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

ariannasimpson.com

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

#121

Post by sliverstorm »

gnaritas wrote: post #113
sliverstorm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are not wrong, but that is not a practical solution if a given women cannot bring herself to implement it.

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

#122

Post by throwawaycoder »

patrickmay wrote: post #83
throwawaycoder wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not always easy to know what kind of relationship people are in. That's probably a reason why people tend to wait until it escalates beyond a certain point. If people would interfere too soon, feminists wouldn't be happy either. Because that kind of behavior would imply that women are weak and unable to take care of themselves.

The average man is five to six inches taller and forty or more pounds heavier than the average woman. Men are also physically stronger pound for pound. I'd rather take a tongue lashing for being an interfering white knight wannabe than not say something and find out that the woman was too uncomfortable, for all the reasons being discussed in this thread, to extricate herself from the person bothering her.

It sounds to me as if you don't have a lot of experience. Neither have I, but I have met women who flirted with other men so that their boy-friends could get in a fight with them. Or women who would claw your eyes out because you hit their boy-friend, even if the same boy-friend hit them a minute ago.

But why do I bother - just go ahead and do what you feel is right. Maybe your feeling for such situations is simply better than that of other people.

How many times have you tried to interfere so far?

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

#123

Post by BlackDeath3 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120
BlackDeath3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shouldn't need self-defense

I agree that she shouldn't have to worry about this sort of situation, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't need to worry about it.

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

#124

Post by adammil »

runjake wrote: post #15
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…

I'm really turned off by these posts, too. I roll my eyes and mutter "Christ, not another one". But I'm a male who doesn't have to worry about being groped and I keep my hands to myself. But let me guess how the reality turns out for her: - She says something about it. - The guy who is misbehaving is probably physically bigger than her. She may feel fearful of speaking up. or - She speaks up and gets called a "prude"…

I have two daughters and I would tell them to say forcefully "Get your hand off my waist/leg" so everyone can hear it, and then physically remove his hand from her body. Then it's her option whether or not to make it a police matter or stay at the event and blow it off, depending on how she felt about it.

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

#125

Post by gnaritas »

sliverstorm wrote: post #121
gnaritas wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You are not wrong, but that is not a practical solution if a given women cannot bring herself to implement it.

Understandable, but meek people get walked on; that's simply how the world works. How it out to work really doesn't matter, practically speaking you must play the cards you're dealt. If a guy hits on a women and she doesn’t like it, she needs to end it somehow, either by leaving, or by confronting.

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

#126

Post by zasz »

sliverstorm wrote: post #58
zasz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do you want her to say? "Hi, stop being a dick, because this kind of behavior is a serious turn off to women who want to be involved in tech?" That's obviously not going to fly. So what about, "Hi, could you not awkwardly hug me?" What people say in response to that is, "Why are you being mean to me? I was just trying to be friendly." It's extremely hard to say something in the moment without getting ste…

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?

This has happened to me. What I got back was a hurt look with, "I'm just trying to be friendly!" Honestly, what do you say to that? Some guys have a magic talent for turning it around and turning you into a villain for daring to assert your boundaries.

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

#127

Post by patmcc »

stefan_kendall wrote: post #96
aetherson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The guys she's writing about need to not: * Hug people they've never met. * Put their hands on people's legs seconds after meeting them. * Put everything a particular woman says into the frame of "Women don't do X." * Assume that women who attend tech meetups are exclusively there as the girlfriends of the men present.

Immediately becoming physical is a valid showing of sexual interest. If she wasn't interested, she should have stopped it immediately. I've had it go both ways and end in sex, although never in a professional setting.

>>>Immediately becoming physical is a valid showing of sexual interest. If she wasn't interested, she should have stopped it immediately.

This may be a cultural thing, but I wouldn't touch (in an intimate way, like a hug or thigh grope) someone I was interested in without a pretty clear sign it was welcome. It's just not appropriate.

Why should the onus be on the person being touched to stop it, and not the person touching to not do it? What if someone you showed no interest in touched your genitals, for example?

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

#128

Post by zasz »

runjake wrote: post #15
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…

I'm really turned off by these posts, too. I roll my eyes and mutter "Christ, not another one". But I'm a male who doesn't have to worry about being groped and I keep my hands to myself. But let me guess how the reality turns out for her: - She says something about it. - The guy who is misbehaving is probably physically bigger than her. She may feel fearful of speaking up. or - She speaks up and gets called a "prude"…

It's not just about having a young daughter. People need to teach their sons that they shouldn't be putting their hands on women's waists and legs. That is the other reason to write blog posts on this--to make men aware that they shouldn't be doing things like this.

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

#129

Post by BlackDeath3 »

king_jester wrote: post #118
BlackDeath3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're reading too much into what I'm saying.

I didn't say that this is the woman's fault. I didn't say that the man is blameless. I said that if you cannot defend yourself, you are at the mercy of forces beyond your control. Period. This isn't a life philosophy or a political position, this is a fact of reality.

In an ideal world, she wouldn't have to worry about defending herself, but we aren't living in CandyLand. If you cannot rely on yourself, who can you rely on?

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

#130

Post by ANTSANTS »

ossreality wrote: post #102
ANTSANTS wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What does encryption, proof of work algorithms or anything else have to do with one's likelihood of being gross towards women? I think it's safe to say that the average Bitcoin user, today in this year 2014 , only cares about getting rich quick by speculating on it and other cryptocurrencies and doesn't give a rat's ass about how the technology is implemented or what impact it might have on our future. Those are the…

I find basically none of your assumptions to be accurate, or more importantly, I don't understand how it is useful to assert as a broad generalization. Certainly here in this thread. It's just frustrating, I'm clearly outspoken against groping and misogyny, but then I get lazily lumped in with them because I also am a fledgling bitcoin fan? Stereotypes are just a good way to reduce a conversation to a nearly useless…

Why on earth are you taking this personally? All I'm saying is that I hold the community of tech professionals to a different standard than I do every random person running cgminer, and that "tech" shouldn't be judged by the actions of those people, which makes about as much sense as judging the community of professional artists by the actions of random anime fans.

>In this case, it's a distraction. The problem is the groping and the mentality that led to that guy touching her without her consent. Unless the crypto communities are fostering that, or something about the tech makes that prevalent, it just seems like a distraction. Right? Instead, now we're talking about Bitcoin... instead of a problem that spans ALL of tech, not just Bitcoin.

I think you're more interested in imagining my post as an attack on your identity, because you somehow missed that making the discussion about Bitcoin was the entire point: My parent comment asserted that this was an example of bad behavior in the general tech community, and I claimed that this is far worse than normal behavior that is probably isolated to the "community" of cryptocurrency speculators. You can disagree if you'd like, but I'm not "distracting" or "derailing" the conversation, I'm just... having a conversation?

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