Computer trade shows and technical conferences are often even more male-dominated than the workplace and university. Some of the specific problems of these events are discussed in this section.
Men far outnumber women at industry and academic conferences. At trade shows, particularly, companies have ``historically employed attractive women to draw attention to product exhibits or booths'' [LaPlante 1989]. While this practice has been declining, an industry journal article about Comdex 1989 reports:
A number of companies still insisted on hiring scantily clad female models to attract attention to their booths. And a party thrown by Fujitsu went far beyond questionable taste, seriously offending Comdex attendees of both sexes [LaPlante 1989].Additionally, when women do attend, they are suspected of not being legitimate attendees:
[PFS Inc. president Mary] Rich remembers attending the National Computer Conference (NCC), a now-defunct computer convention, where the male attendees outnumbered the female ones by a ratio of 300 to 1. Convention officials as well as hotel staffs were extremely suspicious of single women, Rich said. Women were often suspected of being prostitutes trying to solicit show attendees. Rich said she once tried to go to the hotel room of a colleague for a drink only to be kicked out by security when trying to get in an elevator.Rich, who co-chaired the 1986 NCC with another woman, said that as recently as three years ago one of the primary concerns was how women were being treated at the show. `We still had problems with security not believing [the credentials of] women trying to get onto the show floor,' she said [LaPlante 1989].
Women are treated better at technical conferences than at trade shows. While I have never seen any reports of a female speaker or attendee being mistaken for a prostitute, people sometimes assume a woman to be the wife of an attendee and not an attendee herself. Additionally, female computer scientists complain of being propositioned by male attendees. While this probably happens at trade shows too, its happening at conferences leads to particularly touchy situations because the women do not want to offend potentially important men in their field and feel obliged to find delicate ways to reject indelicate offers. Because of this, many women act cold to men they meet at conferences, which has the side effect of discouraging friendship with colleagues who could be useful contacts.
A female computer scientist, with experience in several fields, described another problem with being one of the few attendees who needed to bring along their child:
One difference between biology and computer science that I have noticed is that it is not unusual for childcare to be provided at professional conferences in biology, while I have never seen it offered at AAAI [American Association for Artificial Intelligence], IJCAI [International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence], Cog Sci, or ACM [Association for Computing Machinery] conferences. I have a baby that I won't be able to leave overnight for about 2 years (because of breastfeeding), but it is difficult to make daytime childcare arrangements for an out of town conference oneself. Even with an older child, it can be difficult to make the night-time arrangements at home if the child is left behind (traveling spouse, single parent, etc.), so bringing the child along might be preferable if childcare were available.Additionally, another female computer scientist told me that ``some conferences organize `spouse events' which tend to run to fashion shows, shopping, etc. My husband finds this strangely unappealing!''
Presumably, conference hosts do not mean to discriminate when they fail to provide childcare or provide activities of interest to wives of attendees --- I assume that, if the issue crosses their minds, they assume that the number of exceptional attendees would be too small to justify the expense of providing for them. This is an example of how, entirely in the absence of any bad intentions and purely due to the ratio, conditions can be such that a class of attendees cannot conveniently take part in a professional event.