It's been around for a lot longer than the late 00's roll-up to Gamergate, but Sarkeesian's push for the blatant bullshit in the Tropes vs Women series are probably what pushed it to the forefront in gaming.

I mean, let's be honest here. Dudes are visual creatures. We like looking at tits and ass, full stop. Women are more cerebral in their desires, but that doesn't keep them from hooting like a pack of howler monkeys when they're on a girl's night out at Chippendales. We all like hot, naked bodies. Any woman who claims a hot guy with ripped abs and a chiseled chin on the cover of a bodice-ripper romance novel is there as a "male empowerment fantasy" is full of shit.

The "you're just mad because you can't whack it to the character" argument is easily dismissable, too, in that most guys are pro enough to be able to beat it to anything. It can more readily be said that the women bitching about it don't want a hot female character in the game because it makes them feel bad about their femcel lard-ass selves that need to eat a salad and get up off the couch and go for a walk, because there's no way they're going to be able to pull a hot dude with the way they currently look. It's no more objectification of women in a game than it is for them to stare at Momoa in GoT and flick the bean to him later that night, but they don't want to admit they have the same carnal desires that men do.