Interesting, my mind goes straight to this being incredibly demeaning toward the legitimate male attendees of the party. Didn't even occur to me that somebody would have the opposite interpretation.
That'd be my only thought at the party. "They had to pay this good-looking person to pretend to talk to me." I don't see how this is misogynistic? I just see this as an extreme degradation of the males involved.
A programmer spent a lot of time honing their craft, faces every day challenges, has growth opportunities, can aspire to higher salaries through tough work, has growth opportunities, can influence the world around them and create new things. Coding yields power.
While modelling may require difficult labour, it's mostly just "congratulations for your face".
Now do it for 12 hours straight. Yes, it's just a pretty face, no skill required.
It's not about whether it is difficult or not, it is more about what type of culture do such things foster and what values does it signal (referring to "SV roller skate models").
Men having polite conversations with women is 'wrong' only in a dystopian future.
I personally think it's a little ridiculous and would not want to attend, nor would I put together a party like that, but it's a matter of social taste, not morality.
One needs to be absolutely insane to organically interact with a co-worker of opposite sex at a company social events considering the popularity of all kinds of sexual harassment claims.
Male appreciation of female company is utterly and absolutely in not 'misogynistic'.
Not only that - it's also very normal, and frankly good.
If people are treated as sexual objects, then you can complain.
This has nothing to do with equality. They aren't hiring these models as equals, but for the misogynistic dynamic (while removing the organic nature of opposite-sex interaction)