Bitcoin Forum

I think bitcoin will end up as men's currency, no offence.

There is already a topic like this... ::)

Sorry I didn't know that, could give me a link?

What do you do if your gender is not an option in the poll?  ???

Nerds are stereotypically male. Nerds are most likely to be bitcoin early adopters. No conspiracy here.

Oh trust me, women won't have any problem getting Bitcoins at any price whenever they decide they want some.

It might start as one, but when the day comes it's possible to buy a pair of expensive shoes with it will be the day I encrypt my wallet :D

there are some aliens among us  :o

or a robot

No need to be an alien. There are many transgender (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender) (if the point is one's gender not being in the list) and intersex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex) (if the point is one's sex not being in the list) people out there. I'm sure they'd appreciate not being called "aliens".


The previous thread about gender on this forum ended up like a collection of sexist jokes and clichés. I hope the same won't happen with this one.

fmeales adopt its, just because they usually irritated by something "men-only" existence :P
of course if its more or less practical. its important :-)

there is no patriarchy within the bitcoin community... why the dominance of men... could it be that men are, in general, interested in different things to women?

I cant buy sandwiches for bitcoins yet . 

Right now it is, but why end up? 

Gender distribution is equal on Paypal:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/paypal.com

I doubt that bitcoin can go that far.

no, but I heard you could buy a pizza- for the right price.

This is the main one.
https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=2164.0

There are some more (which you can find with a trivial search on 'gender').

General conclusion is that early adopters and risk takers (in any sector) are most commonly male. There are some females around, though.

Yeah I just talked (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=2164.msg148682#msg148682) about this in that other thread. Seems like some people think if we create a high heels and astrology store, it will be an instant chick magnet. I suggest only selling heels that are slightly shorter than typical, so we won't get too many short/underage girls. Actually no... that would scare away the Asians. Hmmmmm. This is hard.

That's why your gf can't be interested in bitcoin, she's busy making them for you xD

I read that, very interesting.

Stuff White People Like:

Bitcoins

Chicks don't need bitcoin because they don't need to buy the sandwhiches, they can make them there selves.

+1  :D

The casual sexist jokes aren't exactly going to help the problem.

No, but laughter is good for your health .. it'll reduce your taxes if you live in country with national medical insurance scheme and other people laugh (whatever the joke).

Females will catch on to bitcoin after it becomes a reliable measure of male desirability .... in an average female population sense that is ... generally they follow the crowd, not lead and seek comfort and security in peer re-enforcement of their choices

well yes - that's true at the moment.

so what?

anyone who finds that to be undesirable can certainly change it.

i would suggest organizing a donation sponsorship to NOW - paid only in Bitcoin.  get them - or any number of other organizations (and by default, the individuals who make up those organizations) - to start conducting business in Bitcoin.

it's just not that tough.

I don't care about the sandwich jokes, but this kind of stuff you're saying isn't a joke. It seems more likely to me that females will catch on to Bitcoin when they realize it can be used to buy things they want, using is as a measure of male desirability doesn't even make sense. I really hope you are not in this game to increase your desirability among females, if you are you, have a few things to learn.

When the first shoe store starts accepting bitcoins more women will take notice.

minute_of angle said:



If you don't see this, RobertFawcett, I'm afraid it's you who has few things to learn. You may be different, and it was not an attack - just a mere observation

I think your "mere observation" would be my "sweeping generalisation".

We have a golden opportunity here to learn and understand from someone who represents 50% of the population. We can choose to do that, or we can choose to stick to our prejudices and call them "observations". Personally, I'd like to see bitcoin grow and I don't believe that the way to do that is to alienate women. There are plenty of places online where we can maintain our prejudices without having to worry about the negative impact it may have on something we're trying to promote - I'd suggest we use those outlets for "humour" and save this one for mature discussion.

It's not prejudice - it's experience  ;D

If I don't see what, exactly? Do you honestly think women will be more interested in using Bitcoin to judge male social status, than they will be interested in, say... buying and selling stuff?

I'm not denying that women do not like to take risks, women are less likely to invest in anything, and women are a lot less likely to adopt new technology. That's not what my gripe is, my gripe is with the stupid reasoning people come up with to explain why there aren't a lot of women using Bitcoins yet.

If this was a mere observation, you would have something other than lame stereotypes to back it up. Statistics or something.

Do centuries of certain behavior count?

You imply there is a problem. Why? Men have a tendency to hype new things early, this has happened thousands of times already. And guess what, it usually was not a problem.

Look an the different smartphones, they all got hyped by men first, but it's balancing out now. Same with practically any tech/computer/geek thing. Nothing special at all. If Bitcoin reaches critical mass, the situation will change quickly.

No, not really. Modern behavior is much different than behavior 100 years ago. It's different even than it was 50 years ago. You also can't ignore the fact that for many centuries, female behavior was controlled by men.

