So Merb developer Matt Aimonetti made a presentation at GoGaRoCu heavily laden with soft-core pornography and some people got upset. In particular, a woman got upset – Sarah Allen. It didn’t help that she was one of only six women at a 200 person conference. Holy shit!

Don’t put sexual images of women in your slides. If you must do it, then put just as many sexual images of men in your slides. Be fair. Unless of course you’re presenting to a club that only allows male members. Which in a way is what pisses off the women who are reacting to this incident – because it implies that Ruby/Rails/whatever is a men-wanted-only club.

If I had been there, I suspect I would have walked out. I’ve walked out of presentations, movies, plays, etc. for less. I have low patience no pride.

Why the lucky stiff posted a summary of women rubyist’s reactions, and there’s discussion aplenty there and elsewhere on the net. Hopefully the positive outcome will be a community that is more aware of issues that differ between men and women, and therefore has more women in the future.