I went to school for a female-dominated profession (yes, there are quite a few out there where the balance goes the other way). I can assure you that if you fin

I went to school for a female-dominated profession (yes, there are quite a few out there where the balance goes the other way). I can assure you that if you find the things men say offensive, you haven't heard anything... I want to add the caveat that I am NOT attempting to appeal to hypocrisy. While I agree that there is a limit, I don't see how calling languages "estrogen" is offensive and I don't understand how calling a hat "cute" is offensive. Maybe its because I grew up in the 90s, when the world starting embracing the insanity that is the PC revolution. We've (and I mean "White Men") made it a point to relabel and rename everything to be non-offensive. Blacks are no longer African Americans. Indians are now Native Americans. The guy cleaning your toilet is not a Janitor, but a Maintenance Technician. The Secretary is now a Front Office Assistant. Parents started raising their children on Barney the Dinosaur and that is pretty much when it all fell apart. For golly, people. We've created a purely insane world, where even mild jokes have become Purely Offensive and Crude. We have to bite our tongues and be careful of everything we say, and I hope you can see how that this attitude has created an unhealthy ecosystem for everyone involved, including the well-meaning welcomers and the curious, ultimately destroying any ability to progress past 2001. I really don't want to believe that the programming world is so pent up about sexuality. I want to believe the industry as a whole is highly intelligent and mature, and if a women goes on stage and says something silly about a Cute Cowboy Hat some dude is wearing, we don't see it something offensive or threatening to men. I can't imagine that other industries go through this so much. Certain branches of marketing, spas, hair cutting, anything to do with writing, fashion, among many other professions are female-dominated. The men who enter simply enter and understand that they are entering into a world where yes, they will be told in no uncertain terms that she is not feeling well and just started her period. He will be told in no uncertain terms that size does matter. He will be told things he cares to never hear about again, but he joined into that smallish arena so he has to accept it. It's all an illusion, people. Men and women both talk smack and say gross stuff. We can't whitewash everything and pretend that we will never say something stupid but if it isn't something that would be offensive on Ellen Degenerous or The Voice -- which say way worse things than you'd hear at a conference -- then it should be fair game to say in your presentation: the trash those people say on those TV shows are more offensive than anything any presenter would consider saying. I'm not saying the PyCon should be Married with Children the Sequel. I'm just saying to let small stupid words go by and don't hang onto every small word as an offense. You can create drama anywhere, and it just so happens that programming is an easy target to fuss up and create drama because the men are so convinced that they are wrong that they've allowed themselves to be put on the defense at all times, and there is really no logical or good reason for it, no matter how much you write about the justifications of this attitude. Vanilla jokes are exactly that: Vanilla jokes.