Unfortunately, it was my limited recollection of the event that's prompted some replies about it marginalizing female employees. To clarify, it was a vendor conference and not a company party. Employees from different companies would attend. (Think of it like Google I/O or Apple WWDC Developers Conference).
There were very likely male models there as well for the female attendees to interact with. I just happened to be standing with a group of all males so understandably, the only models that skated up to us were female. My single-gender sample set distorts what I remember and how I tell the story which then gives you, the reader, the wrong impression that it was quasi strip club event.
I'd have to seek out some female colleagues who went to the same 2000 conference and ask them what they thought of it. I'm curious if they'd reply that they were disgusted and outraged by the male models there. I really don't know. (Or similarly, we can ask today's female employees at SV companies what they thought of male models at recent corporate parties.)
And if my company hired a bunch of gorgeous models - most female but a few male - for our holiday party, I would be outraged. The male models would probably make me uncomfortable first off for the same reasons some male commenters here say they're demeaned by the assumption that their company needs to hire people to speak to them.
But I'd also interpret the presence of the male models not as a way to make the female attendees happy directly (unless it was a horribly tone-deaf attempt by a man) - I'd probably interpret the choice to have them present as a way to excuse the presence of the female models in an attempt to titillate the men. "Oh, no, we're not objectifying women for the sake of our male employees! See? We have male models here too!"
1) ">It's one step short of holding your holiday party at a strip club."
2) ">I'm not suggesting it's [...] nearly as egregious a violation as taking employees to a strip club."
The "one step" looks like "nearly" to me which is why I tried to clarify the nature of the interactions.
If any _hint_ of "strip club" is even mentioned in the replies to my anecdote about the software conference party, that's my fault for describing it poorly.
See my other comment about this.[1] Are female guests at Disney describing Gaston as "one step" removed from a "male strip club"? I don't think so and that's the type of platonic vibe I was trying to portray in my conference anecdote. Nevertheless, people still get the wrong impression that the party models were there to act as a sexual tease. (The "fake friends" models mentioned in the Bloomberg article may be instructed to act in a more sexually provocative manner but my anecdote wasn't about them.)
If the intent were solely to entertain rather than to titillate, they would be hiring comedians rather than models.
Is it explicitly sexualized and objectifying like a strip club? No. Is it implicitly sexualized and objectifying? Hell yes.
I don't think it clarifies the discussion by labeling them "comedians" XOR "models". It's impossible to disentangle the gender/beauty or its effects from the role being played. It's an unavoidable blend of multiple roles.
In other words, it would be naive to think there is zero sexual objectification of Disney Gaston models at the park. Disney is not hiring androgynous robots so we have to be realistic here. The men have to be "eye candy" to some degree to get the job.
Likewise, even if a company tried to hire "entertainers" for a work party and those entertainers happened to also look beautiful, you will still have objectification. Is the model hired for a corporaty party to hang coats a "coat valet" or a "model"? It's not what you label them; it's the effects.
Why? That's super judgemental of you. There is no "clear" angle that a young and attractive person is necessarily an object of sexual attraction, except in your own imagination.
All attractive people are objects of sexual attraction. It's what you do with that that separates the creeps from everybody else.
So its _my_ fault for _not_ stereotyping? Amazing.
The article just mentions being attractive. It also mentions other clients who hire models to dress up in costumes, and among other things to create a "fun" (whatever that means) atmosphere. The article also mentions an agency which insists on having the models be assigned specific tasks (coat checkers, servers), etc. People strongly associate attractive people with parties/partying/celebrity culture/fun/etc for various reasons. Its sort of like using a person with spectacles/drab clothes/British accent to signal intelligence. In any event, introducing models into an audience filled with programmers, would greatly increase the diversity of the party. Maybe the models who themselves had negative stereotypes about "nerds" would see that they were fun people too. It cuts both ways.
>Because someone thinks that speaking to a sexually attractive woman will be gratifying to young males, especially those stereotyped as socially awkward.
Neither the article, nor the comment you replied to has put forth this idea.
It's one step short of holding your holiday party at a strip club. Not quite as crass, but uncomfortable and marginalizing for the women for similar reasons.