LOL, how funny that I was thinking the same thing yesterday while marathon watching WPT on TV. I even went as far as Googling "how silly are these Royal Flush Girls?" I mean... I get it. Since I work in TV, I sort of understand the need for this element but God, I can't

Yes, modeling is mostly about looking good. But a lot of those women are probably smarter and more educated than you think, which is true of succesful people in most professions.

I recently watched an episode of the quiz show, "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" They had a "guest classroom" of Boston Celtics cheerleaders. They had each of the women state their academic credentials (I loved that, and I'm sure that the women did as well.) The majority of the cheerleaders had at least a bachelors degree and the rest were persuing a degree.

I assume that the RFGs know that they won't be modeling 20 years from now, and have likewise made plans for their futures.

In fact, knowing that host Jeff Foxworthy is an advocate of everyone getting a good education, I'm guessing that rather than selecting the hottest of the cheerleaders for television, he asked to get the ones who had already earned degrees first, and go from there. It was also probably his idea to have every woman individually state her education level and the college that she attended.

Well played Jeff.

I'm just going to quote myself from a thread down in the Politics forum, where I was answering some idiot who was asserting that females weren't as smart as males because they were underrepresented in science/engineering. Everything you say doesn't happen DOES happen. It starts happening at a very young age, with pink vs. blue, dollhouses vs. trucks, playing dress-up vs. building treehouses. Or more subtly, like my friend who calls things "girly"and "for chicks" and now his 11 year old son is doing the same, when said things are just more cerebral activities like...reading a novel or watching a drama.

(source here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=220

Women are conditioned practically from birth that pretty is better than smart. Look around, it's everywhere. Your example of Bill Gates is moot because he is MALE. Boys are told by their parents/teachers, "you can be whatever you want! don't listen to the haters! go for it, buddy!" Girls are told, "Oh, wouldn't you be happier doing this? Be a good girl and don't make trouble. Don't forget to wear your pretty dress on the first day of school! Don't listen to those boys, you're a very pretty girl!"

Anyway, sorry for the off-track post...I find relating to typical female things (fashion, makeup, cattiness, fake smiles, etc) very difficult, and this is probably part of the reason...heh

i am trying to think of a field women dominate at the top (where they are in direct competition with men) and i can't come up with anything, it's kind of sad. i mean even stuff like cooking or fashion is extremely male dominated. women have been going to college in equal numbers for 30 years in the US (and even longer in other parts) and these days it's more like 60-70% in many countries.

and another fun fact, i was checking the largest online sites and i noticed something pretty unreal.

google
facebook
youtube
yahoo
wikipedia
linkedin
twitter
amazon
blogspot
wordpres
ebay
tumblr
pinterest
paypal
instagram
craiglist


if you were asked how many of their founders do you think were women, what would you say?

clue:

no.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...different-toys

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1827727.html



as for girls being told they can't achieve and so on, also no.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...ereotypes.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11151143

In reading the last few posts, a couple interesting things were said.

1. Boys in general don't do as well as girls do in school.
2. Men tend to excel even in fields were most of their co-workers are female.

I think that both are true, and there are reasons why.

Boys as a group don't do as well at school, because they don't conform. They tend to be louder, more competitive, and less group-oriented than girls, all of which gets them negative attention from teachers.

Also, one author (I wish I could remember the name, I saw him in a television interview) notes that what used to be stereotypically male behavior when he was a child could now get his son kicked out of school. His examples included playing with toy guns, carrying a pocket knife, or writing stories with a violent theme (for example, graphic descriptions of a military battle with body parts all over the battlefield.)

Girls are much less likely to do those things than boys are, and girls are generally more cooperative, which gets them positive attention from their teachers.

As far as men being at the top of female-dominated fields, that's a different issue. If men in generally favor individual competition over cooperation, and girls are more oriented toward cooperation, it makes sense that men would be more likely to rise to the top of a given competitive field.

To put it simply, a female basketball player would in general tend to be Lebron James, wanting to pass the ball and get every player on the team involved in the game. Boys want to be Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, scoring 40 points to lead their team to a win.

Both styles work in team sports. But in individual competition where men compete against women, such as auditioning for an orchestra chair in a clarinet or flute section, men are very well represented, even though most of the players in the feeder system (clarinet and flute players in American high schools) are girls.

