But as soon as a guy sets up a podcast with a self-deprecating title that references his own gender, it's a signal that women don't belong? C'mon.
All the numbers I've seen show that, contrary to commercial IT, the ratio of female to male participation in volunteer-based open source is minuscule. As in, the norm is 1-5%, and it maybe goes up to 10% after years of advocacy, in a successful project, e.g.: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/58218
Arguably the most successful open source project, i.e. Linux, is run by a self-admitted asshole who chews out contributors in ways that would rally a never-seen before army of White Knights if it were ever directed at a woman. Linux is successful either despite or because of it, and nobody particularly seems to mind.
After a decade of goading women into joining open source, very little has actually changed. Most of the women I know in open source got involved through their job rather than a hobby, and I think this reflects the growing importance of open source over commercial software more than anything else.
The horribly sexist incidents in the community ("perform like a pr0n star") were always the exception, not the norm. The only thing that's changed is that now there is a hypersensitivity over anything that might be deemed offensive, as opposed to a "boys will be boys" shrug, and the loudmouths are favored over the people who just want to get things done.
Focusing on gendered references like beards is missing the point entirely. I think the only way women will ever make up a significant chunk of open source contributors is if hobbyist open source stops being relevant. Most technically-inclined women simply don't seem to be interested in working by themselves for the heck of it, they care much more about doing it in a safe and friendly group setting, for a well-defined external purpose. Hence, a huge chunk of programming culture will be male dominated, and it's pointless to be ashamed of that. Even though women are welcome to join the party, it was mostly men that built the internet.
(ette) is there for a reason.
