Women in crypto
medium.com
medium.com
And has everyone not been beat over the head with gender bias this, misogyny that.. to an extant that were not gonna buy it this time? Who are these oppressive men running the decentralized crypto industry holding women back?
And from what exactly... buying bitcoin? Running a mining rig? Pretty sure it’s an open market and women’s fiat is as good as men’s.
Oh.. oh people didn’t talk to you at “crypto currency events”.
Ohh... you want men to pay for subsidized tickets. I see.
Does anyone read that blog and, gender aside, feel like that’s someone you’d enjoy hanging out with? Didn’t think so...
The Beginner - Doesn't know much about cryptocurrency or technology in general, wants to learn about it for various reasons. There are men who fall into this category of course. I usually enjoy talking to these people.
The Enthusiast - Knowledgeable and experienced in cryptocurrency topics. Fun to talk to.
The Feminist - Might know something about cryptocurrency, but all she seems to do is plug the various "women in cryptocurrency" groups around the city. Rarely contributes to the conversation. Writes whiny blog/Twitter posts like this one.
I think everyone is getting tired of this browbeating.
Lets break the points down, shall we?
> introduces himself to the men in a group but ignores the women
Just bad behavior. Hard to say anything else about such a general claim. I can't say I share this experience.
> makes eye contact with the men while speaking and ignores the women
Well if you make eye contact with women today, some get offended so easily that they write blog posts and even accuse men of being creeps. If we don't, obviously we do not respect you.
> asks a woman if she is a plus one at the event acts surprised to discover a woman knows about cryptocurrencies
Not weird at all, how many women have you met that knows a lot about cryptocurrencies? Seriously, this is just statistics. Of course people are going to be surprised of this. It's like being mad about a person acting suprised in learning that another person never have taken a car ride.
> comments on the woman’s appearance rather than what she is saying
Most men are attracted to women in general, so unless this is in a moment that is highly unprofessional I am not surprised. However, I have pretty much never witnessed this except on psuedo-anonymous places like comment sections on internet, never IRL in a professional context.
Personally, I follow people because what they do / what they have to say. I also believe most men do that. I am very tired of feminism and this constant nagging. In fact, it is my experience that women follow and judges people a lot more based on their looks and not what they actually have to say.
Overwhelming majority of men don't know about cryptocurrencies either. It is only people who go to tech events who do. Of people who go to meetups and such, I haven't seen any +1 of any gender. The assumption that if you went to tech event then you know about tech seems safe for anyone.
And dunno, going meta offended over someone expressing that yep, this makes women questioning whether they are treated equally behind back is, well, being special snowflake too. You just explained to me what for construct is instead of reacting to my proposal seriously, do you want me to pretend I think I am treated equally?
I know I am not, you know I am not (because statistics), so why expectation to pretend otherwise? It is just a lie.
> I haven't seen any +1 of any gender
Sure this is probably quite uncommon on most tech events and meetups but there are several events where people bring family that is related to technology.
> And dunno, going meta offended over someone expressing that yep, this makes [...]
I am not offended, I am simply tired to hear this over and over when in reality it at least for me seems to almost never happen.
> I know I am not, you know I am not (because statistics), so why expectation to pretend otherwise? It is just a lie.
I think women and men are treated equally, at least where I live and in all the events I've attended. Of course people are going to be douchebags and uncomfortable situations between genders are going to occur, but this is true for everyone. I have been disrespected by both women and men but I do not get upset about all of them because of it.
"I don't experience this so it probably doesn't happen often but others should stop talking about it because I'm tired how often this comes up."
I'm curious what aspect of your contribution you think contributes to anything.
My position is that of course people should voice concern over actual discrimination based on gender. But this rant on social interactions in which there is no evidence presented and just big claims that this happens a lot is simply what is is, big claims.
I claim that this don't happen as often as some people suggests, a claim that is just as valid as the authors. My position is that this hurts women in tech and diversity as a whole.
Baseless arguments like the authors contributes to the toxic environment we have today where everything you do is wrong. Just take that conference Github was supposed to have. They picked all candidates from without knowing gender or anything about the authors (blind review) [1] and when it was discovered every presenter picked was a male, the conference was cancelled because meritocracy is appearantly not ok if only men were selected even if their talks were deemed superior [2].
This is just one demonstration about the extreme views that is hurting equality. Another is Brit Ruby 2013 which was cancelled for the same reasons basically: https://gist.github.com/seanhandley/4106776
And it is just the absolute top of the mountain, there are so many stupid things going on in the name of equality and diversity it's unbelievable.
If we are not supposed to care about genders, why do we care if there is more women in tech at all?
[1] https://cfp.githubapp.com/events/electronconf-2017 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868
as a woman in cryptocurrency, this isn't a valuable resource because it proves our work environment sucks. it's speaking to others like me who already know our work environment sucks and signals to each other so we can at least create spaces where not everything is terrible. don't think there's a problem? cool. it's not a universal experience, just common which is why you hear about it all the time. we're not looking for your help except to do your part or get out of the way.
I'm honestly taken back every time I read opinions like yours since you don't experience this, think these are claims that need evidence, and want to shut down debate over something that doesn't impact you. I can only assume you're somehow threatened but I struggle to see how. men feeling threatened by women talking about their spaces is very strange but maybe that's because you think we're saying something about you when we complain about how we're treated.
But it is not. Which I just explained why. The difference is that the things I complain about is specific examples with data to back it up. The author and other people similar just throw out random shit that is as provable as a religious experience.