One more thing to consider--men are not in general more intelligent than women. The average IQ score for both is a raw score of 100, or 50th percentile. But female IQ scores are more clustered around the mean.

What that means is that more men than women are going to qualify for MENSA (98th percentile IQ.) But it also means that more men than women will have subnormal IQs.

It makes sense when you think about it. Here are four fields where the high-level competitors have been measured* to have high very high IQs. From highest to lowest IQs:

Classical musicians
Physicists
Chess Players
Poker Players*

Men are dominant in all of those fields, which require high intelligence and don't have any conditions, such as the need for physical strength, which would put women at a disadvantage. I believe that this is largely because of the reasons stated in this post.

--------
*Actually, there is IQ information for the top 3 professions. David Sklansky has estimated the average IQ of a poker player in a Las Vegas card room at 125, which would put poker players at the bottom of that list. If you tested the average IQ at WPT final tables, I think that professional poker players would be in the same neighborhood as professional chess players.

why were my post deleted ? there were no insults or etc in any of them. a woman called some guy an idiot in one of the posts above , didn't see her get deleted or banned.

What I dislike about The RFG is the use of "girls" instead of "women." These are definitely full grown women and it's infantilizing and demeaning to refer to them as girls. The correlate in race might be calling a full grown AA man a "boy" and that no longer happens as a matter of course.

I see what you're saying but it really does depend on the context.

For example, it is common for someone in a group of male friends (whatever their race or races) to say, "these are my boys."

In musical theater, those who are auditioning for a role are often divided into "the boys" and "the girls", regardless of age or race.

Women often refer to themselves as girls, especially in a group context, for example, "we're having a girls night out." Does any all-female rock group referred to themselves as "women" instead of "girls" in that context? Maybe, but it's certainly not common. Celtic Woman is the closest thing that I can think of.

http://www.google.com/#q=celtic+woman

Specifically, if we're talking about the RFGs, again, not uncommon. You might not like it, but no one talks about a "Hooters woman", or the "attractive woman" in his college class. Men use "girls" the same way that women use "guys," and very few people either saying or hearing that would think that someone was being belittled.

I can think of cases where it is demaining, for example, a man referring to his secretary or assistant as "my girl", but you don't hear that much any more unless you're watching Mad Men. In most cases, I don't think that using the word "girl" for a female who 18 or older is in general demeaning, nor is it intended to be.

Here's an interesting article... look at it from this perspective, and yes, she hits on every single point I would address....but written so well! Basically, a lot of this stuff is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-d...b_3914030.html

I agree that it is context dependent, and refer to the RFG context.
In a world where men and women were viewed equally, the a/symmetrical use of girl or boy would likely not be an issue or interesting. What is at issue is who uses the infantilizing term in what context and to what effect. Explicitly sexualized women being referred to as "girls" by male industry professionals in a male dominated industry is not equivalent to men calling each other "boys," to refer to just one of your ounter examples.

I think it is interesting that it isn't "Hooters women" and we can ask why not, when that would be more accurate and proper, not to mention I believe respectful, term? I know it may not be conventional to use "women" in many contexts but I certainly do use it to refer to post-pubescent women, and teens I call young women. So do my peers.

The bottom line is that many men (assuredly the majority in the desired demographic) want to fantasize about "girls" so RFGirls it is. This speaks to poker culture as it has been and largely still is today.

I should add that I respect the women themselves and their career choices, and am largely in favor of sexiness and exhibitionism for any and all genders. But they are def. not girls in my eyes.

It's been years since I have watched the WPT with anything close to regularity, primarily due to a lack of consistent carriage in my neck of the woods. But, speaking as a man on the cusp of 50, I am surprised they did not come up with this ridiculous idea sooner. It is the logical extension of Shana Hiatt as "host" in the first few seasons, followed by whoever the eye-candy was after she was let go. It is simply marketing to the lowest common denominator, much like any other sport, beer company, cologne, etc.

What has REALLY ticked me off is that, as near as I can tell, there are only FOUR girls . . . last time I looked, a Royal Flush consisted of FIVE cards, just like every other poker hand.

LOL Milo very good point.

