knowitall

Maybe you are right in this case. However, nightclubs need women because a major reason to go there is to hook up. What is the reason to bribe women into showing up at hacking competitions?

Actual cynical me thinks "more sexy workplace" is part of the unspoken motivation for the "more women into programming" movement. But I don't think that is the official message they want to send out...

Then again, why not pick up a book for 20$ and get cracking?

I'll probably always be a bit wary of people who learn coding from a school or who need a school to learn coding. Since most of the time you have to learn new things while coding (new libraries, new languages, new challenges), I don't know if these people will be able to keep learning by themselves without courses provided for them.

Not sure how good a programmer you can become without being inherently excited about the whole thing.

In a way I believe everything can be learned the same way. I suck at design, but in theory I could see how I could learn it. The problem is I would have to be constantly absorbing new things. While talking a walk I would have to notice the typography on shop signs, when browsing the web I would make mental notes of designs I like, and so on. Totally doable, yet I am not doing it. On the other hand I read about programming all the time, even about topics I don't really work with atm like scalability, 3d programming, machine learning and so on.

Perhaps a course can be a good start, but I suppose it only gets you 1% of the way...

I must admit things like that make me angry because of the implied "women are victims" message.

Any citations for your latter claim? Never mind that you set up a false dilemma, as if it could only either be "both parents working and worry-free" or "time with kids and constant worries".