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This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

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Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#111

Post by gnaritas »

silencio wrote: post #100
sliverstorm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a woman, but perhaps something like "This is much too forward of you", in a disapproving tone. Nothing makes me quickly reconsider my actions like this words, even if it turns out she was kidding. It provides the suggestion that if he proceeded differently, there might be a chance, but if he continues this way there is not. That suggestion might be enough to restore at least a semblance of normal interaction?

As a woman, what I hate is when I'm trying to be nice and proper and educational about telling people to back off and they use that as a springboard to go all "who, me?" or maybe "oh, okay" and then assume I'm a frigid bitch anyway instead of recognizing that they're the ones making a big mistake. So nowadays I am of the shove the offending body part off and "get your hands off me" mindset because it doesn't really m…

> So nowadays I am of the shove the offending body part off and "get your hands off me" mindset because it doesn't really matter.

Awesome, as a guy, that's what I think women should do.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#113

Post by gnaritas »

sliverstorm wrote: post #107
silencio wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a woman, what I hate is when I'm trying to be nice and proper and educational about telling people to back off and they use that as a springboard to go all "who, me?" or maybe "oh, okay" and then assume I'm a frigid bitch anyway instead of recognizing that they're the ones making a big mistake. So nowadays I am of the shove the offending body part off and "get your hands off me" mindset because it doesn't really m…

I don't need to be nice about someone invading my personal space Yes, I agree. But of course not every woman is willing to be outright confrontational and thus resort to "grin-and-bear-it", which is why I was thinking about other possible avenues based on my experiences receiving blowback. I realize it's a different story actually there in the moment than it is for me, an armchair warrior, but the only ways I know of…

> But of course not every woman is willing to be outright confrontational

True, but men are generally outright confrontational and when dealing with men, speaking their language is likely to lead to them understanding in the moment what just happened.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#114

Post by king_jester »

vellum wrote: post #87
slewis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not on the author to say something. There were a handful of other people there who could have spoken up. Please, everyone, if you witness this type of rude behavior, speak up. We are all, male, female, undecided, both etc. responsible for improving treatment of non-males in tech. Take an active role.

There were a handful of other people there who could have spoken up. If you don't know who any of these people are, or how they know each other, it's hard to tell what's going on. Having said that, I'm all for banning gropers from meetups.

> If you don't know who any of these people are, or how they know each other, it's hard to tell what's going on.

By default, a meetup group of strangers is an environment that should be free of harassment, it is better to speak up and be told that contact is OK than to say nothing and let someone fend for themselves.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#115

Post by sp332 »

slewis wrote: post #37
meritt wrote: post #3

> In my mind, it’s a little preposterous that if I want to do so, however, I have to be ok with being felt up and indirectly insulted. To the author: You're right, it's unacceptable but you know how to fix it? You say something at the point in which it occurs. Nip it in the bud. Running off to write yet another gender-division-in-the-tech-world blog which will be read, primarily, by the sort of folk who already agree…

It's not on the author to say something. There were a handful of other people there who could have spoken up. Please, everyone, if you witness this type of rude behavior, speak up. We are all, male, female, undecided, both etc. responsible for improving treatment of non-males in tech. Take an active role.

I'm not saying the author had a responsibility to fight back, but I'm having a hard time justifying her "right" to not say anything. If she doesn't say that she doesn't like it, the guy has no reason to back off, at all. Not justifying what he did at first, but it would justify everything he did after that.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#116

Post by dictum »

mercer wrote: post #71

This sounds absolutely horrible, but it raises a questions. I'm a guy, and I tend to be quite aware of things happening around me. If I were to notice things unfold as described in this post... Assuming I'm not in charge: is it preferable that I somehow try to play a role in this, or would this only make everything more complicated/awkward. Should I stay back and just be pissed off? What would be the best way to appr…

The way that values basic human decency and empathy the most would be to notify the organizers and ensure that they don't just ignore your complaint, and to talk to the person who was assaulting the other person.

