Now on the general topic of Women in Bitcoin which probably needs to be solved to some degree before Sarkeesian will even respond to any request of her addressing Bitcoin at all, is this:
Andreas M. Antonopoulos may not be a feminist but he wants women to feel welcome in the Bitcoin space(and I hope some of you do too, and are not only speaking up at Reddit but also here on bitcointalk.org) and that is worthy of respect.
This video "Q&A with Andreas Antonopoulos - Bitcoin in 2015 and beyond" published Jan 8, 2015
http://youtu.be/1DG98FH1qlo?t=55m36s links directly to the topic about Women and Bitcoin.
If you find any corrections or if you proofread or heard something in the video that was said and that isn't found in my transcript after 55:36 then please let me know so I can correct it, pm me about it then. "<helpmetranslate>" is one part where I didn't hear what somebody said so if you heard it please let me know so I can add it. I would like to get help so the transcript is totally alright.
I created this transcript myself since I didn't find any other on the world wide web:
@paulbuitink at 55:36 "we're almost running out of time but I'd just wanted to address the whole situation with women and Bitcoin, I know it's one of your hot topics Andreas <helpmetranslate> example where we don't only see guys but also female entrepreneurs and developers participating. We have Annet here so maybe you guys discuss among yourselves how come there is such a limited amount of women in the whole of Bitcoin sphere."
Andreas M. Antonopoulos at 56:08 "Annet, why don't you go ahead?"
Annet de Boer @BitKassaNL at 56:10 "Yes. Well I think it's in a way expected that women are in less numbers than men because I think the audience that attracts to Bitcoin are either way tech savvy people and in that area women are already less...visible than men and well we have the groups of traders that are interested in Bitcoin and I think that's another area where women are not so well represented. People who are looking to invest in promising startups for example, that's another area where women are not so well represented so I think the whole subject is the sum of all the parts where women will tend to be less visible than men, but they are there, I know they are there. I'm not the only one, fortunately. I also would like to thank you Andreas that you as one of the role models in Bitcoin have an active opinion on diversity and I saw your website that you don't even attend/speak at conferences when they don't adopt an anti-harassment policy for example and I think that's very good to raise awareness amongst other people, maybe make it a bit more welcome also for women to come and take a look"
Andreas M. Antonopoulos at 57:59 "Yeah, thank you so much Annet, I have to say that my experience with this has been rather disappointing because once I started talking about this topic I got two reactions: One was extremely hostile response from some of the male personalities in the space including death threats and threats of violence and at the same time I heard from literally dozens of women telling me about their negative experiences where when attending a Bitcoin meetup or Bitcoin conference they have been harassed, dismissed, ridiculed, sexually assaulted, sexually propositioned and treated in a way that is truly appaling and disgusting and awful. Part of the issue here as Annet said is that finance, libertarians and technology are already areas where women are underrepresented but there are also areas where some of the men in the space are actively hostile and/or exploitative and/or predatory towards women and what that means is that the experience of the average person who gets into Bitcoin is very different depending on whether they are male or female. Males who enter Bitcoin generally find it to be an exciting space full of opportunity and interesting people and women who enter Bitcoin go to these meetings and they are received in a way where they are objectified, talked down to, touched inappropriately, propositioned, asked for dates, commented on their looks, all kinds of behaviour that is really juvenile at best and dangerously predatory in some cases and for the most part the organisers of these events turn a blind eye, even when they are notified that these things they tend to re-victimize the victim and eventually push women out of this space so it's not just a matter of women being underrepresented, it's also a matter of this being a space that is actively hostile to women in many cases. I would encourage people if you have a conference, certainly if it is a conference I'm attending, I do not attend conferences unless there is not just a published anit-harassment policy but one that is enforced which has a reporting structure that if someone is being harassed or they experience this kind of behaviour they will report it to someone who is trusted, someone who will take action in a specified manner and will follow the policy that excludes the harasser and not punish the victim again. Most of these incidences don't go reported because the people who are exploited are not in a position of power in this industry and if they say anything they end up getting kicked out of the group. I think this is a relatively toxic environment. It has changed a bit in the last year, as Bitcoin goes mainstream, its value become more mainstream as well and gradually we are seeing more and more people from different parts of life: male, female, different races, different ethnicities, different sexual orientations, people from different social status or economic status joining Bitcoin. We are seeing the diversity increase gradually, but it's still very much a white male 30-45 dominated area and so we need to be aware of what image we give to the outside world and how welcoming we are or how hostile we are to those that are trying to join because Bitcoin only succeeds if we make it as diverse as possible. That's a topic I really care about and as I've said before I just simply about a year and a half ago I took a pledge and said 'I'm not going to any conference unless they have, and in force a sexual harassment policy'. It is very easy to do that if you speak at conferences, you should expect that. You will notice that I will not go to certain very large, well-known conferences happening and if you wonder why I'm not at these conferences usually it's because the organisers of the conference either refused to implement such a policy or make a joke of it and don't really enforce it or because the line-up is almost entirely male dominated.
One of these conferences I went to recently took some of the best speakers in the space and put them all in a single panel called Women in Bitcoin. Here you had VCs and investors and lawyers, smart contracts specialists and all kinds of bright people who had lots of interesting things to talk about but they
were put on a panel to talk about the fact that they were female. That's
not diversity. That's a joke."
@paulbuitink at 1:03.32 "Let's hope that Satoshi is a woman then"
Andreas at 1:03:36 "I like to think that she is at a conference and maybe you'll meet her."
@JopHartog at 1:03:42 "Great"
@paylbuitink at 1:03:44 "Any more questions?"
Andreas M. Antonopoulos at 1:03:47 "I can tell you I get a lot of death threats and hate mail for saying that too"
@paylbuitink at 1:03:54 "Well I think it's <helpmetranslate> first it's good for the Bitcoin sphere also to get more <helpmetranslate> adoption and get a better ambience within the industry. Any other questions maybe from Annet <helpmetranslate> before you wrap up?
@JopHartog at 1:04:14 "No, thank you."
@paylbuitink at 1:04:16 thanks Andreas and then asks about Andreas book.
Corrections and help in the transcript is welcome.
