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Comment by tontonius | Hacker News Reader

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tontonius·

Is this thread like Stephen Hawkings party for time travellers? :)

Serious question though, how do you know when you come across women in the HN comments?

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> Serious question though, how do you know when you come across women in the HN comments?

We're all suspecting that the real answer is that OP has always assumed everyone here who comments is a guy and women just read and don't comment.

I know because of the user names. They are either male or gender neutral.

you don't, but when unspecified with "as a woman.." I'm guessing people in the tech community are generally just assumed to be men since that's the majority

As a woman...

we have a secret: a lot of us also choose to "hide" behind gender-neutral usernames. It's a thing that makes life easier on the internet.

I agree! Although I have my real first name in my user name, no one will know if I am a women as this is an Indian name and most of the world doesn't know if it's a male or a female name.

I always suspected so :) Really hope that some day it won't be necessary anymore.

Well shit. As a man, I have to admit that I do this more than I'd like to admit. My assumption still tends to be that a comment is by a man. I'm not sure if that's statistically likely to be true, but I have to admit that I do.

EDIT: and that's coming from someone who is actively trying to be more sensitive in these matters.

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