title:  How Female Execs Are Striking Back At Pharma For Using Women As ‘Eye Candy’ (VIDEO)
text: Women in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries have had it with executives working with firms that truck in scantily clad women to populate cocktail parties being held at their industry conferences.And now those women are circulating a letter in order to get the men that head those firms to stop the practice, most recently seen at a healthcare conference held by mega-firm JP Morgan.The impetus for the letter, which was initiated by two women who have high profiles in the biopharma world, was yet  another cocktail party in which inappropriately clad women served as eye candy  during the week-long festivities surrounding the recent JP Morgan health care conference.The event, which is arguably the most important stomping ground for biopharma executives and investors, attracted some 9,000 people last month to San Francisco, where countless receptions and parties were held in hotels and restaurants dotting the city s Financial District.Kate Bingham, a managing partner at venture capital firm SV Life Sciences, and Karen Bernstein, whose company runs BioCentury, a news site, created the letter.In it they ask,  Are we still working with people who think of women as chattel? What compelling business rationale could there possibly be for that kind of entertainment? Perhaps anticipating sexist counterarguments or an attempt to escape blame, the letter notes,  It doesn t matter who, or what kind of company, organized these events. If biotech executives attend, they endorse them. That reflects not only on them as individuals, but on us as an industry. One company in particular, LifeSci Advisors, an investor relations firm, was called out in the letter for a party where  young, female models were brought in to escort the guests on buses  bound for the Exploratorium science and art museum in San Francisco. Once there, the models were also used  to mingle with the crowd. The letter also points out that the recent ROTH Conference had a promotional video that  flaunts its use of scantily clad female dancers, who appear alongside cool male rock stars and skateboarders, and images of professionally dressed businessmen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_Xvla_5loThe industry in question, along with tech, already faces major criticism of its inability to include women and minorities in what is already one of the fastest growing fields in America and the world. Cocktail parties with female entertainment are something straight out of the 1960s male-dominated mad men point of view, and most likely serve as a major turn off for women who might think about pursuing a career.Data shows that businesses benefit from hiring women and minorities, so if we want to excel against the world, it might be smart to ditch the boy s club. Featured image from YouTube