan of women's career networking groups, women's conferences, sororities, etc. I espoused a 'suck it up and play with the boys' attitude for the vast majority of my life. Most of my friends in life are/have been guys, and its been that way for as long as I can remember. I firmly believe that by creating a special group, you make yourself more different, not more equal. Besides, girls can be bitchy and irrational. How can you be friends with people like that?

That said, I've learned in the last year that not all girl groups are bad. I think this comes from the fact that I've seen crappy things happen in the workplace to insanely smart, hardworking female engineers that were just not fair - and without a network of women to ask the advice of and share experience with, these women would have been totally isolated in dealing with the situation.

QUICK DISCLAIMER: So you'll see on the con calendar that I've listed the Executive Women's Forum in Information Security - which might make no sense now that I've broadly bashed women's conferences/organizations. Here is why I think EWF is cool: having been to a ton of conferences, EWF is different because everyone is trying to build each other up (and I don't mean self esteem but skills, business opptys, etc). I've never seen so much positive group energy and trust. I've only been to EWF once because the typical attendee base and content really isn't an applicable fit for my role in 'the industry' but it was still a good experience overall, and a conference I've recommended to a few colleagues. And if you are wondering if an all women's conference is boring in the evenings after the malls close, let me just say that unlike men, women don't need members of the opposite sex around to party their asses off until all hours of the night.

The reason this post started to begin with is that this weekend I found another all-girl group that not only merits a 'not bad' rating from me, but is getting added to my fave sites list.

FragDolls

Yes, thats right, FragDolls. Girl gamers don't have to be dumpy nerds or ecclectic comic book addicts who start gaming to hang with the geek boys. Girl gamers can be hot. Some might say that they are objectifying themselves, using their bodies to get ahead/noticed... well DUH. But 'so what' I say! Being hot, knowing you're hot, and *appropriately* leveraging that advantage is not a crime and doesn't make you a bad person. I'm sure professional women in uncomfortable business suits and sensible shoes are likely horrified by this statement... :)

But here is why I think FragDolls is a great thing for the feminist movement (whatever the hell that means): if hot, smart girls are gaming - and maybe even beating the pants off the boys - it starts becoming socially acceptable for girls to get into gaming and technology. If this catches on, maybe someday it will be cool for chicks to have badass code-fu instead of being varsity cheerleaders, and go to college not for psychology or social work or english lit but for computer science or electrical engineering degrees.

That and I don't have to feel like quite so much of a dork for being a hard core PC gamer. My last job I'd come in to work on Monday and co-workers would ask about my weekend - when I'd tell them (with great enthusiasm) about how we played Age of Empires at a LAN party until 3am every night they'd look at me like I was a freak of nature. One of them asked once "you know you're a girl, right?". Damn right I'm a girl. I'm a FragDoll.

~Elphie