You are absolutely right - there is a profound problem of sexism in FOSS. And the entire community implicitly supports this sexism by not having a psych screening for every potential member before they are allowed to join the community. This injustice must be righted forthwith!
[/sarcasm]
Seriously, there are sexists. They exist in all walks of life. Having found a handful of them in any given community is not evidence of a pronounced problem in that community. If it was a significant or majority behavior, you would have a point. But it isn't, and you don't.
I will admit that such behavior should not be overlooked. The INDIVIDUALS responsible should be taken to task, preferably by the community, and if warranted, even ostracized. But to blame the community for actions that it does not condone by one of its members (or even a vanishingly small percentage of its members) is absurd.
And while you are thinking about a presentation featuring scantily clad females, watch some TV and notice that SEX SELLS. If you are presenting to a room (mostly) full of men, you have three sure fire ways to maintain their attention - booze, sports, and women. Booze is expensive, considering the audience, sports perhaps isn't all that surefire, so that leaves women. Okay, perhaps a better way would have been to have an engaging presentation with interesting content, but not all geeks are professional presenters. An admonition and a slap on the wrist is an appropriate response to such insensitive behavior (for a first offense), but assigning this to sexism (rather than red-blooded maleness and a small dose of ignorance) is disingenuous at best.
He's not responsible for the low percentage of women in FOSS (or any computer science field), he's just using that fact to his advantage by tailoring his presentation to his audience. Poorly, I admit, but you don't go to Black Hat and get offended when the inevitable Microsoft bashing begins. Or any entertainment or infotech convention and not expect to see booth babes. Is it right? Perhaps not, but so long as the audience is male by a vast majority, this isn't likely to change. Men like to see sexy young women. You give your audience what they want and they come back next year, or buy your product, whatever. The logical outcome isn't very hard to predict.
Am I defending him? Absolutely not, but I can see how the mistake was made. But showing pictures of women to an audience he likely assumed would be 100% men does not earn a death sentence. None of us would ever make it to adulthood if we were held to such draconian "every injustice deserves the death sentence" justice. Even sexual harassment laws are more forgiving. The offended party should inform the offender that what they are doing is offensive as the offender may not even realize it. Then, if the behavior continues, they can be reported to a higher authority for remediation. This whole sexism in FOSS business is people immediately shouting every small infraction to the world. Do you want to know why we aren't taking it seriously? Read the fable of the boy who cried wolf. That's what's happening here. The offended need to grow a thicker skin, try to resolve the issue privately with the offender, and then, as a last resort, go to the community (which, ironically, is the same community they are besmirching unfairly, which makes me think this isn't about fairness, but about some political agenda). As evidenced here (on Slashdot - not the friendliest or most sympathetic community by any stretch), you will find sympathy for your cause, which shows that the problem is not endemic to the community as a whole, which is the whole argument I've been making from the start.
