I've been reading the debate over diversity at conferences, and it reminds me why I far prefer going to BarCamps than the dull conferences that go on most of the time. 
I think that there ought to be more women at conferences, because I tend to learn a lot from women speakers, and I find it terribly oppressive to be in a room of men without any women. It's more pleasant for everybody if there are women at events. "Men only" is for changing rooms and gay bars, not web conferences. Even at gay bars, you've got drag queens. And I'd rather have drag queens speaking at web conferences than the utterly dull business casual brigade mouthing "social media" and "Web 2.0".
I heard recently that at a Ruby on Rails conference there were "Rails Girls" - basically, 'booth babes' wearing tight fit t-shirts with the Rails logo on the front and handing out leaflets about Rails. Tacky or wot? The thing is that it wouldn't be out of place at a tech business event - geeks probably dislike this kind of tackiness far more than their suited counterparts.
Getting more female speakers at conferences is just a part of improving conferences, which are in general terrible. BarCamp is the antidote to this.
My blog is currently number one if you search for crap conferences on Google (without quotes; with quotes, I'm number two). I have a funny feeling that I'll be featuring crap conferences a lot more. Here's an idea of a not-crap conference. A development focused one day BarCamp where it's women speakers only. I'd go along. And I bet I'd enjoy every minute.
Diversity at conferences is a problem, but the conferences themselves is a far bigger problem. Let's solve both.
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