Topic: Bitcoin is men's toy - page 2. (Read 8477 times)

Yes, this. Thank you!

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.

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.

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.

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 

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

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

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

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.

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.

Do centuries of certain behavior count?

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.

It's not prejudice - it's experience 

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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