It’s getting obvious now the scam faux outrage these people are pulling isn’t it? I think it’s transparent more so in this instance because... “the crypto currency industry” if that’s even really such a thing, started like yesterday.
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...
My experience so far with women in cryptocurrency as someone who attends quite a few meetups:
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.
> 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.
"Not weird at all, how many women have you met that knows a lot about cryptocurrencies?"
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.
What atmosphere? I can look around right now and see 10+ male-female conversations happening with eye contact and no accusations of flirting, being a creep, etc.
Sorry for the angry rant and I know this doesn't follow the general opinion of HN.
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.
You can easily restate the whole blog post and include other categories that are often victims of the same behaviors, because of physical differences, gender, nationality, and so forth. Yes, focusing just on women is not optimal IMHO because this also happens to other persons that should be defended as well, however it makes sense to remark that women are a "notable" category of discrimination. Also for the problems exposed in this blog post, I think the author really nailed it, and certain things are women-specific, like focusing and making a comment on the beauty instead of content, and also this eye contact thing. But in general it should always be remembered that the same happens to other categories.
Doubly so because there's strong punishments (being kicked out due to violating the CoC / making people feel uncomfortable, publicly shamed on twitter / blogs, etc) if you say the wrong thing. Not engaging at all is the safest course of action.
That's a good point: some people do it not for discrimination but for other problems. Another variation of what you say is "I'm guilty of this because I'm nervous about engaging in conversations with the woman of another person". And so forth. However with a dedicated effort you can fix this if you recognize is not what you want to do.
Is it just me or do others out there also get angry when people refer to "crytocurrency" as "crypto"? I know perhaps in their circles it's a handy abbreviated word for "cryptocurrency", which admittedly is a mouthful, but this just makes me angry that they would conflate "crypto" (upon which the whole basis of the modern internet is built on), with a form of currency that people have no idea about and are just mindlessly speculating on. Perhaps it's because I've taken some classes on cryptography and understand how beautiful a subject it is, that I find it demeaning for people to use "crypto" to mean "cryptocurrency".
"introduces himself to the men in a group but ignores the women"
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).
the main problem in the crypto or tech industry is not the misogyny it is the fact that the few women that have public visibility and power are scammers or frauds at best, just look at marissa mayer, ellen pao, Elizabeth holmes and now for crypto just look at paragon coin, google the ceo, breaking eggs on her half naked body in a tesla car on a clip and taking selfies in front of a pile of cash to promote her ICO.
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.
Thanks for the article ! I enjoy reading testimonies about misogyny in science and tech industry as it gives interesting insights on what concrete problems I can address.
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 ?
I mean, there is one comment that disagrees? As much as I disagree with that one, calling it vitriol is an overstatement. And one that claims bitcoins are scam which is attack on bitcoins not on women?
[+] [-] PKop|8 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] justmyself|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] lindajxie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staticelf|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] watwut|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] tomp|8 years ago|reply
Maybe they want to avoid accusations of flirting, being a creep and/or sexual accusations? Wouldn't surprise me, in this atmosphere...
[+] [-] zimpenfish|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Id15eba6u|8 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] antirez|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|8 years ago|reply
> 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.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antirez|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lalalander|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lindajxie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qbrass|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foepys|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antirez|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hueving|8 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] ousta|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dpc_pw|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rogerrabbit|8 years ago|reply
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 ?
[+] [-] zimpenfish|8 years ago|reply
As long as I've been on HN, it's been a pretty misogynist place but yeah, it's definitely getting more toxic.
[+] [-] lindajxie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] AmIFirstToThink|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] red023|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jolux|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watwut|8 years ago|reply