The dark side of open source conferences

Your anecdotes are pretty appalling. Who the heck do these people think they are? Do they have no understanding of elementary courtesy? Didn't they have mothers? Enforceable penalties are obviously essential for the more extreme cases, because anyone willing to engage in not-so-borderline sexual assault is not going to pay the least attention to codes of conduct without the threat of penalties.

As you pointed out, many of these people simply need to remember how they were treated when they were at school. Don't Do That To Anyone Else. Don't Do Anything Remotely Similar To Anyone Else. This is not difficult stuff, but some people just don't get it.

(I wonder: if you found the people doing this sort of horrible thing and determined what their school experiences were like, would we find that these were people who were among the bullies, not the bullied, in their school days? So they're just keeping up what they know, attacking anyone who looks remotely different and taking what they want from anyone different from them: it's just that now 'different' means not 'geek' but 'female'. I have no evidence at all for this but it seems plausible.)

(Note that the inevitable storm of incoming comments from men regarding how *they* have been viciously attacked *too* by those nasty women or how women were asking for it or should expect it because they had the temerity to be born the wrong sex are derailment and should be ignored. Equally, comments about how a presentation would be acceptable if it evenly interchanged pictures of bikini babes and bikini hunks are missing the point, as are comments about how such a policy would make conferences too straitlaced. Hint: if people are being assaulted at your conferences, the conferences are not straitlaced enough -- not by a long way. I'd be scared to go somewhere where this sort of stuff happens and I'm not even female.)