FS Huntress' post didn't seem real light-hearted to me... I understand that sex sells (why else have booth babes pictured on the F&S website), and I understand economic desperation and razor thin profit margins driving marketing decisions to use all means available to get a leg up (so to speak), but it just seems to me what this says about how some Shot Show manufacturers view their target audiences is pretty discouraging. Do I like to look at babes? Yes, but truth be told I really don't want to look at them. I don't like what it says about what manufacturers think about me, as a customer, to be lumped/segmented with a bunch of drooling... well, you get the picture. And I don't want to HAVE to look at them to buy a gun, or spend time on the F&S website, for that matter.

I truly hope someday we can get past this. Maybe F&S will grow enough cojones to NOT feature booth babes next year. One can hope.

The reality is sex sells and SHOT caters to a primarily male audience.

If the audience was primarily female, I'm sure you would see half dressed guys parading around and there would be a male blogger complaining about that.

I disagree, in our minds it tends to make women seem like objects, and a woman is not an object whose beauty is only skin deep.

I guess when you pay that much for 3 pounds of silicon you have to find someway, no matter how degrading, to pay the doctor off. Too bad women can't figure out that real beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Those fake ones are nice and all until you look under them---gaaackkkk!!!

Hey Jim, do you really think that these girls love the attention or the money they receive? Get a clue. Not one of those girls WANT some old guy hitting on them. So you are saying that if Elly Mae is working the Hi-Point booth, and Granny Clampett is working the Glock booth, you and your money is going to go where Elly Mae is? More power to ya buddy!

Sorry should have read, you and your money are going to go where Elly Mae is.

No, obviously I am not one who has to throw money at women.

L3,
Nobody's throwing money at women, they're throwing money at the products! Every word people write on blogs or in their magazines is literally MONEY!

Once a year I work with professional models at a classic car show. These ladies are intelligent, personable, beautiful, and articulate. They come across well to both men and women.

Once or twice a year I also work with amateur models at sportsmen fundraising banquets. Usually only one or two know anything about sporting equipment or the outdoors. Ladies in black dresses and heels handling firearms is undoubtedly a turn-on but the ones that know even a little just stand out.

I love a beautiful woman that looks me in the eye and knows what she is talking about. The booth babes make me smile, but I would much rather see classy decked out ladies handling equipment that they know something about.

As a fellow huntress, it's a shocking truth of reality that all us babes dont wake up at four in the morning during the rut, stalk out in our skin tight leather chaps and bikini top, and sit for hours in the woods modeling some overpowered firearm while we wait for a nice deer to wander by. I would feel depressed too! All that flesh is definately not going to bring in the bucks. Atleast not the ones i'm worried about.

Okay, let me get this straight. Instead of learning more about hunting and fishing, hanging out at elk camp, going to BOW, or taking my daughter to hunters ed, I should just put on a skimpy outfit and work the SHOT show? Instead of being a hunting buddy, you guys would rather see me as a sex object? For most of us gals it is intimidating enough to deal with the "macho" factor, but now we have to have perfect hair, flat abs, and leather fringe to be accepted in the outdoors? I have been doing this wrong all along! (Do they make camo stilletos?) I agree that booth babes will probably be around for a while - but then again, what is wrong with finding REAL women who have REAL knowledge about the stuff they are selling - can't they dress nice (ie not barely covered) and be smart too? Of course, the easy answer is "don't look at the pictures/models." Yet even if I don't, I still have to live up to that pressure and scrutiny by you guys out there. So I leave you with these thoughts: What kind of example do booth babes set for us as outdoorspeople? What kind of example does that set for my daughter, who is the future of this sport?

I would much rather buy a product from an ugly person that knows what they are talking about than from a good looking person (or borderline bimbo) that has no clue. If it's a trade show, it should be about the products, not the girls- bottom line.

This is a tough subject for me. I understand marketing, and know sex sells (and I'm amused when I watch men empty their wallets at fundraising dinners when cleavage walks by their tables - a little like bucks in rut).

But yeah, it is depressing being a woman and walking up to a booth laden with booth babes, for all kinds of reasons, probably the first being that the message is, "We don't actually expect that a female journalist or purchaser would show up here - but we're ready to make the men happy!"

I try to stay on the side of being amused because it's just easier than being depressed or pissed off. But to everyone who thinks Kim is being a P.C. whiner, consider this: If you have a 12-year-old daughter you're teaching to hunt and you take her to a show like this, is this what you want her to see? That the role of women in hunting is to shove their cleavage in men's faces?

At least I'm a grown woman and I can filter this out, and remember that 99 percent of experiences I've had with men in hunting have been positive and very welcoming. But kids are impressionable, and if I had a daughter, that's not the impression I'd want her to have of the business. I'd skip those booths and take her to meet people like Kirstie Pike, Pam Zaitz, Shelah Zmigrosky, Keli Van Cleave and any number of women who are successful hunters and entrepreneurs and don't dress like ho's.

I've never been to a SHOT Show nor met a booth babe, but I've heard numerous things about it all. Not a big fan of it. I think the gals here have already covered everything I could have said. They said it very well!!

BTW, We're definitely getting more traffic here lately, who knew that it only took a point system to do so.

I saw this post yesterday and wanted to respond but my mom always said "if you can't say something nice, don't say it at all". So I waited and he are my thoughts.
This subject came up before and I told the story of going to an event where there are young ladies walking around selling raffle tickets.
They are not dressed like other women attendees as they are in long beautiful evening gowns with high heels and more flesh showing than probably necessary, but whatever.
The first year I was kind of intimidated when the ladies walked up to the table and all the guys at the table, including my husband sat there gawking.
I remember thinking as wallet flew out of back pockets like there was a fire in the hol, now what if this was their wife asking for grocery money, or money to pay a monthly bill? Thousands of dollars went from a man's
hand to one of those charming ladies that night because they were dressed the way they were. And that my friends is EXACTLY what is intended when a company or organization hires those girls to sell tickets and show raffle items.
But the most humorous event that year and every year after was when the puppies came out that were to be raffled off. Those ladies carried those pups round and round the room. Stopping at each table and bending...just a little bit so that an interested attendee could stoke that little puppies head. Rub it's eears just for a moment and all the time looking down the front of the young ladies dress. If you asked anyone of those guys what sex or color that puppy was, they honest to God could not tell you. White???? & Tan??
lol
Everyone needs to make a living and this is how they make theirs. I wouldn't dress up in that outfit for love or money but give me a pair of camo pants, shirt, a pair of boots and my bow and I will seriously kick some butt. I am not any better than them and they are not any better than me.
I do have to say, in their defense that I did here one of the ladies telling of a hunt she was on. Now I don't know if she hunted or went as an observer but she did go.
See, maybe she had camo under her dress. =)
JB

I always wonder why there aren't body builder type guys there in tight shorts for the ladies to oggle over?

Equality of the sexes my azz.

Perhaps I've been married too long but I don't pay much attention to the trailer trash looking half naked girls anymore. I flipped thru the pics on Petzal's blog and only paused at a couple, most were not that interesting. Even the one at the top of this colum, my first thoughts were "I wonder if she knows how to shoot that thing". God I must be getting old.......

Kim, thanks for polite response. This is the first time in a week that I've visited this site because I was afraid I was rude.

Bella,

I had to set some guys straight the other day. For some reason they referred to you as a guy. Jim and I have not forgotten you said you would post a pic in swim attire some day. You obviously know your stuff about hunting. How about a camo bikini. If that won't work at least put a face with the name. We are waiting.