A Pythoneers directory

There is a glut of white heterosexual male role models in science and technology, and that shapes cultural perceptions regarding what a programmer should be like, and causes discrimination against people who do not fit this mold[1].

This might be a clumsy solution (promoting people as successful programmer/role models based on considerations other than achievement), but the risk is low (lower the value of PyCon France slightly) and the reward is potentially very large (increase Python's stake in an underutilized labour pool), if the experiment is successful.

[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf+html

But it is sexist/discriminating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

My impression is that it tends to be more about reaching out to women and making sure they know they're welcome and less about inviting women because they are women. (Like, putting some effort into making women submit talks to your conference and then treating their submissions like all other submissions.)

That makes sense if you suspect that other people spend a lot of time making women feel unwelcome and that you're going to miss out on some great talks if you don't do anything about it. I don't think it is always unreasonable to suspect something like that.