Model defends 'harmless' role at agricultural show

[TherightsideofHERstory]

From BBC www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46820660 In my role I attend a lot of trade shows and it's very normal for young women to be employed handing out flyers, walking the halls maybe in branded T-Shirts with products etc. I don't have an issue with this, in my industry at least it's likely to be quite a diverse range of women (albeit all quite young) and increasingly I'm seeing young men doing the same work.

What makes me uncomfortable in this story is the fact that they were purely there as "eye candy", people encouraged to take selfies with them and so on.

Somewhat disingenuous of the (female) MD to say It is inappropriate for women to be told they are wearing the wrong thing. Women should be allowed to wear what they want to wear." If these young women had turned up to the event in jeans and hoodies would she be as pleased with their work?

The women have received criticism of a personal nature, which is of course totally unacceptable but people have also criticised the company for such a dated approach.

Glad to see that one twitter commentator managed to come up with the groundbreaking "harmless fun" Think that's the problem in a nutshell, young attractive women displayed for "fun" with no discernible other function

It is inappropriate for women to be told they are wearing the wrong thing. Women should be allowed to wear what they want to wear.

They were both in figure hugging, very short, satin dresses; push up bras and knee high white boots- the uniform they'd been given by the company. Even by corporate standards that statement is impressively disingenuous.

I tend to avoid trade shows for just this reason, I feel really uncomfortable that young women who know nothing about the area are there as eye candy, I definitely don't think 'oh that's brightened up my day'

I did attend a conference that had girls dressed like hookers (they may have told themselves it was glamorous but they looked like hookers) handing out leaflets. As one of only a small number of female delegates I found it humiliating. It's hard to network anyway, you have to be really careful men don't misconstrue you talking to them but the leaflet 'ladies' made it impossible.