I don't know of anything that would imply it hasn't been an option.

It hasn't happened. Or, if there exists a counter-example, it very unambiguously hasn't happened at a scale that would imply equality.

So no. Since it's clearly a sexist practice, getting rid of it is more equal than leaving it.

I don't know about you, but as a guy I would find it extremely uncomfortable at a tech conference full of male Abercrombie and Fitch type booth dudes. I would imagine female conference-attendees might have similar feelings about scantily clad booth babes.

The point of a tech conference is to enjoy exciting new tech and network with people in the industry. Having your sex appeal cast in stark relief to a bunch of models is not part of that.

This is a fair point. There are always adult clubs folks can head to after hours. This who want just tech get just tech, those who want to objectify get to do so with willing participants in a welcoming setting.

Maybe split the show into a family friendly part and an “after dark” part, to cater for those of us who like our tech sexy as well as those who don’t?

That's what happened in high finance. It was a big part of Ellen Pao's complaint in her lawsuit against Kliner Perkins.

I can see the history as proceeding like this: finance (and similar industries) used to have a Mad Men style sexist office culture. Then PC rules and HR regulations moved in to make the office a neutral ground. Then the power brokers moved the serious networking old boys' club to the 'after dark' part.

I can't say the goal of this was to exclude women from power all along, but that's the effect of it.

Getting rid of it also stops signaling that it's a place where women are objects, but men are not. The rate at which female attendees are treated like booth babes (i.e. "sex sells" people who know nothing of the field) at these events implies this is indeed a problem. By literally fucking over those 10 people, we might help stop fucking over a different field of work that is currently being fucked over.

It's not a clear-cut win/loss either way on the whole, sure. But there's no way you can argue that it's not a sexist practice as it exists right now. What you do with that info is always a tradeoff, and I suspect we're on different sides.

> By literally fucking over those 10 people

... that's a fairly unfortunate context to misuse "literally" in.

(insightful comment though)

> You literally fucked over 10 people just to virtue signal.

I think you should spend some time learning what "virtue signaling" means before you use it again.

Couldn't we have just had a post about sex without making jokes or disparaging remarks about women?