[arcwhite]

I totally agree with you that there are many problems here. I have also seen the research on male literacy and numeracy rates, and agree with you that there's a problem there that needs to be tackled.

That does not invalidate this problem.

And back to my original point: even if the problem of women in tech were solved, I still don't see the beef with having events held for particular subgroups of people. There's no cost here. Nobody is disadvantaged if we have a Geek Girls night, or a Gay Coder Hackathon, or the Left Handed Sysadmin Support Group.

Equality of opportunity is one thing, forcing everybody into the same cookie-cutter mould and insisting we all do the same things with the same people? Ick.