Not being a jerk at all. If it's alienating, it's alienating.
Although it's interesting, because I like being targeted. If someone organized a nearby tech event that was accompanied by a big rack of ribs and an evening of firing off guns into the desert, I'd sign up for that sucker in a heartbeat.
Perhaps that's because I would never think 'oh, the organizers of this event are just putting these activities together to attract more people like me' - the social engineering wouldn't be obvious to me, and if it was I just wouldn't care.
I wonder why the organizers didn't just say 'okay, this event has 50% tickets for men and 50% tickets for women'? That'd certainly be the simplest way of getting to the ratio they wanted, and it wouldn't involve mixing in other gendery activities.
Totally with you on that last point. I think what set off my alarm with yoga in particular is that while it is a fantastic meditative and healthy activity, it's often very sexualized.
In reading more about it on their site and an AMA someone did about their experience five months ago, it's a mandatory morning activity they've been doing for awhile now and there don't seem to be any complaints (though a blog, http://newbietoruby.wordpress.com/, says that while he enjoys it, it took two hours out of his day and sometimes stressed him out).
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Not being a jerk at all. If it's alienating, it's alienating.
Although it's interesting, because I like being targeted. If someone organized a nearby tech event that was accompanied by a big rack of ribs and an evening of firing off guns into the desert, I'd sign up for that sucker in a heartbeat.
Perhaps that's because I would never think 'oh, the organizers of this event are just putting these activities together to attract more people like me' - the social engineering wouldn't be obvious to me, and if it was I just wouldn't care.
I wonder why the organizers didn't just say 'okay, this event has 50% tickets for men and 50% tickets for women'? That'd certainly be the simplest way of getting to the ratio they wanted, and it wouldn't involve mixing in other gendery activities.
Totally with you on that last point. I think what set off my alarm with yoga in particular is that while it is a fantastic meditative and healthy activity, it's often very sexualized.
In reading more about it on their site and an AMA someone did about their experience five months ago, it's a mandatory morning activity they've been doing for awhile now and there don't seem to be any complaints (though a blog, http://newbietoruby.wordpress.com/, says that while he enjoys it, it took two hours out of his day and sometimes stressed him out).