Topic: 2014-01-24 - This is What it’s Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup (Read 9206 times)

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Wow, you must really enjoy building straw men.

You fixed the link-rot

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.

Sounds like mr dupree jr, mr joesmoe himself.

OP updated to reflect page going down.

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. I wondered "does she accept Bitcoin?". Anyway this is the only thread I found which referenced her person and that in a negative light unfortunately.

The Bitcoin community has some sexists but they also have people who are upset by violence against women.

They want to shut us up and degrade and insult us for just wanting a more just world. We are not demanding anything from a utopia. Just more respect and love. As it is now less women take an interest in Bitcoin thanks to the sexists and their hateful ways which equals less participants in Bitcoin.

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

page1
surebet links[1](link was broken but is now fixed) to Arianna Simpson's webpage which starts the thread.
Paladin69 posts a sexist youtube video "Christian Ice - TITS OR GTFO" to repeat all the known stereotypes we've already been bothered to death with thousands of times over.
31337157 thinks that Arianna Simpson's sexism experience is the exception, not the rule. "No, actually, that's not what it's like to be a woman at a bitcoin meeting"
SirWilliam is not positive of Arianna Simpson's writing style "Her account is full of cartoonish generalizations".
Zeal0t thinks the men are not to blame for what happened during the assault "can you really blame a room full of mega nerds for not at all knowing how to treat a woman?".
Paladin69 reaffirms previous opinion "don't dress like a cock tease.".
kjlimo doesn't have time for this thread. "Not all meetups are the same"
Junko expresses enjoyment of the video Paladin69 posted
fancy_pants doesn't think that Arianna Simpson was assaulted as a female, but as a human. "I don't think you were hit on and practically groped because you are a woman"
Zeal0t agrees with fancy_pants "Nice"
freedomno1 comments on that he has never met a woman at a Bitcoin meetup. "I have attended bitcoin meetups and no girls have appeared"
Bitware does not like how Arianna Simpson presented her story "emotion, lies and misrepresentations"
Grinder "we're supposed to be living in the civilized part of the world"
PhydeauxLeChien thinks we should not exclude 50% of potential entrants in the Bitcoin Community. Treat women as our allies, not enemies.
Rygon thinks that women should fight back if they are victims of sexism. "the author choose not to fight back"
Bitware thinks Arianna Simpson and Anita Sarkeesian are liars. "Anita Sarkeesian did the same thing to the tune of $160 thousand re feminist video game commentary."
PhydeauxLeChien doesn't personally know Arianna Simpson but thinks her story is strongly connected to reality. "The core tenet of feminism is merely that men and women should be treated equally."
100x is disgusted by the sexism in this thread. "The amount of sexism in this thread is sad and pathetic."
surebet thinks that most of the posters in the thread are terrible people. "Most of you are terrible people."
pabloangello "Most of people here are mens that when see nice lady start to think by their dicks."

page2
freedomno1 "Well at least this is the right demographic to ask lol"
mailmansDOG not related to the thread "internet gold"
Gabi thinks that gender should not matter in the Bitcoin community. "Ridicolous. Sex does not matter in bitcoin"
Bitware doesn't like political correctness. "She and those like her live in the world of whimsy, emotion, political correctness and what they try to do is alter your speech". Note: Don't forget that political correctness includes choosing words to not offend other people.
cryptoanarchist agrees with 31337157 but would also like to personally insult Arianna Simpson
exstasie would like to see pictures "Any pics?"
anti-scam doesn't like this thread. "rather than working on stuff like the payment protocol"
surebet reaffirms previous opinion. "Terrible people, terrible people everywhere."
greyhawk thinks surebet should stop thinking about terrible people. "The suprising part is where you're still surprised."
PhydeauxLeChien thinks Bitware is funny "You're hilarious"
VforVictory talks about hormones.
PhydeauxLeChien "EVIL MAN-BASHING FEMINIST CONSPIRACY!"
Bitcopia wonders why the thread is in the Press section. "Why is this thread in press?"
Junko makes fun of the situation that no women want to join the Bitcoin community.
VforVictory got a bit confused on what Junko said.
Junko "Who said I wanted to relate to feminism/feminists?"
yayayo thinks that thinking is overrated.
Grinder thinks the women-hating atmosphere has gone too far. "You will probably never even realize how big a disservice you're doing to Bitcoin by posting all these stuipd remarks."
Junko feels insulted "I only hope bitcoin can recover from this great disservice I've rendered upon it."
yayayo thinks that Bitcoin as a divine entity does not care about sexism. "Bitcoin doesn't care, cause it has no sex."

page3
VforVictory "Grinder thinks it is worthwhile to start a flamewar with the help of Junko
Junko would certainly like the flamewar to begin if somebody just provides the fire.
Grinder thinks it is appropriate as part of the flame to make women look stupid.
Junko notes it is stupid to make fun of women as part of a flamewar."That kind of remark is a disservice not only to your aunt"
C. Bergmann "No problem at all. Girls, join the meetups. You'll never felt more pretty"
marcus_of_augustus thinks people should stop posting in the thread "Can't we let this thread die already?"
surebet disagrees with marcus_of_augustus
cryptoanarchist blames the mother. "Definitely getting to see who the awkward geeks are that still worship women because they feel inadequate due to growing up with an overbearing mother."
prophetx replies to Bitcopia whether the thread is in the right forum section.
100x thinks that the sexism and hate prevalent in the thread is a hostile environment and doesn't encourage discussion but only name calling and insults. "I had a nice snarky post all written, but in the interest of being a positive contributor I begrudingly removed it."
prophetx thinks it matters a lot if a woman is called a girl, instead of being called a woman.
100x is not much for a greater discussion in a hostile woman-hating environment.
prophetx replies to 100x
embracebitcoin thinks most women prefer ignorance to knowledge. "A bit like 'ignorance is bliss'."
Le Happy Merchant says thank you and leaves the thread alone.
xyzzy099 gets turned on by surebet's avatar.
surebet comments about the avatar, that it could be worse than what it looks.
Ripdon007 mentions another Bitcoin meetup where women were the minority and men were the majority. "and had around 40 people present and 1 Woman/Girl"

page4
exstasie "Though it does seem these that majority of the women I talk to are aware of Bitcoins, and know all about it."
yayayo agrees with embracebitcoin
tjohej "The reason I found the thread was because I was searching for any references in the Bitcoin community about Anita Sarkeesian"
surebet says page is going down
elasticband is dissatisfied with something
ThomasCrowne "Only meetings I've ever attended are up here in Portland and there is a growing female presence attending seemingly every other week."
tjohej on link-rot
Grinder to tjohej "Wow, you must really enjoy building straw men."
dontCAREhair to ThomasCrowne "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 thinks surebet was paid by someone to start this thread
nwfella thinks one of the men are not to blame for what happened during the assault "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."
cryptoanarchist blames surebet
nwfella found cryptoanarchist's ways violent "And your more than likely right to boot."
Swordsoffreedom if the demographics on gender have changed recently
surebet replies to Erdogan
CoinMode irritated by tjohej's summary of the thread
turvarya thinks that how women dress matter when going to a Bitcoin meetup. "Yes it matters how she was dressed and also her body language."
tjohej "This isn't a thread about Anita Sarkeesian"

refs:
[1] -- http://web.archive.org/web/20140207235615/http://ariannasimpson.com/post/74400025051/this-is-what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-at-a-bitcoin (link was broken so replaced it with WayBack Machine)