Stereotyping and Discrimination alive and well.

There is a "women's" expo coming up soon where I live, this is an event geared towards women on many levels, there will be a sex toy booth, pole dancing lessons, fashion shows, and half naked firemen.
There was also going to be a feature fashion show by one of the particpants "Fantasy Dancewear"
A little background: Charlene Started designing costumes for exotic dancers (not sure when, at least 10 years ago). Many of her creations rival vagas showgirl costumes.
Lately in the lower mainland many of the exotic dancing establishments are being shut down. Due to this, and the fact that she stays home to raise her 3 children , she has started to branch out to more mainstream audiences. She has won accolades for her costume designing for festivals, she has also started to market her designs to average women, this follows the mainstreaming of things like pole dancing.
During the women's expo she was going to have a 20 minute fashion show as well as a booth which would have more information on her designs, now she won't. The problem? Her models, exotic dancers. It turns out, the organizer of the event (a man) has taken it upon himself to decide that her creations will not appeal to the attendees, at one point he mentioned that if she got models that were not strippers, she may still be able to participate with her fashion show. He also told her that the costumes may be offensive to women attending the event (he obviously has not visited her website which has gallery photos of her works), as well as any children who said women may bring along. He excused the pole dancers on account of the fact the will be in "sports wear" which presumably includes hot shorts and sports bras. Never mind the sex toy booth which will definately include a variety of rubber penises which I would think at least equally, if not more offensive then sequin covered costumes.

I am offended that this man has the audacity to claim he can speak for the women attending the Expo. This is obviously an event that hopes to liberate women, we can see at least 2 instances where sexuality comes into play, so we know it's not that. It seems to be simply nothing more then the occupation of the models.
He doesn't mind the firefighters getting 1/2 naked afterall.

www.fantasydancewear.com

Stripper models too risqué for B.C. runway
Date : Thursday, October 12, 2006

The stay-at-home mom says the show's producer felt it would be too risqué to use the dancers. "It was hard enough finding them. And I said, 'OK, so if I changed my models, would that make a difference?'"
"And he said, 'Yeah, it probably would.'"
Show's producer concerned about dancers and attire
Murray Olcat, who is producing the show, agrees he had concerns about Rowley's choice of models, but also says the designs are a potential problem.