To make my own position in this thread clear: HN, and the wider hacker culture, is often unwelcoming to women. I speak out when I see something off-putting, or when a possibly well-intentioned comment may be interpreted the wrong way. I would like to see more women hackers and founders contributing to HN, and I would like to see more diverse viewpoints in the comments. My position is not always popular, but I soldier on.
I believe you are making a mistake by speaking for all women, by stating that "HN, and the wider hacker culture, is often unwelcoming to women". In such matters we can only speak for ourselves, unless there is some official consensus to refer to more credible than what oneself might believe to be the general opinion; That is, a reliable source.
I myself do not care what gender people have here; To me that is an attribute that simply does not exist in these contexts.
And you may not have meant your comment here to be dismissive and condescending, but you are basically telling me that this is all in my head, and I should be quiet. I counter that I am far from the only woman with this opinion, and you have not paid close attention (because why would you? you aren't a woman, this doesn't generally affect you).
In any case, this is not the place to debate that topic. I spoke up, and I got insulted for it, but it's all good. If you are truly interested in learning more, please refer to the following links, and feel free to contact me by email if you have questions. Otherwise, enjoy your day.
Recent issue at a Rails conference: http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-...
A PDF of slides about women in FOSS you may find interesting: http://valerieaurora.org/review/flosspols.pdf
I think you should give people the benefit of the doubt before you decide to attack them or decide that they meant to insult you. Of course you are free to interpret as you want, but I warn you: Confirmation bias can be a real hindrance in seeing the truth.
I have been quite civil, I have presented two sources and could procure more, but I am done with this thread. I know that my opinions on such things are unpopular here, and I do not expect to be lauded or reach consensus.
"Confirmation bias can be a real hindrance in seeing the truth." If you want to think that's what this is, that I'm a lone woman with a chip on my shoulder, if that makes you feel better, then please disregard the sources I posted earlier.
That last part is a straw man because you did not provide evidence for your claim that "HN, and the wider hacker culture, is often unwelcoming to women" at the time you made that claim. Also you should clarify if you mean "all women", "some women" or "one woman" by "women".
In any case I strongly suspect you have not closely examined my name.