2014-01-24 - This is What it’s Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

[Grinder]

Here's a summary of people's stance on women in early 2014:

Wow, you must really enjoy building straw men.

[dontCAREhair]

Hope your experience was geography specific.  Only meetings I've ever attended are up here in Portland and there is a growing female presence attending seemingly every other week.

Overall bitcoin use is mostly male by a large amount so any females that use bitcoin will be met with a bit of skepticism.

[Erdogan]

OP is a paid shill. My gawd, they are everywhere. Must mean something. To da moon!!

[nwfella]

Boy.  That's kind of a messed up first meeting.  Apologies but it's good that you realize that in his own sort of awkward way he was probably trying to pay you a compliment.  Thing you have to realize about most of us bitcoiners is that for the most part we are a fairly socially awkward and at times inept crew (especially in the presence of attractive women or any female for that matter).  Hopefully this won't discourage you from visiting other bitcoin meetups, I promise there are some really nice fellas involved with BTC too

[cryptoanarchist]

Boy.  That's kind of a messed up first meeting.  Apologies but it's good that you realize that in his own sort of awkward way he was probably trying to pay you a compliment.  Thing you have to realize about most of us bitcoiners is that for the most part we are a fairly socially awkward and at times inept crew (especially in the presence of attractive women or any female for that matter).  Hopefully this won't discourage you from visiting other bitcoin meetups, I promise there are some really nice fellas involved with BTC too

Speak for yourself. As someone who actually still has functioning testicles, let me assure you that the OP is full of shit, and is using a common princess tactic of playing the victim to manipulate your white-knight-mangina-disney-programming.

[nwfella]

Boy.  That's kind of a messed up first meeting.  Apologies but it's good that you realize that in his own sort of awkward way he was probably trying to pay you a compliment.  Thing you have to realize about most of us bitcoiners is that for the most part we are a fairly socially awkward and at times inept crew (especially in the presence of attractive women or any female for that matter).  Hopefully this won't discourage you from visiting other bitcoin meetups, I promise there are some really nice fellas involved with BTC too

Speak for yourself. As someone who actually still has functioning testicles, let me assure you that the OP is full of shit, and is using a common princess tactic of playing the victim to manipulate your white-knight-mangina-disney-programming.

lmfao!! white-knight-mangina-disney-programming.  That's some funny shit there!  And your more than likely right to boot.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Fine since this topic was reopened I was wondering if anyone in the forum open question has seen more women at Bitcoin meetups over the last 6 months seems like a fairly decent period to observe in.
Or are the demographics still the same a lot more adoption overstock, Expedia, Dish Network etc. Might have a small demographic effect on new interested woman users.

[surebet]

OP is a paid shill. My gawd, they are everywhere. Must mean something. To da moon!!

As a member of the know paid shill forum something awful dot com, with ties to the popular bitcoin blog buttcoin.org, I can confirm that we are paid by the bankers to keep y'all down.

[CoinMode]

The thread started on 2014-01-24 and the last post is from 2014-02-04.

The reason I found the thread was because I was searching for any references in the Bitcoin community about Anita Sarkeesian.

Anita is sexist against all men to an absolute extreme, and the biggest hypocrite you can find on the internet. She says that if a man is saving a woman in a video game, then it must mean that the woman is portrayed as totally helpless. She also says that if a woman is the hero and sacrificing her safety to save others, then the game is promoting violence towards women. Nothing that Anita says ever holds true across any of her claims. No matter what happens in a game, it is always portraying women badly from her warped perspective. It is the classic "have your cake and eat it too" example of a hypocrite. Sorry, you just can't have it both ways, ever.

You seem to have fallen for the neo-liberal fallacy, in that, because there exist 50% women in the population, that all jobs, hobbies, and sports should consist of 50% women. By your logic, 50% of Alaskan crab fishing should be female, 50% of bodybuilders should be female, and 50% of preschool teachers should be male. What you fail to understand is that men and women are measurably different. Men are physically stronger, taller, and cannot give birth. There are a multitude of factors that go into the gender imbalance throughout all jobs, hobbies, and sports. If you cannot acknowledge basic reality, then please don't go around spreading your illogical nonsense.

There is no worldwide conspiracy or some unspoken code that men who use bitcoin live by in order to keep women out. Women are the reason that there are not more women bitcoiners. When they see that it can benefit them, more women will join the cause. That is where you come in. Instead of running around and pointing your hateful fingers at every man in the world, how about you actually do something positive and help get more women involved? Or do you just want to spread hatred like Anita?

You will no doubt accuse me of being sexist. That appears to be your only way of arguing, using fallacies like ad hominem to attack the arguer instead of the argument. Notice how I never said women are either good or bad at anything. I never made any generalizations at all. So don't be a bigot and claim that I'm somehow a sexist, please.

[turvarya]

I didn't read the whole thing, but like always there seems to be a lot of morons on both sites.

I just want to point one thing out: Yes it matters how she was dressed and also her body language.
I don't know about this particular Meetup, I wasn't there. So maybe what I  say, doesn't apply here.

If you walk in a bad neighborhood, dressed all slutty, than you don't have the right to tell everybody what pigs are men, when somebody asks you how much "it" costs.
If you sit in a meeting with a dirty shirt and everybody else is dressed business-style, you can't complain, if they don't take you seriously.
If you are in a meeting and your body language is all flirty(e.g. winking at men) than you can't complain, if they are going to hit on you.

Every human being takes part in how it is treated by other human beings.

[tjohej]

This thread is about Arianna Simpson's experience at a Bitcoin meetup.

[CoinMode]

This thread is about Arianna Simpson's experience at a Bitcoin meetup.

If what she is saying in her article is completely true, then the "men" at that particular meetup need to learn a serious lesson in basic manners and respect. However, it does appear to be a very sensationalized version of events due to the style of her writing, and the fact that she generalizes all bitcoin meetups from her onetime experience shows a major penchant for forming prejudice based on limited interactions.

If you find yourself at a bitcoin meetup or conference, please be on your best behavior at all times, whether you are a man or a woman. Don't discriminate against anybody for any reason. That is the exact opposite of what we are about.

[surebet]

I didn't read the whole thing, but like always there seems to be a lot of morons on both sites.

I just want to point one thing out: Yes it matters how she was dressed and also her body language.
I don't know about this particular Meetup, I wasn't there. So maybe what I  say, doesn't apply here.

If you walk in a bad neighborhood, dressed all slutty, than you don't have the right to tell everybody what pigs are men, when somebody asks you how much "it" costs.
If you sit in a meeting with a dirty shirt and everybody else is dressed business-style, you can't complain, if they don't take you seriously.
If you are in a meeting and your body language is all flirty(e.g. winking at men) than you can't complain, if they are going to hit on you.

Every human being takes part in how it is treated by other human beings.

You are entitled to your opinion when you see someone, but you are not entitled to sexually harass a women just because she's "dressing slutty", especially since it's a super fucking subjective quantifier.

Also, you're a complete moron if you stop at a person's appearance in a meeting, some of the most important stuff I've had to say was the morning after I spent a straight night working on something. You better be god damned sure what I have to say will rock your world if I come in a meeting with a coffee stain on my shirt and my sleeves rolled up.

[tjohej]

Every human being takes part in how it is treated by other human beings.

turvarya, are you saying that if the same harassment happened to a woman in a new meeting that all men should stay silent, totally neutral and do nothing?

[rocking1805]

Being a woman on a Bitcoin Meetup is probably the same to being a woman on a Warcraft or Battlefield Meetup With 100% probability this woman will get too much attention, with no exclusions