> it's speaking to others like me who already know our work environment sucks
Great attitude there buddy.
> think these are claims that need evidence
I provided evidence for the examples I brought up, the rest is just as the authors anecdotal with no evidence. This is my whole point.
> I can only assume you're somehow threatened but I struggle to see how. men feeling threatened by women talking about their spaces is very strange
Why do people always resort to this jargon? I am not "threatened" I just do not like discrimination based on gender and I believe that is happening more towards men than women in tech today. It is happening in the name of diversity and equality.
if you feel that way then maybe don't drop into a conversation women started to tell them their likely misinterpreting situations and need to provide better evidence before you'll take their claims seriously. maybe don't go point-by-point refuting their experiences as conjecture then center discrimination concerns against men. maybe don't engage others who, like you, don't like discrimination based on gender with the opening line:
> People today get upset about fucking everything.
Being made uncomfortable is less of a problem then being assumed less competent. It has bigger impact and you said it is reasonable assumption, but bulk of it is either behind your back or only indirectly visible (by having to push more when I say something or by being ignored or assumed wrong by default while someone else is assumed correct even after he stated multiple wrong thongs before). It just so happen that the bigger problem is impossible to talk about, but when someone is open enought about his bias that I can point to it, I should not talk about it because it makes ppl feel tired.
I have never met a woman that knows a lot about cryptocurrencies, of course I would be surprised (maybe not at a cryptocurrency event) if someone I met did actually know more than me. Context matters and just because I am surprised by it doesn't mean that I assume the woman in question to be less competent, it is just unusual knowledge for women to have.
You wrote that a majority of men doesn't know about cryptocurrencies and while that is true I have still met a lot of men that invests in it and know a whole lot even if they aren't working in tech in any way. Of course I understand that experiences may vary a whole lot, but the fact is simply that women are generally less interested in cryptocurrencies than men.
I would say men generally like women that shares their interests and it is quite obvious that those women that do often gain a lot of attention. I cannot sympathize with the author at all because my experience is the reverse of what she describes. Women in tech get an unreasonable amount of attention even if their contribution is smaller than that of men and they are favored in all kinds of ways.
I never deny that sexism exists towards women, I am simply stating that I personally do not buy this mindless nagging of that women are so unequal etc. when the reality I live in is so different.
Equality is that beginner women is also treated the same way as beginner men. It means that women who knows enough to bluff the same way semi knowledgeable men bluff is treated the same way as them. Nobody is born knowing it all and pretty much all highly knowledgeable men started as confident dudes who did not knew much, but were assumed to be participants. I personally started that way and pretty much lucked the environment. Seen other environments too and yep, it is a difference.
The masses of people who just knew whole their life they are good and never been beginners are just adults with low self awareness.
I agree and I think that is exactly how it is for the absolute majority.
Maybe they want to avoid accusations of flirting, being a creep and/or sexual accusations? Wouldn't surprise me, in this atmosphere...
But who cares. Why is it important to write an article of women in [Insert X]. Their gender is not important, and quite frankly demeaning of their efforts to further the field.
Try to stray away from ad hominem
> makes eye contact with the men while speaking and ignores the women
I'm guilty of this but it's because I'm nervous about interacting with women in general.
(In this vein, everyone is sexist and discriminatory and we just have to work with it, so this is not supposed to pass judgement on the person doing it, just the idea. You're not your ideas.)
A truly terrible thing is that I see this happening even in other contexts that have nothing to do with work. Sometimes women are just ignored for the first part of the conversation, or men will just look at other men when saying something. I hate it, it's deeply offensive, however the cool thing is that it takes just a single person to change the shape of the conversation and include everybody. P.S. the same thing is observed often with teenagers as well, which is equally disgusting.
Deeply offensive, really? You must be exhausted from being so deeply offended all of the time.
It's hyperbolic language like this that is really divisive because it makes people defensive when you're putting their actions in the same category of murders and violence (the "deeply offensive" category).
Is there a way to opt out of your version of society?
Let say we want to observe how eye contact is being made, in which order, and to whom and at what rate when a test person enters a group to introduce themselves. Variables we adjust are among things like hight, age, gender of test subject, gender distribution of the test group, appearance of strength, social economical status signals, gait, posture, and olfaction.
Then we take a base line, and compare that to when we change a single variable. The question to be answered is: which variable has no effect, which variable has biggest effect, and what is the underlying reason when an variable has an effect.
When women will stop blame men and stop idolizing a woman in tech just because she is a woman and not because she is doing great things (and there are legions of women in tech with no public exposure doing that) then we will move forward.
As for other comments, I am really annoyed that mostly people come just here to complain that such article exists, and take all the space. Just drop it ! The atmosphere is becoming as bad as reddit regarding misogyny. Can't you just admit you are not interested/don't get it for the moment and go somewhere else ?
As long as I've been on HN, it's been a pretty misogynist place but yeah, it's definitely getting more toxic.
The second comment from the top is your typical "kids these days" trope about snowflakes and says they're "very tired of feminism."
Further down people imply you can't talk to women anymore because you'll be accused of harassment for no reason ("Wouldn't surprise me, in this atmosphere..."), dismissively ask why this needs to be discussed, blame the humanities for killing America with the cult of identity politics, claim all powerful women in tech are frauds, bemoaning this being "another SJW crybaby piece," and finally, above that one, someone who noticed the same thing I did ("As for other comments, I am really annoyed that mostly people come just here to complain that such article exists, and take all the space.") and someone who agrees with them.