I must admit that I was initially confused as to what the fuss was even about, and none of the avalance of commentary I've read from the start till now had changed that position. I thought Martin's post on the issue raised a fair few interesting points though that at least warranted formal consideration.
The take away point here really needs to be that people are responsible for their own reactions to things like this.
The power dynamic does not change this relationship, how often is the paradigm of the put upon geek bandied about in similar contexts? Ask your high school football team what they think of the social power of geeks as a group. Once you get done explaining the big words in your question, the result should make my point well enough.
The funny thing is if you had asked me about this issue a year or two ago I would've just shrugged in a completely nonplussed fashion. I never cared if women were interested in becoming involved in technology, it isn't that I wanted them to avoid it, I've worked under female managers at various tech companies before and to be honest one of them was about the second best manager I've ever had, she was the first manager I'd ever had that actually had the technical skills necessary to elicit due respect for her position, and I was not satisfied with any other management thereafter for about three years.
At the same time, we got saddled in that department with a woman who really did not seem to know anything about the job she found herself in. I don't know what possessed that woman to pursue this career path but I heard enough under the breath cursing from the aforementioned female manager that I didn't think it was just my sexism shining through with regards to my evaluations of her performance.
Now, though, I hack from home, meaning a large amount of the time I sit directly next to my significant other, and in a lot of cases the input of a feminine psyche is greatly desirable. Many times I've had to choose between two equally meaningless things to me and she took one look at them and made a strong choice in one direction and then explained the reasoning in a way that I'd not at all considered. Estrogen can be totally useful when you're attempting to write software that deals with humans because it gives you a nice perspective on 50% of them that over 90% of hackers don't have.
So yes, I care that female coders as a group might be offended by the content of the presentation, but I feel that that conclusion alone isn't sufficient enough to automatically condemn the presentation itself. It really is possible for otherwise decent and rational people to overreact to a perceived slight when in all fact that was absolutely never the original intention of the communication.
I understand that there is an inclination to then single out the communication as ineffective, but actually if it were not for this entire debacle of the various presentations I've viewed this week that would definitely be the one that would stick the most firmly in my mind. This is the very essence of what an effective communication is all about. This is exactly why the scourge of corporate blandness must be wiped from the face of the earth, because the nth time you've heard about synergising values for b2b return on investments, the first *syllable* of the line makes your eyes glaze over and your tongue hang slack from your jaw.
In light of this fact, and with the observance that noone seems to be actually of the opinion that any offense was *intended*, merely that it was perceived, is it not reasonable to give a little latitude to speakers in order to encourage experimentation designed to keep us awake during their talks? Even if it isn't perfectly executed?
Here's a thought experiment for you; What if the group taking unintended offense were entirely different, if there was a martyrdom slant in the talk with a picture of Jesus Christ with his crown of thorns focused on the face looking morose (This guy used to program in ColdFusion) and then the next slide he was running along the top of a couple of sand dunes with two legionaires in hot pursuit jumping for joy and clicking his heels with the thorny crown long since discarded (But then Rails set him free).
Was offense intended toward Christians? In the event that they were offended, would they be told to harden up a bit and take it in the obviously humorous fashion it was meant? Would we be asking if it mattered that they were offended or mattered that the intent was not to offend, but entertain and communicate effectively? Would their contributions simply be dismissed out of hand? Matz is a mormon, Larry Wall is an evangelical, these are things that would actually have some kind of bearing upon the community.
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