> That's true, but consider this: the fact that it's true is, itself, a confirmation that (a) institutional sexism exists in our programmer culture, and (b) sexism is pervasive. How strange would it sound to say "that male engineer's handsome picture sure looks spammy"?

Attractive female images are frequently used in marketing both to women or men, and this is not remotely unique to "programmer culture", so the fact that pictures of attractive women in a particular presentation recall underhanded marketing in the minds of members of the "programmer culture" is not much of an indicator of institutional sexism (pervasive or otherwise) particular to that "culture".

Its more a sign that people's mental spam filters are driven by what spam actually uses, which itself reflects marketing more generally, which in this particular area reflects the fact that marketers have found that people generally, regardless of sex, respond well to images of attractive women.

It's possibly the case that among the biological, cultural, and other contributors to that general response are probably some things that could fairly be labelled "sexism", but its certainly not a simple and direct link.