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I agree wholeheartedly with this article, however I don't think it's fair to use such a wide brush. "This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at _This_ Bitcoin Meet

I agree wholeheartedly with this article, however I don't think it's fair to use such a wide brush. "This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at _This_ Bitcoin Meetup" would have been more appropriate. There are bad apples in every community, and it certainly sounds like the author met some, but it's important to realize that a few bad apples don't ruin the whole bushel.

jpwright 13y ago
How many more posts like this are needed to convince you that the whole community of tech meetups is hostile towards women? Of course that individual deserves the lion's share of the blame, but writing this off as an isolated individual acting inappropriately misses the forest for the trees (i.e. misses the root cause [culture] for the proximate cause [assholes]). To further analogize, perhaps the bad apple was there because the bushel was poisoned?
- 2gg2rg 13y ago
  > How many more posts like this are needed to convince you that the whole community of tech meetups is hostile towards women? A whole lot more, because I don't see this shit at the tech meetups I go to.
  - jpwright 13y ago
    Looks like you have some reading to do. Here's a good place to start: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
    - rfnslyr 13y ago
      Yeah, and OP's incident doesn't even register on the radar.
    - throwawaycoder 13y ago
      That list is well known, but I think it shows the opposite of what you claim - contrast the number of incidents to the number of tech events and people involved in tech. Apart from being merely anecdotal anyway.
    - quenlinlom 13y ago
      Hahahahaha! Really? >Slashdot "OMG Ponies" April Fool's Day joke REALLY?!
    - 2gg2rg 13y ago
      One of them was by a registered offender who they shouldn't have hired, another was PG admitting he didn't know young women all that well, so it doesn't support what you seem to be implying all that well, unless the month I looked at isn't representative. And also there's the fact that the list doesn't report the number of meetups/cons where no incidents are reported. But as I said before, I'd certainly need to see it happen at the events I attend before I believe it happens at all events or that the entire community is hostile towards women. You might as well list all such crimes reported in the US and use that as evidence that everyone living in the US is a misogynist.
- ANTSANTS 13y ago
  I think that says more about the Bitcoin community than it does anything about the tech community, though. I imagine the average Bitcoin user as more a fedora-toting internet troll than a crypto-enthusiast. If you look at various cryptocurrency forums, the average user barely knows anything about computers, has little interest in learning more, and just wants someone to hold their hand through the process of getting loads of money off their parent's/school's/employer's electricity. It's totally unsurprising to me that the kind of person this attracts would start imagining themself as some kind of sleezeball investor on top of the world ("can I buy your affection, milady?") just because they're speculating on a couple hundred dollars of cryptocurrency.
  - ossreality 13y ago
    >I imagine the average Bitcoin user as more a fedora-toting internet troll than a crypto-enthusiast. Well, at least you disclosed that you're just projecting that image onto strangers you don't know. I can make up reasonable sounding things too! Bitcoin supporters are more likely to be libertarians and thus are more likely to respect individuality, boundaries and privacy. Thus, I'm shocked to hear of a bitcoin supporter creeping on a female. (Of course, I'm not, but it has nothing to do with Bitcoin itself) What does encryption, proof of work algorithms or anything else have to do with one's likelihood of being gross towards women? It's such a weird thing to even allege. Seems like another cheap "lol bitcoin fans are dumb neckbeards" remark to me.
    - sentenza 13y ago
      Ok. Wait now. You both are generalizing regarding Bitcoin supporters. Yes, libertarians are likely to endorse Bitcoin, but at this point I'm pretty sure that libertarians are a minority in the Bitcoin world, because the Bitcoin world now had its eternal september.
      - ossreality 13y ago
        (I was intentionally generalizing to make a point, nothing more, I don't want to speak for any groups of people in general!) edit: To those that apparently don't grok, I explicitly wrote "Of course not" in the post, pointing out that I wasn't actually asserting a hard connection between bitcoin and libertarianism.
- clavalle 13y ago
  When did we all start agreeing that some amorphous force called 'culture' is out there compelling individuals to act badly? It seems like an extremely convenient gremlin. It can mean almost anything in any context and can act as both a sink and a fountain for blame.
  - andrewflnr 13y ago