I'm afraid, I'll have to give up at this point

In nine months - with no relation to any of the genders - Bitcoin will catch up with Paypal at current growth trends on Alexa.com

See http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=10392.msg149970#msg149970

Paypal is inherently sexist. I have never heard a woman call another woman a "pal."

I think more laws would help. We need one, so gay people feel accepted, black people can feel "colored" and women can feel like men. Oh, the beauty of legislation and political correctness  ;D

Legislation and political correctness have nothing to do with it.

We're effectively ambassadors for a product - bitcoin. It's decentralised, and has no corporation behind it - no marketing department, no public relations team - just us. It falls to us to promote the product, and we can do it by either taking into consideration the need to appeal to and not alienate 50% of the population, or we can do it by ignoring women altogether and hoping that smarter, more mature individuals take up the reins before the supply of male adopters runs out.

There aren't going to be any laws to force us not to be chauvinist. There aren't going to be any regulations requiring us to be "politically correct". We need to take responsibility for promoting bitcoin, and we need to do it by taking responsibility for what we say and how we act.

If you feel the need to appeal to people who are out of touch with reality, be my guest. I have my opinion and I expressed it.
Bitcoin is not a "product", we don't need to "promote" it and I am not from a marketing department!
Bitcoin is a tool. If people find it useful, they will use it. I don't believe in artificially persuading people, men or women, that they "need" something.

I feel the need to appeal to as many people as possible, and I don't believe that dismissing a substantial part of the population as "out of touch with reality" is (a) going to achieve that, and (b) grounded in reality. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, and you are, of course, entitled to express it. It would be good, however, if you did it somewhere where it won't hinder people's perception of bitcoin or the bitcoin community. It's sad you feel we don't need to promote bitcoin - I strongly disagree with this. I want bitcoin to succeed, and I believe it stands more chance of doing this if we encourage people - all people - to use it. I'm not from a marketing department - or marketing background - either, but I believe that I need to play a role in promoting bitcoin if it's to succeed.

True, but artificially discouraging people, men or women, from using bitcoin - by belittling a group of people - hinders that, surely?

Look, if more people start using bitcoin we all benefit. If we discourage people - some people, many people, whatever - from using bitcoin we don't benefit. Presumably you don't sidle up to people at parties and say "don't use bitcoin, it's useless". But that's effectively what you - and other posters - are doing when you choose to sideline women. We have an opportunity here, an opportunity to see how we can make bitcoin and the community more attractive to women - we can take that opportunity, and benefit ourselves, or we can ignore it and lose that benefit. To me it's a no-brainer. It'd be like a website choosing not to be accessible to half their potential customers, except instead of one corporation suffering we all suffer.

Yes, this. Thank you!

This is entertaining  ;D
All moa said was:

Which in my opinion and experience is a very accurate observation. So when RobertFawcett tried to tell him/her it's not, I disagreed.
Women are physically weeker and not technically-minded. They make allies with men so they can "survive" - that's a simple social contract. They've been doing it for centuries and will be doing far into the future. This is how we evolved. Why is it so difficult to accept ourselves for who we are?

Sorry, I don't participate in mass delusions

I find it hilarious that the gender ratio for this forum is more male than even internet pornography viewership (72% male).

Pornviewing by time has to be more that 72% male.

Technically, what was said is true. It's also a huge oversimplification. Being factual isn't the same thing as being accurate.

I could say men need to buy razors because men shave their beards. That would be true, but it's not accurate because it doesn't take other factors into consideration. (Women shave legs and armpits). Yeah, that is a strange analogy, but the point is some statements are far too general to be of any practical use. Not only is it useless, it's mean. I could say Bitcoin will become appealing to black people when they realize they can use it to buy cocaine, weapons, and prostitues. You wouldn't be able to say I am factually wrong, but you would be able to say I'm being inflammatory for no good reason.

We all know that money plays a role in sex. Men with money are more sexually desirable, and there are men who want money for that reason. But we all know that money is used for plenty of other things, and since most people only spend a portion of their living finding and choosing a spouse, perhaps those other uses for money are more important. Someone explain to me why it's a good idea to reduce something as complicated as economics down to sex only.

One thing I don't like about this attitude is it dismisses the importance of women as consumers. In many families women control most of the purchasing decisions, and the difference between male and female income becomes smaller every day.

Trophy Wives.


It's the digit in the accounts that matter ... the TW don't know about bitcoin digit accounts .... yet.

I know trophy wives exist, but it's not like all women are potential trophy wives. Not even most women are. Most female consumers are already married, too ugly to be trophy wives, or just not interested. It's easy to think of certain groups of people all behaving in one predictable way, especially when those groups of people aren't around to represent themselves, but it's not useful. I elaborated on this in the post above.

