[gyardley]

Pairing an activity with another highly-gendered activity will most definitely change the gender ratio of your combined activities.

Here 'yoga' is playing the role 'pizza and beer' does at most hackathons - I know there's tons of exceptions, but generally speaking, women like yoga more than men, and men like eating pizza and drinking beer more than women.

I bet you could adjust the gender ratio even more if you mixed in more female-leaning activities - for instance, you could bring in a pedicurist.

The social engineer in me wonders what our profession would look like if every technical course over a couple of decades was followed by getting your nails done and a wine tasting.

[mnicole]

I'm going to be the jerk that says using yoga and pedicures as a means to bring women in might actually be more alienating than welcoming to many of us. I have no interest in any of those activities intermingling, and I think it sends a message that we need to "genderize" things to make them relevant or appealing. Now, even though I'm theoretically being targeted, I feel even more like the odd [wo]man out.

Sell me on the fact that I'll be leaving with a product I want to make - something generic like a blog or a store or a social media site. Sell me on the fact that I will be able to know how to design it, maintain it and expand on it by graduation. Sell me on the fact that I'm also going to be around total novices and where gender ratios are equaled out. Show me success stories of men and women alike.

Everyone has ambitions and dreams. Not everyone wants to do poses and color their nails.

[russell]

I agree with minicole that "female" activities like pedicures are off-putting even insulting. I am watching my girlfriend, who is an accomplished artist, move into web development. She has a whole different set of values and weighting of those values than I do or do the male developers I work with. I firmly believe that there is a huge benefit in letting women apply their values to projects and letting them know that their values are appreciated. My experience is that this results in a more cooperative collaborative environment.

[gyardley]

Not being a jerk at all. If it's alienating, it's alienating.

Although it's interesting, because I like being targeted. If someone organized a nearby tech event that was accompanied by a big rack of ribs and an evening of firing off guns into the desert, I'd sign up for that sucker in a heartbeat.

Perhaps that's because I would never think 'oh, the organizers of this event are just putting these activities together to attract more people like me' - the social engineering wouldn't be obvious to me, and if it was I just wouldn't care.

I wonder why the organizers didn't just say 'okay, this event has 50% tickets for men and 50% tickets for women'? That'd certainly be the simplest way of getting to the ratio they wanted, and it wouldn't involve mixing in other gendery activities.

[mnicole]

Totally with you on that last point. I think what set off my alarm with yoga in particular is that while it is a fantastic meditative and healthy activity, it's often very sexualized.

In reading more about it on their site and an AMA someone did about their experience five months ago, it's a mandatory morning activity they've been doing for awhile now and there don't seem to be any complaints (though a blog, http://newbietoruby.wordpress.com/, says that while he enjoys it, it took two hours out of his day and sometimes stressed him out).

[dfxm12]

Well, their stated goal is a 1:1 ratio of men to women. While their actual result of a 40/60 men to women ratio is closer to their goal than their estimated 85/15 ratio, they still didn't reach it.

If having a predominately male crowd at a hackathon is a bad thing, doesn't it also follow that having a predominately female crowd is bad as well?

N.B.: I wouldn't call 40/60 predominate, so to me, it seems like their methods were nearly good enough.

[gyardley]

Oh, I wasn't making any judgements.

Male crowd, female crowd, whoever the organizers want at their event is perfectly fine by me - after all, it's their event. I'm just interested in the tools they use to get wherever they want to be.

[king_jester]

> The social engineer in me wonders what our profession would look like if every technical course over a couple of decades was followed by getting your nails done and a wine tasting.

Parties would have classy wine that people better understood and everyone's nails would look fantastic. Plus, rough cuticles from keyboard usage are a thing of the past.