    Most people are mostly products of their culture. It's very possible to rise above it, but it takes work, and you first have to figure out which of the values and attitudes you've already absorbed, from culture and other sources, need to be changed. This doesn't compel anyone to do anything, but if culture makes a certain behavior the low-energy path, that's worth some blame. Individual responsibility to get out of the low-energy path is a separate concern.
    - clavalle 13y ago
      I don't buy it. I think 'culture' was, at one point, a convenient label, a shorthand, for very complex phenomena. A label that only had significant meaning at a macro level where individual variables are smoothed out and even then should be suspect as a concept sturdy enough to build other ideas. It is as if we conveniently labelled something 'x' and then ended up talking about how the angle of the two lines crossing affected the underlying idea we're actually referring to. A word that can mean anything has no meaning.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  I kinda hate to trot out this cliche, but the plural of anecdote is not data. No number of posts should convince anyone without additional evidence that they represent a large fraction of women's experiences.
  - jpwright 13y ago
    I wonder what sort of proof you are looking for. I too would love to see some studies on this. Is there a percentage at which you would care? In the mean time, I'll send you this link as well -- http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents -- to at least show that this exact type of incident happens all the time.
    - andrewflnr 13y ago
      I care now. Bringing up the hypothesis that "the entire community of tech meetups is hostile to women" is a red herring. Whether it's true or not, the response is the same: call out the bad behavior when it happens. The only interesting question to me is the tactical one of how to do it in a way that only embarasses the guilty party, instead of making an awkward situation worse.
rayiner 13y ago
Actually, the saying is that a few bad apples spoils the bunch, which refers to the tendency of decay or infestation to quickly spread throughout the bushel: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/136017612/bad-apple-proverbs-theres-one-in-every-bunch http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/136017612/bad-apple-proverbs-t... ("But as the memory of rotting apples fades, the meaning of the 'bad apple' proverb has changed. In 19th century America, it was a staple of Sunday morning sermons: 'As one bad apple spoils the others, so you must show no quarter to sin or sinners.' Or it could suggest that finding one malefactor in a group should make you suspicious of everybody else. 'A bad apple spoils the bin,' one journalist wrote in 1898 of the Dreyfus Affair; if one officer is capable of forgery then why wouldn't others be as well? Back then, nobody ever talked about 'just a few bad apples' or 'only a few rotten apples' — the whole point was that even one was enough to taint the group."). In this case, the saying, the real one, is apropos. It might just be a few bad apples, but they taint the whole culture. {I actually used this phrase a couple of days ago, at which point my wife hit my with some FFA knowledge.}
- blairbeckwith 13y ago
  I guess I'm sorry (sarcastic). Thanks for the knowledge, though. That's helpful (not sarcastic).
cgearhart 13y ago
Sounds like "no true Scotsman", to me. Women have faced, and continue to face, challenges in tech circles. It's hard to make progress because the first step is admitting you have a problem, and it's easy for the tech community to think it's someone else's problem. Keep an eye on your own thoughts and challenge assumptions (yours and others) that marginalize gender issues.
- throwawaycoder 13y ago
  On the other hand women also receive special attention in tech circles. I'm not convinced that one is more overwhelming than the other. Maybe some men can't accept female techies, but they should be easy to avoid. Meanwhile the whole tech world is falling over themselves trying to entice women. Of course if some women take it as an insult if men are enthusiastic about them being interested in tech, there is a problem. In my opinion that is a very stupid way to look at such situations (as the OP did). Just because it is rare to encounter a woman in tech and men therefore act surprised, it doesn't mean they think women are too stupid for it. It just means that it is rare, nothing else. I think usually they really mean it in a positive way if they express their surprise. How many women do you personally know that you can have a conversation about Bitcoin with? So imagine you actually meet somebody like the OP who has thought about all sorts of aspects of Bitcoin. It is unusual, so personally I would be interested in how/why it happened. What is demeaning about that?
DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
The article seems to imply that this behavior isn't limited to just this particular meet-up, but is characteristic of her experiences in bitcoin/tech/etc.

