> "... they also hand out free gifts that they think that women may appreciate ..."
Why do you stress the fact that the gifts are things that particularly women may appreciate? I've never noticed that my female colleagues are more vain than men at work and need a mirror while programming. To get women into computer science for real, we need to stop with these gender stereotypes.
Maybe the organizers should have bought them thumb drives. The only problem with that is there would be another crowd, equally as zealous, complaining that they are "nerd stereotyping."
Computer science right now is like a boy and a girl noticing that they have different "bits." The difference is that children move past their differences and play together in the playground anyway - they may think the other one is weird, but they can still play in the mud together; so they don't care. Adults [on the internet] on the other hand are entirely incapable of doing the same.
> Why do you stress the fact that the gifts are things that particularly women may appreciate?
Because of that exact wording: "may"
To give a completely relevant example: when I was a child my sister would often play in the mud, climb rocks and tree, blow up ants, make paper planes and play Lego with me. In the exact same way I would happily play barbies with her (yes, I played barbies - usually Ken, very manly). Were we gender stereotyping eachother? No, we were having fun together. I can just imagine the fun we would have had if we restricted ourselves to gender-neutral activities. Maybe I just grew up in a world where differences were respected, not swept under the carpet.
Now it's not like _only_ women have faces and nails, but hey a gift is a gift!
(Doesn't say if the t-shirts were women's cuts)
Google brought socks.