Unfortunately, I'm jaded enough to believe that no good deed goes unpunished, so in the same situation I'd just notify the organizers.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#117

Post by hosh »

throwawaycoder wrote: post #89
hosh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. What you are suggesting is that, with lower barriers of entry to create new currencies, we will see a rise in forking economies just as open source and distributed source control allowed open source communities to maintain forks. Leaving aside that, however, notions of "fairness" is flawed. Fairness for me means that a hostile community self-destructs under its own weight of hostility, not that "B…

There are already a lot of forks of Bitcoin, some even moderately successful. Actually independent of feminism I have long wondered if other cryptocoins might supersede Bitcoin exactly for the reason of fairness. Assume the world wakes up to Bitcoin in a couple of years. Then the BTC wealth will be very unequally distributed. Why should people start using BTC if they are poor in it? They could as well say "hey, crypt…

Sure, I know there are lots of forks of Bitcoin. I'm talking about forking the whole economy though, which requires being able to at least trade for basic survival needs.

From an existential point of view, there is no such thing as fairness and yet, people still create whatever notions of fairness. Fairness tends to be deeply rooted into emotional makeup of a person. Many conflicts come about because the parties involved have different, deeply rooted sense of fairness.

Forking in open-source software allowed it to more or less outcompete commercial software in many (though not all) areas, and what finally made it work was a relatively cheap way for forked projects to be merged back together again. In other words, if we are forking along the lines of fairness (and come to think of it, notions of fairness are the psychological factor from which economies arise from), then eventually, for things to work out means being able to merge economies back together again.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#118

Post by king_jester »

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #22
kevingadd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone with such a messed up perception of personal boundaries and acceptable behavior that they would FEEL UP SOMEONE IN PUBLIC is not necessarily going to stop just because you tell them. They might get more aggressive.

Perhaps this is where self-defense comes into play? If your options are 1) say something and make the aggressor more aggressive, or 2) distance yourself and hope they don't press the situation further, at some point you should have a backup plan.

Why is that women have to prepare themselves to deal with aggressive behavior and/or pretend nothing happened and hope someone doesn't violate their personal space again? That squarely puts the blame on women for the harassing behavior of others and makes it their problem, when the reality is that the problem is with the harasser and people need to speak up.

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#119

Post by ossreality »

scott_s wrote: post #105
meritt wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope we're intelligent enough to differentiate between "unwelcome physical groping" and "overheard some guys make private a joke about 'dongles' and overreacted" but you do bring up a valid point certainly. I guess I just get tired of people in general who complain about things and never take action to remedy it, then go back and garner support by preaching to the choir. I'm absolutely aghast that it happened to he…

I think you are not acknowledging the difficulty of calling someone out on the spot. It is awkward, and puts a complete stop to the actual, desired activity. It also puts the victim through two unwanted situations. As others have also said, people in such situations are sometimes so surprised by the infraction that they are stunned, and at a loss for how to react. It may take them time after the event to process what…

Ding ding ding.

You just walked into a huge room of strangers, were hugged, were groped and are probably feeling VERY anxious and uncomfortable. And I'm supposed to what? Cause a scene and now have ALL of the attention of a room full of guys on me? Etc.

Empathy, again, reigns. Imagine yourself in this situation, people. If "empathy" is so hard, imagine yourself in a room of gay guys who are there to have a book club and then one starts touching you. /shrug

Re: This is What it's Like to Be a Woman at a Bitcoin Meetup

#120

Post by AnimalMuppet »

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #22
kevingadd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone with such a messed up perception of personal boundaries and acceptable behavior that they would FEEL UP SOMEONE IN PUBLIC is not necessarily going to stop just because you tell them. They might get more aggressive.

Perhaps this is where self-defense comes into play? If your options are 1) say something and make the aggressor more aggressive, or 2) distance yourself and hope they don't press the situation further, at some point you should have a backup plan.

She shouldn't need self-defense.

I'm a male, pretty scrawny, middle aged. But if I'm in a group of men, and a female comes by, and one of the men is groping her, and she tells him to back off, and he won't, I'm going to get in his grill. (Think of it as self-policing for the male community.) I strongly suspect that I won't be alone, but if I am, I'll do it alone.

My mother got a master's degree in math in the 1950s. She had to put up with a professor telling her that women don't belong in math. No woman should have to put up with that crap in 2014.

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