
Women in crypto - imartin2k
https://medium.com/@linda.xie/women-in-crypto-3972d6c45442
======
PKop
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...

~~~
justmyself
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.

~~~
lindajxie
I can write blog posts like this one and be knowledgeable and experienced in
cryptocurrency topics. Feel free to check out some of my other Medium posts
[https://medium.com/@linda.xie/](https://medium.com/@linda.xie/)

------
staticelf
People today get upset about fucking everything.

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
"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.

~~~
staticelf
Depends completetly on the event. The author doesn't specify any example of
what type of event this regards (except that it is a "crypto event").

> I haven't seen any +1 of any gender

Sure this is probably quite uncommon on most tech events and meetups but there
are several events where people bring family that is related to technology.

> And dunno, going meta offended over someone expressing that yep, this makes
> [...]

I am not offended, I am simply tired to hear this over and over when in
reality it at least for me seems to almost never happen.

> I know I am not, you know I am not (because statistics), so why expectation
> to pretend otherwise? It is just a lie.

I think women and men are treated equally, at least where I live and in all
the events I've attended. Of course people are going to be douchebags and
uncomfortable situations between genders are going to occur, but this is true
for everyone. I have been disrespected by both women and men but I do not get
upset about all of them because of it.

~~~
rabbyte
So your position is:

"I don't experience this so it probably doesn't happen often but others should
stop talking about it because I'm tired how often this comes up."

I'm curious what aspect of your contribution you think contributes to
anything.

~~~
staticelf
No my position is a tad more complicated than that.

My position is that of course people should voice concern over actual
discrimination based on gender. But this rant on social interactions in which
there is no evidence presented and just big claims that this happens a lot is
simply what is is, big claims.

I claim that this don't happen as often as some people suggests, a claim that
is just as valid as the authors. My position is that this hurts women in tech
and diversity as a whole.

Baseless arguments like the authors contributes to the toxic environment we
have today where everything you do is wrong. Just take that conference Github
was supposed to have. They picked all candidates from without knowing gender
or anything about the authors (blind review) [1] and when it was discovered
every presenter picked was a male, the conference was cancelled because
meritocracy is appearantly not ok if only men were selected even if their
talks were deemed superior [2].

This is just one demonstration about the extreme views that is hurting
equality. Another is Brit Ruby 2013 which was cancelled for the same reasons
basically:
[https://gist.github.com/seanhandley/4106776](https://gist.github.com/seanhandley/4106776)

And it is just the absolute top of the mountain, there are so many stupid
things going on in the name of equality and diversity it's unbelievable.

If we are not supposed to care about genders, why do we care if there is more
women in tech at all?

[1]
[https://cfp.githubapp.com/events/electronconf-2017](https://cfp.githubapp.com/events/electronconf-2017)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868)

~~~
rabbyte
your position is the same as I stated but you have rationale behind it. I get
that. the issue I have is still the same though, you're projecting your
experience onto others and expecting an argument where none is being made.

as a woman in cryptocurrency, this isn't a valuable resource because it proves
our work environment sucks. it's speaking to others like me who already know
our work environment sucks and signals to each other so we can at least create
spaces where not everything is terrible. don't think there's a problem? cool.
it's not a universal experience, just common which is why you hear about it
all the time. we're not looking for your help except to do your part or get
out of the way.

I'm honestly taken back every time I read opinions like yours since you don't
experience this, think these are claims that need evidence, and want to shut
down debate over something that doesn't impact you. I can only assume you're
somehow threatened but I struggle to see how. men feeling threatened by women
talking about their spaces is very strange but maybe that's because you think
we're saying something about you when we complain about how we're treated.

~~~
staticelf
> your position is the same as I stated but you have rationale behind it. I
> get that.

But it is not. Which I just explained why. The difference is that the things I
complain about is specific examples with data to back it up. The author and
other people similar just throw out random shit that is as provable as a
religious experience.

> it's speaking to others like me who already know our work environment sucks

Great attitude there buddy.

> think these are claims that need evidence

I provided evidence for the examples I brought up, the rest is just as the
authors anecdotal with no evidence. This is my whole point.

> I can only assume you're somehow threatened but I struggle to see how. men
> feeling threatened by women talking about their spaces is very strange

Why do people always resort to this jargon? I am not "threatened" I just do
not like discrimination based on gender and I believe that is happening more
towards men than women in tech today. It is happening in the name of diversity
and equality.

