Good questions.
comes across as a marketing ploy
I was worried about that. I asked several of my friends who are women in tech about it:

They all said it was a great idea so we did it. We consistently sell out our workshops, so to do this as a marketing ploy would be a really bad business decision.
Maybe we should make the workplace more inviting to women
That’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Our business is just Michael and I doing these workshops. Our workshops are our workplace, and the workplace for our attendees for two or three days.
Offering half off will increase the number of women attending and, it seems to me, having more women at the workshop is more inviting. Instead of 5/40 women I want 20/40.
We’re looking at what small part of this industry we can influence and doing the best we can to make it better. Right now, a discount is the best idea we’ve got.
