1. That's *much* worse than an anime convention. The ratio at this year's A-Kon was weighted much more favorably towards the feminine. Perhaps not the 22-30 crowd, but who's counting? ;P

2. My real comment is that the M-F ratio you found at Geek2Geek represents, in my view, a large part of the problem in Professional Geekery (IT and similar positions). In short, they're male dominated.

Now, I'm going to make a bold and sweeping generalization here, but my experience has borne me out and I'll go find the research if anybody wants: Men behave better on the whole when they're in the company of women. Or *a* company of women. See? I said on the whole so you all know it's a generalization.

You can take the Darwinian tack and say that it's competition for attention, and follow the grim and sticky road that leads down. Or you can angle towards the Freudian or behaviorist and state that when interacting with women, men naturally revert to those behavior patterns drilled into them by their mothers. The solid result is -- and I'm not saying this in terms of performance -- men cooperate and behave better, and show marked improvements in what business lingo now wants to call "emotional intelligence" (but which is really that well-laminated grade-school trait, "Plays Well with Others," and all that that implies) if they're having to go about their daily lives subjected to the comment, scrutiny, "lighter touch," call-it-what-you-will of close female contact.

And this girl/woman/lady doesn't even have to be in a position of power, though I've seen that work very well -- the Freudians again: Men respond to other people in authority by fashioning a social relationship that loosely mirrors how they interact with their parents. All that's really necessary is that she be present, and interactive.

The IT industry, especially the "service" portion of that industry (including Helpdesk, Support, pretty much the entire league of "men stuck in a common room until you need them") is woefully lacking in the gender-equality department. Around other male geeks, the geek EGO struts, but only to the effect of dominating the crowd.

And geekspeak -- that twitter of pop-cultural references, hardware specs, and lame personal anecdotes -- well, it has its place in polite conversation, too. It *can* be funny in context, like wordplay, and it can be informative. But it's damn monotonous when it's used by a gaggle of IT geeks, each of which is really just trying to chirp loudest.

I'll end by appending a personal life example to what has suddenly become a ramble. I confess -- surprise! -- I am an IT geek. In an IT startup, no less, where superstardom is the key to obtaining and maintaining the coveted "development" position. The point: My department *had* a girl, and we were a friendly and sociable bunch. We showed up on time, and took to our tasks with gusto. It seems we used to chat, too.

She, well, she was the one that got promoted to development. Why not? She's smart, competent, and "plays well with others." Or interacts, at least.

Now instead of chat we have chatter. We recite with great glee scenes from our generation's classics:

Sarge: Anyone got anything else to say?

H: Yeah!

Sarge: What, Hudson?

H: How do I get out of this chickenshit operation?

Sarge: You contain that shit, Hudson!

See what I mean?

And the department's morale about company policy, coworkers, and George Bush has gone from passably debatable to outright rotten. We never used to despise our external customers, or berate the social foibles of the developers. I don't know that the feeling wasn't there, but it certainly would have been out of place to voice it.

We've got an open position, you understand, and we're probably going to fill it with another guy. I've met the candidates so far, and while they're individually a likeable bunch, I shudder every day at the thought of four men making a beer hall out of our quondam room-with-a-view. It becomes the more likely reality every day.

I just wish girls weren't so dumb at math and computers and stuff. I wish more girls liked Star Wars. Then maybe I could hire one and do something about this crappy job.