No offense but I noticed a lot of tech people are not good writers. Many of the articles I have read about Bitcoin are awful, even when they are written by people who understand it. Maybe some of you just don't see the need to watch what you say. I'm not trying to get you to lie or censor yourself, it is possible to be honest without being crude. If you had said "women will like Bitcoin when they know it translates into real wealth," it wouldn't sound bad.

Many of you probably think I'm nitpicking over words, but if Bitcoin is going to have any real value, it needs to be sold to the general public. As of right now, this is just a harmless forum discussion, but everything we say has the potential to get into the media. That would be bad, the media can be merciless on people who sound even slightly sexist. There's already a huge stereotype about sexist nerds, thanks to movies like The Social Network.

I was being kind ... now you've asked for the truth ... you think you can handle the truth?

Bitcoin sells itself ... doesn't need any spin because it is just the facts that it works.

Whoring is the oldest profession known to man. Money for sex.

Woman, by and large, prefer good providers, the science on that is incontrovertible and probably massively over-studied too.

Everyone's got to accept reality eventually. Sorry that I had to be the one.

Yes, there are prostitues and trophy wives. I never denied this.

I hope you're aware that the majority of female consumers women aren't prostitues or trophy wives. That is also a reality.

Bitcoin is money. It will be used for all of the same things money is used for. That means it will be used to exchange sex for money. It also means it will be used for other things. Okay?

Okay.

Trophy wives and prostitutes are symptomatic outliers of the basic female condition, that most women spend most of their lives living in denial about, they are instinctively drawn to good providers, and in the abstract that represents money.

The feminist revolution expects to be able to gloss over the home truths on the female set of basic instincts, whilst denigrating males and their basic instincts.

You think 50 years of denigrating males is going to come without some kind of backlash? Welcome to the front lines ladies.

Generally, women will come to value a glossed up BitCoin emasculated "product" AFTER men come to value bitcoin the money tool, it was never going to be the other way around ... it's just how we are.

minute_of_angle: how do your crackpot theories account for people that are not heterosexual? what about families with two breadwinners or a female breadwinner?

I find it funny people trying to deny their instincts and nature.
It's almost as entertaining as listening to religious people trying to explain dinosaurs  ;D 

They are stressful and dysfunctional because of the fundamental conflict with the instinctive emotions surrounding "breadwinning" ... but all situations can be worked around with therapy or prayer, lying to oneself and other compromises I suppose. I just chop wood and tell it like I see it.

(You do not want to go into this, trust me.)

Listen people, I am not talking about "instincts."

I'm talking economics. This is a Bitcoin forum, not an evolutionary psychology forum.

It's an economic reality that most women are not prostitutes.

Therefor, in a discussion about how to get women adopt a new currency, it makes no sense to argue that women cannot be interested in money in any context other than whoring.

Prostitues buy things also, you know. They buy makeup, clothing, food, real estate. If they are a highly-paid prostitute, they will buy many other things as well.

So, even if we assume all women actually ARE prostitutes, your argument still doesn't make sense.

Women buy and sell things. Getting women involved in Bitcoin means getting women involved with buying and selling things with Bitcoin. In theory it could also involve trophy wives, but the majority of economic activity in the world is actually not trophy wife related. I dare you to prove me otherwise.

Some of you will suffer greatly from your own lack of business sense, and you will suffer even more greatly from your lack of social skills.

Try telling that to the large proportion of men that have been through the divorce courts.

"I've never paid for sex but that marriage bankrupted me!"

Crackpot theories aside there is a kernel of truth but it is too easy to poke fun at the fairer sex and get a rise ....

we'll agree that bitcoin, for now is a men's toy, and women will get it when they need it.

that is when men can buy diamonds, cars, shoes and expensive bags with bitcoins

Wow, minute_of_angle and mewantsbitcoins, you're using sexist clichés in such a naive way I'm starting to doubt you really mean it.

• If you mean it, I'm surprised and impressed that people can still have this representation of male and female roles in 2011. I don't know what your personal history with women is, but you should talk with someone.
• If you don't mean it (i.e. if you're only simulating sexism), ok, good joke, but it's not very interesting.

In either case, I'll personally stop following this topic.

RobertFaucett: I totally agree with you, but you should save yourself time and stress: remember that xkcd strip (http://xkcd.com/386/).

you're not thinking that one all the way through, FreeMoney...

I think think this thread need some jokes. I'll start.

My girlfriend said to me another day: If god wanted women to suck dicks he would have made cum taste like chocolate
I said: But he had to make it taste like bleach so you don't forget to do the laundry

Right now only technical people can use Bitcoin, and most technical people are male for some reason. Once Bitcoin (or some EWallet service) is easy enough for non-techies to use, it will be adopted by some communities that contain a balanced or female-dominated demographic.