At the afterparty for Microsoft’s official Game Developer Conference in San Francisco Thursday night, the company hired dancers dressed in sexually provocative clothing, prompting some to accuse Microsoft of alienating women in the already male-dominated tech industry, reports Business Insider.
Attendees posted photos and on Instagram displaying the dancers’ attire.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDFZd3ypWHX/?taken-by=henningludvigsen
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDFcNW8LXSq/?taken-by=ivanmoen
Australian game developer Kamina Vincent, who was in attendance, slammed Microsoft in a series of furious tweets, promising to issue a formal complaint over the matter.
They were dancing on podiums.
(Deleted originals to blur faces of the dancers) pic.twitter.com/pG1BxmtbnO
— Kamina Vincent (she/her) 💙 (@spamoir) March 18, 2016
Even Microsoft’s head of Xbox Games Marketing Aaron Greenberg expressed his disapproval on Twitter.
@ZenMobius@XboxP3@Xbox@Microsoft@Spacekatgal@GDC Very disappointed to see this, going to follow up with team.
— Aaron Greenberg 🙅🏼♂️💚U (@aarongreenberg) March 18, 2016
The incident not only evokes the stubborn gender disparity in the tech community at large, but, more troublingly, the Gamergate controversy, and sexual harassment in the gaming community specifically.
This article was originally published at Money.com