jpwright 13y ago

How many more posts like this are needed to convince you that the whole community of tech meetups is hostile towards women? Of course that individual deserves the lion's share of the blame, but writing this off as an isolated individual acting inappropriately misses the forest for the trees (i.e. misses the root cause [culture] for the proximate cause [assholes]). To further analogize, perhaps the bad apple was there because the bushel was poisoned?

2gg2rg 13y ago
> How many more posts like this are needed to convince you that the whole community of tech meetups is hostile towards women? A whole lot more, because I don't see this shit at the tech meetups I go to.
- jpwright 13y ago
  Looks like you have some reading to do. Here's a good place to start: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    Yeah, and OP's incident doesn't even register on the radar.
  - throwawaycoder 13y ago
    That list is well known, but I think it shows the opposite of what you claim - contrast the number of incidents to the number of tech events and people involved in tech. Apart from being merely anecdotal anyway.
  - quenlinlom 13y ago
    Hahahahaha! Really? >Slashdot "OMG Ponies" April Fool's Day joke REALLY?!
  - 2gg2rg 13y ago
    One of them was by a registered offender who they shouldn't have hired, another was PG admitting he didn't know young women all that well, so it doesn't support what you seem to be implying all that well, unless the month I looked at isn't representative. And also there's the fact that the list doesn't report the number of meetups/cons where no incidents are reported. But as I said before, I'd certainly need to see it happen at the events I attend before I believe it happens at all events or that the entire community is hostile towards women. You might as well list all such crimes reported in the US and use that as evidence that everyone living in the US is a misogynist.
ANTSANTS 13y ago
I think that says more about the Bitcoin community than it does anything about the tech community, though. I imagine the average Bitcoin user as more a fedora-toting internet troll than a crypto-enthusiast. If you look at various cryptocurrency forums, the average user barely knows anything about computers, has little interest in learning more, and just wants someone to hold their hand through the process of getting loads of money off their parent's/school's/employer's electricity. It's totally unsurprising to me that the kind of person this attracts would start imagining themself as some kind of sleezeball investor on top of the world ("can I buy your affection, milady?") just because they're speculating on a couple hundred dollars of cryptocurrency.
- ossreality 13y ago
  >I imagine the average Bitcoin user as more a fedora-toting internet troll than a crypto-enthusiast. Well, at least you disclosed that you're just projecting that image onto strangers you don't know. I can make up reasonable sounding things too! Bitcoin supporters are more likely to be libertarians and thus are more likely to respect individuality, boundaries and privacy. Thus, I'm shocked to hear of a bitcoin supporter creeping on a female. (Of course, I'm not, but it has nothing to do with Bitcoin itself) What does encryption, proof of work algorithms or anything else have to do with one's likelihood of being gross towards women? It's such a weird thing to even allege. Seems like another cheap "lol bitcoin fans are dumb neckbeards" remark to me.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    Ok. Wait now. You both are generalizing regarding Bitcoin supporters. Yes, libertarians are likely to endorse Bitcoin, but at this point I'm pretty sure that libertarians are a minority in the Bitcoin world, because the Bitcoin world now had its eternal september.
    - ossreality 13y ago
      (I was intentionally generalizing to make a point, nothing more, I don't want to speak for any groups of people in general!) edit: To those that apparently don't grok, I explicitly wrote "Of course not" in the post, pointing out that I wasn't actually asserting a hard connection between bitcoin and libertarianism.
clavalle 13y ago
When did we all start agreeing that some amorphous force called 'culture' is out there compelling individuals to act badly? It seems like an extremely convenient gremlin. It can mean almost anything in any context and can act as both a sink and a fountain for blame.
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  Most people are mostly products of their culture. It's very possible to rise above it, but it takes work, and you first have to figure out which of the values and attitudes you've already absorbed, from culture and other sources, need to be changed. This doesn't compel anyone to do anything, but if culture makes a certain behavior the low-energy path, that's worth some blame. Individual responsibility to get out of the low-energy path is a separate concern.
  - clavalle 13y ago
    I don't buy it. I think 'culture' was, at one point, a convenient label, a shorthand, for very complex phenomena. A label that only had significant meaning at a macro level where individual variables are smoothed out and even then should be suspect as a concept sturdy enough to build other ideas. It is as if we conveniently labelled something 'x' and then ended up talking about how the angle of the two lines crossing affected the underlying idea we're actually referring to. A word that can mean anything has no meaning.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
andrewflnr 13y ago
I kinda hate to trot out this cliche, but the plural of anecdote is not data. No number of posts should convince anyone without additional evidence that they represent a large fraction of women's experiences.
- jpwright 13y ago
  I wonder what sort of proof you are looking for. I too would love to see some studies on this. Is there a percentage at which you would care? In the mean time, I'll send you this link as well -- http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents -- to at least show that this exact type of incident happens all the time.
  - andrewflnr 13y ago
    I care now. Bringing up the hypothesis that "the entire community of tech meetups is hostile to women" is a red herring. Whether it's true or not, the response is the same: call out the bad behavior when it happens. The only interesting question to me is the tactical one of how to do it in a way that only embarasses the guilty party, instead of making an awkward situation worse.

