I think there are interesting ways in which gender affects this particular case, though I wouldn't say it dominates. Which is to say, I can see a man doing the

I think there are interesting ways in which gender affects this particular case, though I wouldn't say it dominates. Which is to say, I can see a man doing the same thing, although they would obviously have to adapt a different strategy. Regardless I think a lot of people are afraid to converse in this territory at all lest they get caught up in a wave of anti or pro women downvoters. Additionally I think a lot of people on HN tend to avoid polemic social discussions, because they don't want to risk saying something bad about something they are in agreement with. My observation is that she is a pretty blonde white woman, and I wonder how much harder it would be for a large black woman or a short Indian woman with an accent to accomplish the same thing. It wouldn't surprise most people to hear there may have been some favoritism involved, especially now that she's been revealed as a fraud. The truth is some people are just favored in society and others aren't. I wish it weren't so, I'm certainly not in the favored group, but I can't help but run into that observation in different realms of life. Attractive people tend to get better jobs, more romantic interest, and even babies prefer looking at attractive faces more. But to say everything she accomplished is because she was a woman is.. well a gross oversimplification. She must have been talented just by virtue of the fact that she was able to create as large a fraud as she did. In trying to avoid sounding like they're simplifying her down to just her looks,I think a lot of people may just avoid conversion instead of trying to create a carefully crafted argument one way or the other. I wonder if even what I wrote won't come off the wrong way. But to me, she employed both her intelligence and her looks in order to get her objective(the latter specifically at least in her affair).