Is this bad? (The approach, not the contest.) I thought it was pretty well-established that you can boost participation by posting under multiple accounts to make it look like there's more activity. And since the point of this was to make women feel more comfortable on the site, it seems like a net positive.
The only mistake was telling people they were doing it and being flippant about it.
Most people can't handle the truth as we see here where as you point out it is a net positive but some people are up in arms.
Most big companies are as bad or much worse but are not foolish enough to show behind the curtain for the lower masses to see.