rayiner 13y ago

Actually, the saying is that a few bad apples spoils the bunch, which refers to the tendency of decay or infestation to quickly spread throughout the bushel: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/136017612/bad-apple-proverbs-theres-one-in-every-bunch http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/136017612/bad-apple-proverbs-t... ("But as the memory of rotting apples fades, the meaning of the 'bad apple' proverb has changed. In 19th century America, it was a staple of Sunday morning sermons: 'As one bad apple spoils the others, so you must show no quarter to sin or sinners.' Or it could suggest that finding one malefactor in a group should make you suspicious of everybody else. 'A bad apple spoils the bin,' one journalist wrote in 1898 of the Dreyfus Affair; if one officer is capable of forgery then why wouldn't others be as well? Back then, nobody ever talked about 'just a few bad apples' or 'only a few rotten apples' — the whole point was that even one was enough to taint the group."). In this case, the saying, the real one, is apropos. It might just be a few bad apples, but they taint the whole culture. {I actually used this phrase a couple of days ago, at which point my wife hit my with some FFA knowledge.}

blairbeckwith 13y ago
I guess I'm sorry (sarcastic). Thanks for the knowledge, though. That's helpful (not sarcastic).

cgearhart 13y ago

Sounds like "no true Scotsman", to me. Women have faced, and continue to face, challenges in tech circles. It's hard to make progress because the first step is admitting you have a problem, and it's easy for the tech community to think it's someone else's problem. Keep an eye on your own thoughts and challenge assumptions (yours and others) that marginalize gender issues.

throwawaycoder 13y ago
On the other hand women also receive special attention in tech circles. I'm not convinced that one is more overwhelming than the other. Maybe some men can't accept female techies, but they should be easy to avoid. Meanwhile the whole tech world is falling over themselves trying to entice women. Of course if some women take it as an insult if men are enthusiastic about them being interested in tech, there is a problem. In my opinion that is a very stupid way to look at such situations (as the OP did). Just because it is rare to encounter a woman in tech and men therefore act surprised, it doesn't mean they think women are too stupid for it. It just means that it is rare, nothing else. I think usually they really mean it in a positive way if they express their surprise. How many women do you personally know that you can have a conversation about Bitcoin with? So imagine you actually meet somebody like the OP who has thought about all sorts of aspects of Bitcoin. It is unusual, so personally I would be interested in how/why it happened. What is demeaning about that?

DerpDerpDerp 13y ago

The article seems to imply that this behavior isn't limited to just this particular meet-up, but is characteristic of her experiences in bitcoin/tech/etc.