Good points itt! One thing different about referring to women as girls etc...

When we are referring to those of the male persuasion we can say boy, man, guy, dude etc. with guy probably being the most common as it isn't age specific. There is no female counterpart word. For those of the female persuasion you are a girl or a woman or chick and since woman is generally considered a word to represent women who are older most women under 40 tend to be referred to as girls which is pretty silly because no one is referring to any guy (see there I used guy) over 25 as a boy. Chick is considered sexist and degrading where dude is silly but not derogatory in any way. So why is there no female word like guy? Because of generation after generation of people thinking it's perfectly okay to refer to women of most any age as a girl.

BTW I still hate the Royal Flush girls concept.

Lady

Also Gal.

Lady still seems tied to an older woman though and Gal is up there with chick as far as disrespect go imo. I thought about Gal after I said that

One particular situation tilted me beyond belief. I know they change the royal flush girls around every so often, it was like 2 years ago, so probably not the same ones. They're pretty girls, yadda yadda, this isn't a "I hate other girls" issue, it's the way they conducted themselves during a Borgata WPT event. I was at the table next to their setup, where they sit on their laptops/phones/meet people/etc. I know during tournaments nothing is really required of them, but the particular group of them talked the entire time, and by "talked" I mean yelled like highschoolers. About guys, hookups, annoyances of the job. (Who complains about getting flown around the world?) But seriously, they were so loud headphones weren't helping. I was genuinely suprised none of the WPT staff said anything. It takes quite a bit to bother me I just couldn't believe the content of the things they were babbling about so loudly, and the way it represented the WPT. They were not concerned in the least about being respectful in a (quiet) tournament room, nor that the entrants have a good amount of money invested in it.

The whole concept of the RFG seems pointless to me. Just endless awkwardness on all sides. I Always fast forward past this quasi playboy mansion guff. Either put them in the game as dead money of save the money...

I don't know that "disrespectful" is the right term, at least, not without context.

I mean, "she's a great gal, plenty tough at the table, too," is a compliment, no?

Whereas, "Hi gals, who's going to be donating to my kid's College fund today," is anything but . . .

That is very reasonable. However, you seem to be assuming that because you feel one way that the majority of women feel one way. This is quite evident in your assumption that the RFG are making poker "less attractive to women." Do you have any evidence for this other than your own personal feelings on the matter?


for sure, and vice versa


"A bunch of nerds, who none of these girls would ever talk to in irrl, sitting there is just pretty sad."


Is it possible that "the way you see it" is influenced by a host of cognitive biases that are affecting your view of what is really going on?


Sample size? Exactly how closely have you been monitoring this?

Sounds to me like you went into the situation with a preconceived idea of what was happening(dorky guys trying to hit on super hot models who aren't really interested), and to nobody's surprise you ended up seeing exactly what you wanted to see. I think your objectivity in this situation leaves much to be desired.



1. Go to college
2. Get a degree in advertising
3. Have the necessary qualifications to make such a statement
4. profit?


Your entire viewpoint here seems to be "I don't personally like this, therefore I'm going to make a bunch of assumptions about the effectiveness of this marketing strategy and about the social interactions between the players and the RFG." Why not actually educate yourself- I'm sure the advertising people at WPT wouldn't be overly put off if you just asked them about the market research they've done regarding the RFG.




I think its very interesting to hear female-perspectives and try to think of what it must be like to live life as a female. With that said, I almost always find that the people giving the perspective make the assumption that the opposite gender(or race or whatever we are grouping by) doesn't go through the exact same thing. I could just as easily say:

If you think boys aren't influenced from a young age that athletic ability and the ability to pick-up girls aren't more important than science and math then you are sadly naive.


Or to give a more personal anecdote: I was always very talented when it came to math/logic, yet I spent a huge majority of my mental focus as a high schooler focusing on Christianity and remembering bible verses. I was totally consumed by the grips of organized religion, and I 100% bought into their lies. I think the lesson to take away is that, as a society, we have not yet progressed to the point where we are properly educating our youth.


agree 100% with this.

