So what’s all the fuss about? Confoo which bills itself as bringing under one roof PHP Québec, Montréal-Python, Montreal.rb, Montreal Jug, W3Qc, OWASP Montréal, Android Montreal and local web developers. Confoo has 109 speakers in total. 5 of them are women. 5. It is not a typo. Earlier in the day they had 105 speakers.

This is not the first year of the conference, nor the first time, the community has pointed out the lack of women: same ratio for 2011, and 2010.

Now: what I would really like to do is open a dialog and see how our community can help confoo, because it obviously needs the help and because we care. But first, we need to have a dialog:

Because you know, pointing out an issue makes me a sexist, closed minded and disrespectful person.

Oh yeah, now we are really talking about the issue at hand. My followers are thoroughly impressed. But perhaps not what was intended!

It never hurts to restate the obvious.

Unless of course …

Well, if by IT feminist crusaders Ms. Anna Filina is referring to CEOs of software firms and founders, then I am guilty, and if by IT we are talking about the software industry, then guilty again! Darn you got me!

But seriously: let’s grab a coffee and talk about how we can change the ratio. And no, it has nothing to do with the toys you play with when you are a child. There are so many awesome people working at changing the ratio (and running software firms) and all we need is first a dialog, then an action plan. Let’s talk. Let’s change. And let’s not call each other names. That’s just not NICE and the internet is so all kinds of nice. kthxbai!

Sorry, got to get back to running a software firm.