I'm a little bothered by articles that paint DefCon in this kind of light. I'm a regular attendee or DefCon and I have NEVER seen any sort of the behavior as described in the article. I also noticed that her examples all take place off site at non-DefCon controlled events.
In the last few years of DefCon I've seen an explosion in the number of women attendees-it was actually very impressive. In past years its been a few wives and girlfriends, a scattering of women computer professionals and many vendors/reporters. But this year in particular the lines were packed with women. It was great to see so many women come out and enjoy the conference. I'm sure DefCon and male computer professionals still need to work hard to make sure women feel welcome, but from my prospective it looks like some great strides have already been made.
This is a nice example of the kind of anti-harassment policy that the Ada Initiative is encouraging (link found in article but promoting here because it's worth taking in).