Yes I can understand why some females would be turned off by the concepts of the RFG, and I will also admit that I would find it very strange if I won a WPT and had a bunch of Chippendales dancers on stage with me. However, the trade-off is that I have been a poker pro for 10+ years, have played as high as $50/100, have nearly 50k posts on this forum, know a ton of people in the poker industry...and I've never once been approached for a sponsorship of any kind. Contrast that to a random woman who goes deep in one WSOP ME and then gets a huge contract for the following years.....basically what I'm saying is that I would gladly make the trade of having Chippendales dancers instead of RFG if it meant that I had the same odds as a female of getting a sponsorship.

"Boys are told by their parents/teachers, "you can be whatever you want! don't listen to the haters! go for it, buddy!""

evidence of this?

Its weird- I actually agree with the viewpoint that you're expressing here, but I think you're in such a rush to demonstrate it to everyone that you're completely glossing over issues that young boys go through relating to peer pressure and societal expectations. Its almost like you think you own point is strengthened by dismissing similar issues that young boys face.


This just isn't true at all. I can very clearly picture my family's Christmas celebrations, taking pictures around the XMas tree before we open presents. And I can totally imagine my cousin(a female) saying "all right lets get one with all the boys in front of the tree!" referring to all the males in my family. Probably happens every single XMas now that I think about it. If I can remember to do it, I'll specifically look out for it next Christmas and report back.


by being overly sensitive to stuff like this, I think you're doing your cause a huge disservice. You have too many good points imo to get caught up on things like this and risk having your supporters roll their eyes and stop listening.


1. Claim that the female equivalent of "guys"(gals) is disrespectful
2. Wonder why there is no other female equivalent of "guys"
3. Claim that the reason there is no other female equivalent of "guys" is because generation after generation(of men presumably) has thought it perfectly ok to just use "girls"


It seems like you're really reaching for something to be upset about here.

Moreover, it seems like you have certain biases in your own mind and you continue to assume that everyone else has those same biases. You say things like "Chick is considered sexist and degrading where dude is silly but not derogatory in any way".....these are just preconceived notions you have in your own head, and you're assuming that everyone else feels the same way.

If you want to empower your gender, then imo stop being so offended by things like the word "chick". Instead work your ass off so that the following generations will view "chick" and "dude" in the same exact light. For many of the people in my social circles, we already do just that.

Actually I'm not personally offended by the word chick, it's just generally considered by females to be somewhat disrespectful, especially by older women. That/those posts were basically late night ramblings and not meant to really be serious.

A guy I know (in his mid twenties) just posted the statement below on his Facebook status:

"Girls, as with everything, always think they're better at poker. Its just not possible. They dont have that killer extinct that is specific to the male gene."

This is the perception of women players that a lot of guys have and I think it's ridiculous, of course I know a lot of guys who think it's as ridiculous as I do, but it is perpetuated by things like the RFG concept imo.

As for this being only my perception of the RFG's I see several post itt agreeing with me and I know lots of female players who agree with me. Small sample size maybe but never once did I state many or all women feel this way.

The WSOP is much more popular than the WPT and much better respected from everything I see and they don't need 4 pretty girls sitting at a stupid social bar and prissing around in matching dresses to get participants or viewers.

I fully understand the marketing concept, much of what I've done over the last 12 years involves marketing and promotion. I have to say your post comes across like you're saying I'm too dumb, inexperienced and uneducated to have a clue about anything I've said. There you are wrong!

Bottom line I don't like the RFG concept, I wish WPT would put a stop to it. This is how I feel, right or wrong. I don't care if anyone agrees with me or not and I don't assume any or many feel this way. I can speak for no one but myself

In regards to sponsorship, with very few exceptions you only see young pretty girls getting sponsorships, the few female players this doesn't apply to are just plain sick over the top good players. The one exception of this, and why I have so much respect for them, is before Black Friday PokerStars was doing a lot to promote women in poker. They started the women's league and added at least a couple of online pros who were women over 40. They had done studies and found that one of the biggest growing demographics in online poker was women in this age group and they were going out of their way to attract these women.

I don't have much more to add, but just wanted to apologize if my post came across as condescending- not my intentions.


thats all good. In your OP you did say "I'd love to know how others feel about this", so I assume you did want feedback(even from those who disagreed). You're obviously welcome to not approve of the RFG concept.

Why?

Again, why?

Seems you just get to decide what's offensive and what isn't, and that's that.