BEFORE THIS YEAR'S Mobile World Congress, we asked whether given all the advances in gender equality in the last year or so, most significantly the #MeToo movement, this would be the first year we saw a truly unsexist tech conference.
Well, MWC has finished for another year and I'm happy to report that it was the most gender-inclusive tech conference I've ever been to. It wasn't perfect, but there was noticeable change in the way women were included and treated, and it makes my feminist heart sing.
Let's take the changes one by one.
No booth babes, anywhere
I can't say for certain there wasn't a single booth babe (the industry term for women who are basically used as 'decoration' for show stands, in skimpy costumes, usually not knowing anything about the product they're repping) at MWC, but I'll be damned if I could find one. This alone is a huge step forward. In previous conferences, there were some in every hall. I dragged my sore feet through eight entire halls and didn't see one. And I was looking.
I also had my fellow Qualcomm trip attendees on the lookout, and only one saw what he thought might have been a booth babe, in hall 8.1 (apps). But despite a lot of effort, I couldn't find her, and not a single other stand had one that I saw.
I deliberately approached stands that usually have them, and noticed a distinct change that seems to have happened all at once: while many booths did still have groups of uniformed, conventionally attractive women on the stands, they were dressed more like air hostesses than club hostesses.
