Congradualations for completely 100% missing the point.

First off, Men aren't pressured to look a certain way... at least not remotely near as much.

Secondly, it's not "powerful" vs "soft"

It's "Powerful" vs "For most of the history of mankind women have been more or less as property... and by most of history it's like 99% of history, since it's been less then 100 years since women have had the right to vote in this country let alone society ever getting to a point where men and women are treated equally.  Therefore treating women like property sort of has a stronger implication behind it."

Basically it's like "not getting" why a black person might be upset that at a party that's 95% white, for an industry that's 95% white ... every waiter and valet is black, and emphasis is put on them being servants.

Well, then these women need to stop living in the past and live in the present. Giving the past as an excuse for "offense" is as weak as it gets.

Because most people live in the present. What happened in the past is in nobody's control now.

What you are doing is just supporting double standards.

Unless the women were forced into those outfits and forced to dance on stage, I don't see the sexist argument. They CHOSE to partake in this. If they wanted to do it, where's the issue?

The fact that this happened at GDC is purely anecdotal... A similar thing happened at PAX as well, and that's more of a game festival than this:

http://www.destructoid.com/two-fun-people-were-asked-to-leave-pax-east-225430.phtml  (might be NSFW, I guess...)

It's the same mentality. The idea that any public display of female sexuality is "immoral", "indecent" or "objectifying", no matter how small and trivial it is, and ignoring how these women voluntarily agreed to do it. The same mentality that has a problem with the portray of female sexuality in gaming, as we most recently saw with Kotaku's article on the latest God of War.

Personally, I believe this recurrent dispute has more to do with the different views that people have on sexuality than any sort of "power struggle" between genders. "Sexism" just happens to be a great excuse here.

Apparently most people have forgotten about the role that Feminism had during the Sexual Revolution of the 60s... How many women at the time revindicated their right to dress however they wanted and enjoy sexuality in their own way. Nowadays it seems that in order to be a "feminist", you have to be against any public display of female sexuality, no matter how small and trivial it is... Even though I know for a fact that there are many women out there that don't have a problem with it, including ones that also call themselves "feminists".

We live in a world where male strippers and underwear models exist. Where many women enjoy porn, not to mention other "suggestive" portrays of men. Where homosexuals are beginning to get the basic respect and rights they deserve. Where media that is targeted to women like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey is not only accepted, but wildly popular. So what justifies all these claims of "sexism" in media or these public events, in our current days ?

Anyway... I fully agree with wfz's comments. Sexuality is a natural and desirable part of life. I completely disagree with those that constantly "demonize" it, finding all sorts of moral issues with it. And it is indeed quite ironic how many of those who criticize this kind of things in the name of the gender are the first ones to disrespect the women who see things differently, treating them in a condescending manner. How about asking the opinion of these dancers or the models that appear at E3 for a change ?

You mean the present where women are still more objectified then men, still aren't treated as 100% equals and are often objectified and marginalized in male dominated fields like videogames?

Outside which.... no people should be aware of the past and should be consdiderate of how the fast effects people, espiecally people of marginalized groups.  How could you think otherwise?

Again, do you really think it's a double standard to be mad when Michael Richards calls a black guy a Nigger, but not get upset when Chris Rock calls a white guy a cracker?  If so... you REALLY need to reevaluate your priorites. 

Let alone the fact that sexism is still totally a problem and women still often completely treated like property.

By the way, i'm not actually offended by the above... i'm sure many women aren't... however I think you'd have to be pretty intentionally ignorant to not understand why people would be and to think it would be no different then if a male was there.

It screams wanting to hide from the fact that there are a ton of advantages to being a dude and next to zero disadvantages.  

As for the "the women agreed to do that".

I bet you can find a Jewish person to make holocaust jokes.

You can totally find black people who will say bad stuff about other black people.

That doesn't mean suddeny holocaust jokes and racists stuff are suddenly fair game and nobody can cry racism ever or even in that specific incident.  Much more extreme examples, but it makes the point for sure.

Am I the only one who thinks that this was simply inappropriate for GDC? I don't think it's offensive in the slightest but I don't expect to go to a conference with industry professionals and see scantily clad dancing girls (or dancing men for that matter... unless the industry is porn in which case you should get lots of both and a whole lot more to boot).

Anyway, it's just unprofessional. Save this stuff for E3 and other more "fun" shows.

That it's inappropriate is exactly why it is considered offensive by  number of female game designers.

The problem though... is for a job like this 60-70% of it is who you know.  In otherwords it's networking.

Therefore, if you avoid these parties because they hire someone offensive, you are losing out.  

To use a more extreme example it's like holding networking social meetings for your employees and other companies at a strip club.  Or just buisness meetings in general.   (This totally happens FYI).

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2006-03-22-strip-clubs-usat_x.htm 

So even with "fun" shows it's kind of fucking with peoples careers in a way that's unneeded.

I don't think it's unreasonabe to aknowledge that fact.

Women are "objectified" by their will. They choose it, men have absolutely no control over whether to objectify them or not.

I don't get why they choose to dance if it is so harmful or offensive to the female population? I get that you are not offended and I agree that maybe it is not the right place in a GDC, but I am talking about your double standards that if a man were to do it it would be different to a woman.

Maybe there are tons of advantages for being a dude, but again, most people can't do anything about it. It is still not a reason to have double standards.

There is however nothing stopping women from doing what they want in this day and age, by the way.

"Again, do you really think it's a double standard to be mad when Michael Richards calls a black guy a Nigger, but not get upset when Chris Rock calls a white guy a cracker?  If so... you REALLY need to reevaluate your priorites. "

Yes? It is still a double standard. If you don't want people to insult black people then don't support or tolerate insults against the white either. I am talking about people in third person. It is upto the person who got insulted to be offended in the first place. The remaining population should be on the same platform on this issue.

I think it would be a lot more effective if you were to convey your complaints to the woman who agreed to that, rather than the man/woman who recruited her.

... no they aren't?  Are you kidding?

Also... with the bolded.... seriously dude?   What's wrong with you.

Louis CK puts it best....

To use a different sort of example giving one person penacilin and another person something else because they're allergic to penacilin isn't a double standard.  

Context 100% matters.

Nigger is worse then cracker, because nigger has hundreds of years of negative conotations.  Cracker...  has zero connotations behind it.

Wanting to eat one of these pieces of pizza and not the other isn't a double standard.