~~~
rabbyte
> I just do not like discrimination based on gender

if you feel that way then maybe don't drop into a conversation women started
to tell them their likely misinterpreting situations and need to provide
better evidence before you'll take their claims seriously. maybe don't go
point-by-point refuting their experiences as conjecture then center
discrimination concerns against men. maybe don't engage others who, like you,
don't like discrimination based on gender with the opening line:

> People today get upset about fucking everything.

------
tomp
> makes eye contact with the men while speaking and ignores the women

Maybe they want to avoid accusations of flirting, being a creep and/or sexual
accusations? Wouldn't surprise me, in this atmosphere...

~~~
zimpenfish
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.

~~~
Pica_soO
sure you are in tech?

------
Id15eba6u
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.

Try to stray away from ad hominem

~~~
antirez
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.

~~~
lindajxie
Absolutely, I included in the post that gender was only one aspect of
diversity that I was focusing on in the post but should have made that more
clear.

------
Kiro
> introduces himself to the men in a group but ignores the women

> 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_
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.

~~~
Kiro
I'm not nervous about that though. I simply lack self-confidence. As soon as I
make eye-contact with a girl I look away.

------
lalalander
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".

~~~
lindajxie
"Crypto" has been used as the abbreviation in the space but note taken and
will refer to "cryptocurrency" in future posts to not conflate the two.

------
foepys
The blog post is not about cryptography but crypto currencies. This should be
mentioned in the title.

------
antirez
"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.

~~~
hueving
>I hate it, it's deeply offensive

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).

~~~
imartin2k
The "offensive" attribute aside (which I also have issues with in many
contexts), doesn't antirez have a point?

~~~
belorn
In order for antirez to have a point, let assume we built an experimental
environment with cameras to observe how people behave.

Let say we want to observe how eye contact is being made, in which order, and
to whom and at what rate when a test person enters a group to introduce
themselves. Variables we adjust are among things like hight, age, gender of
test subject, gender distribution of the test group, appearance of strength,
social economical status signals, gait, posture, and olfaction.

Then we take a base line, and compare that to when we change a single
variable. The question to be answered is: which variable has no effect, which
variable has biggest effect, and what is the underlying reason when an
variable has an effect.

------
ousta
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.

~~~
dpc_pw
A counter-argument: majority of visible anything in cryptofin is a fraud, or
shady at best.

------
rogerrabbit
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
?

~~~
zimpenfish
> The atmosphere is becoming as bad as reddit regarding misogyny.

As long as I've been on HN, it's been a pretty misogynist place but yeah, it's
definitely getting more toxic.

------
jolux
front page article, loaded with comments opposing its position with vitriol.
HN as ever.

~~~
watwut
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?

~~~
jolux
One comment? The only positive one I saw was antirez's at the time I wrote
this, and as of now the top comment calls it "scam faux outrage," the reply to
which insinuates that this person is not worth listening to on this subject
and/or is less experienced because they're a feminist, accusing feminists of
"browbeating."

The second comment from the top is your typical "kids these days" trope about
snowflakes and says they're "very tired of feminism."

Further down people imply you can't talk to women anymore because you'll be
accused of harassment for no reason ("Wouldn't surprise me, in this
atmosphere..."), dismissively ask why this needs to be discussed, blame the
humanities for killing America with the cult of identity politics, claim all
powerful women in tech are frauds, bemoaning this being "another SJW crybaby
piece," and finally, above that one, someone who noticed the same thing I did
("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.") and someone
who agrees with them.

