
Ask HN: Women of HN, tell us about yourself and your journey in tech so far? - shradha408
	I almost never come across women on HN in the comments section or anywhere else.
I am interested in knowing about women in tech and their journey, stories and challenges.<p>Feel free to share anything you like.
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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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sevilo
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

~~~
braindouche
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.

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shradha408
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.

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ahris
There's a game called Valhalla, in which there is a fictional version of the
internet where everyone online is assumed to be female and where women didn't
have to hide their gender in online communities to avoid biases. The game's
take on internet culture feels absurdist, but the satire really hits home when
you see threads like this that highlights how invisible women are in our IRL
internet culture.

In an ideal world, women don't have to call out their gender in comments (as
another user suggests). Instead, we shouldn't assume all posters are male by
default.

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jvzr
I always find myself assuming the person writing the comment I'm reading to be
a middle-aged white male, and I feel dumb and ashamed when I realize that's
not it. FWIW I'm a white male living in a western country so I'm deeply
privileged/prejudiced. It's good to have my biases put in check, but I wished
I didn't have them in the first place.

Edit: typo it didn't->I didn't

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dominotw
> I'm a white male living in a western country so I'm deeply
> privileged/prejudiced.

so is everyone else anywhere in the world. I've lived in India and Brazil.

> I wished it didn't have them in the first place.

How is this even possible :|. insn't our brain a pattern matching machine.

