[mikestew]

My response to the title is "duh". Setting out to hire a woman is, by the very definition of the word, discriminatory. For the moment, drop the legal aspects of the word "discrimination". Think more along the lines of hiring a designer versus a dev. That's discriminatory, too, but in a perfectly legal sense. In the end, though, one has made a distinction between those that design and those that write code. But if one needs a designer and not a dev, that discrimination needs to be made. Discriminating by gender, however, is not only of questionable legality, it can also make for a bad hire if one discriminates for gender above all else.

Looping back to the topic of hiring women, it was good that he sought the feedback of his wife and his employee. Despite his noble goals, it sure struck me as creepy. "Do you have a vagina? Come work for us!" I read the article, but maybe I missed the part where he asked himself how the workforce got out of balance to begin with. I'm going to guess (given the attitude that he conveys) that he didn't set out to create a boy's club of brogrammers. Advertising in the wrong places? Maybe something in the interview process was more discriminatory than he thought? Something in the company that subtly doesn't appeal to women? An industry predominantly populated by those with penises? Look to identify problems like that, rather than running around where the girls hang out and blatantly recruit for chicks.