The recent Fast Company article Where are all the lady geeks? proposes to solve the dearth of women coders at hackaton-type events by “bringing the sexy.”

Oh my. There are a number of misguided and, in some cases, offensive aspects to this article.

First, it’s inappropriate and unprofessional to use “pimpin” in the context of the article. (In case you didn’t notice the url slug is “geek-pimpin-10-geeks-who-are-bringing-sexy-back). My guess is that the url represents either the original title of the article, or a subtitle that wasn’t used. In any case, it’s totally inappropriate. As a woman, I generally don’t want to be involved in an event where anyone (of any gender) is is pimped. Given that the context of its use is clearly sexual, the use of “pimpin” is even more out of line.

Second, not all women are sexually interested in men. And not all men are sexually interested in women. The hetero-normative nature of the article’s advice is alienating to the rest of us queers (of which there are a lot in technology).

Third, even if the language were queer-friendly, hackathon-type events are not appropriate places to promote hook-ups in the first place. Advertising them as such will dissuade most, if not all of the female attendees that the author says he hopes to attract. And many men as well.

Forth, the use of geek stereotypes is just a lazy conceit, if not mildly offensive.

Clearly the author (and Fast Company editors, since they chose to publish this) need a primer on how to actually make hackathons and other events aimed at coders more attractive to women.

Create a Safe, Comfortable Environment for All

Once important step in creating a safe, comfortable environment for all is to de-emphasize the sexy. Women are bombarded with messages of our sexual objectification. And you know what? It gets really old. Most women coders I know don’t go to hacker events in order to find a mate or a hook-up. And, in fact, they will actively avoid situations where they might be hit upon or where the environment may otherwise be sexually charged. I know many men are uncomfortable under these circumstances as well.

Hacker events are not about hooking up and event organizers should do everything they can to avoid giving that impression.

Moreover, organizers should adopt a code of conduct and make sure that all participants (including organizers, sponsors and volunteers) know that they are expected to abide by it.

Offer Childcare and/or Make Space for Families

While it’s getting better, the burden of childcare and rearing still falls largely upon women. Hacker events that take place on weekends and evenings can cut in to family obligations. To attract more moms (and dads) to your event, find a way to offer childcare to your participants, or make your event family-friendly so that parents feel comfortable bringing their kids.

Serve Decent Food and be Mindful About Providing Alcohol

While a gross generalization, It’s been my experience that pizza and beer is a lot more appetizing to a group of guys than it is to a group of women. So, when planning your event, try to have some decent, healthful food and beverages available. Make sure there is ample water and other are non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated and non-sugary items to drink. Also carefully consider your decision to make alcohol available and under what conditions (this goes back to above idea of creating a safe, comfortable environment).

Make the Schedule Flexible

Having a hackathon run all night is a cool idea. Lots of coders are night-owls and love the opportunity to work with others into the wee hours. However, to make your hackathon appealing to the widest audience, schedule meaningful parts of your event throughout the day as well. Not every coder likes to work late at night (I’m one of those rarer morning folk) and many with families can’t be out all evening and into the night.

De-emphasize Competition and Emphasize Collaboration

While I can understand the idea behind using competition to motivate participation at a hackathon, I think it has the potential to do more harm that good. There are creative ways to motivate through collaboration and you don’t run the risk of alienating new comers and those who are turned off by highly competitive and hazing-like environments.

Provide Structure and Welcome Newcomers

Not every coder does well with an unstructured hackathon. Having a whiteboard in a central place with a list of project ideas and even a basic schedule can go a long way to making those new to hackathons feel more comfortable. Also consider having a volunteer work as a greeter welcome new faces and help them get settled.

Have other tips? Let me know in the comments.

I typically use Rackspace servers, but these instructions should work for any recent Ubuntu server install, be it on a virtual server or dedicated machine.

Secure root account

SSH to server

$ ssh root@123.456.78.90

Change root password

$ passwd

Create admin group and admin user

Create an admin group

$ /usr/sbin/groupadd admin

GIve that group sudo privileges

$ /usr/sbin/visudo

Add this line

%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

Add new user

$ /user/sbin/adduser christie

Add that user to admin group

$ /usr/sbin/usermod -a -G admin christie

Copy your ssh key to the server

Don’t have an ssh key? Follow these instructions from Github.

The easiest way to set up you public key on the new server is by using ssh-copy-id. You’ll probably need to install it first.

$ aptitude install ssh-copy-id
$ ssh-copy-id

Alternately you can do the following:

$ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub christie@123.45.67.890:~/
$ mkdir ~christie/.ssh
$ mv ~christie/id_rsa.pub ~demo/.ssh/authorized_key
$ chown -R christie:christie ~christie/.ssh
$ chmod 700 ~christie/.ssh
$ chmod 600 ~christie/.ssh/authorized_keys

Configure SSHD

$ vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

A good example of what to put in the sshd_config is available here. However, these are the important items:

PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
AllowUsers christie user2 user3

Configure iptables (firewall)

First, check the existing configuration:

$ /sbin/iptables -L

You’ll probably see something like this:

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination

Now flush the existing rules:

$ /sbin/iptables -F

Create a new rules file:

$ vim /etc/iptables.up.rules

Like sshd_config, there are a lot of options for iptables. A good sample iptables config is available at this Slicehost page.

Implement new rules:

$ /sbin/iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.up.rules

Check your work

$ /sbin/iptables -L

In order to make sure iptables rules are loaded on system restart, create this file:

$ vim /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/iptables

and add the following:

#!/bin/sh
/sbin/iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.up.rule

Make the script executable:

$ chmod +x /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/iptables

Restart SSHD

$ /etc/init.d/ssh reload

Make sure you can login as your user. From your local terminal:

$ ssh christie@123.45.67.890

Check and set locale

Now you’re running commands as your user, so you’ll need to preface them with sudo.

Check locale:

$ /usr/bin/locale

If you’re in the US, you should see something like this:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"

If the output is not what you expect for your location, do the following:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/local-gen en_US.UTF-8
$ sudo /usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

More information on locales here: http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry

Update packages install essential build tools

Aptitude is excluded from the default Ubuntu install as of 10.10 (I think). If you aren’t able to execute the commands below,  first use apt-get to install aptitude. If you really like apt-get, you can just use that.

$ sudo apt-get install aptitude

Update package list:

$ sudo aptitude update

Do a safe upgrade and then a full upgrade:

$ sudo aptitude safe-upgrade
$ sudo aptitude full-upgrade

Install essential build tools (gcc, linux headers, etc):

$ sudo aptitude install build-essential

You’re done! At least, with a basic setup anyway…