LinkedIn announces Global Women's hackday event in Mountain View and New Delhi (opens in new tab)

I totally get what you're saying, and of course companies do things for PR, but typically events like these are not only about the competition, but also about raising awareness, showing women in male dominated areas "hey look, women do this too. It's perfectly acceptable to be interested in it!"

Now, if that's the message that's taken from this? That's open to discussion. And a discussion I'm not much of a part of, being a guy.

I think you need to back up your reasoning for how this creates a bigger gender gap. The aim of this event is not to create cliques of female programmers who only work at 100% female companies and only attend womens' events, which would do as you say, but to try and encourage more females to enter/stay in the industry, which would reduce gender disparity by moving the proportion of male to female members towards 0.5.

correct, and LinkedIn needs tons of positive PR now like never before!!

I would hope the readership around here could elevate the discussion beyond trite little quips such as this. Again I come away disappointed.

For future reference: these "reverse the roles" arguments are about as shallow and ignorant as one can get. The context is completely different for the "reversed" roles, rendering the comparison not even meaningless, but downright hostile.

Probably. Because men make up the majority of the software industry, it would be a little pointless to have a Men's hackerday, and so would be seen as excluding women for the sake of excluding women. This hacker day on the other hand targets women, who are a minority, and thus has a purpose for excluding men other than misandry.

I believe this is the first of its kind. Both women-centric and international. Props to the Slideshare team for coming up with the idea and putting it together!