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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

#131

Post by zasz »

bcoates wrote: post #67
zasz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, how about this analogy--you see a really beautiful girl and you try to hit on her. You're not afraid she'll throw her drink in your face, because most beautiful girls would never do such a thing, but wow, she's really drop-dead gorgeous and you don't know how to handle yourself and you find yourself getting really, really tongue-tied. It's like that for women confronting large men, except without the happy butt…

I think the problem with that analogy is the standard advice for men in that situation is to grow up and get over it.

Of course no analogy is perfect. The point of the analogy was to illustrate that even without someone actively trying to beat you up, acting normal can be difficult. That is the only aspect which I think those two situations share.

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

#132

Post by sliverstorm »

king_jester wrote: post #114
vellum wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you're going to go butt in on every couple there?

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

#133

Post by rfnslyr »

ossreality wrote: post #44
rfnslyr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how far removed real problems are from our society. "The intimidation, the mental abuse aspect of it is enough." versus Collecting wood in a forest 40km away so you can stoke a fire and your family can eat. Tell the guy to get his hands off you, grab a seat, introduce yourself. Everyone needs an emotional baby sitter and therapist nowadays.

As I'm reading, all I can think "Are you even remotely serious? We now can't have a discussion about gender without rfnslyr derailing the conversation, this time because he wants to harken back to early pioneer days?" Your trollish derailment of gender threads on HN is rather telling. Or do you have any point related to how this woman was groped without her consent, repeatedly?

Yeah actually I do. I have a huge problem with it. I have a huge problem with: some douchebag acted less than human towards me -> this is how it is like to be a woman in the tech industry.

Next time somebody gives me an off handed remark about something, I'm going to generalize as well and cry wolf online.

It's blowing up a problem that isn't a problem at all, way out of proportion.

I get groped at bars all the time by women, I don't make a whiny blog post about it. Kind of funny she made the post and claimed to "have a thick skin".

She clearly suffered a fair amount of emotional trauma from this rather mild leg grabbing. Did she do something about it? Of course she didn't.

Women in the tech industry is the next phase of Shakespearean drama.

Every time some retarded bullshit gender article meanders across my front page on HN, I'll shit post it. Why? Because HN is not your personal feminist platform. Flood twitter with your personal garbage.

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

#134

Post by sliverstorm »

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"…

She speaks up and gets called a "prude"

I do wonder about this sometimes. Like, when have I ever cared what the guy who hit me with his car thinks of me? When have I ever cared what the guy who stole my MP3 player thought of me?

I know "stop caring" isn't useful advice, but I wonder sometimes why any woman would care what an assaulter has to say in the first place.

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

#135

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jellicle wrote: post #78

To the younger folks out there: if you see something like this occur as a third party (you're neither the groper nor the gropee, neither the misogynist nor the victim), you need to not politely ignore it but to step in and correct the asshole, as firmly as necessary. Whether it's groping or just verbal putdowns of some sort, you should step forward and add yourself to the situation, making it clear that the behavior…

Especially if she makes it clear that it's making her uncomfortable.

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

#136

Post by silencio »

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…

I think the best way to do it is to ask organizers to set up codes of conduct for larger or regular events, and for smaller events to just outright be like "what do you think you're doing? that's not appropriate" if "fuck off" is too harsh. If a person is worried about how to confront someone at all, s/he could ask for help from others at any point (even the much-maligned Ada Initiative) and confront the person on terms s/he is comfortable with (like later in an email). I mean, even a little "excuse me" and taking their hands off you is something and hopefully everyone else understands what's going on and discourages any negative reactions to that. I'm just going all out because I used to grin and bear it when I was younger and now I know better, I'm tired of this bullshit, and I don't care about making someone a public example. And I speak as an introverted little aspie geek just like the stereotype. Fuck everyone that thinks that's a good excuse.

On a sidenote, I was much younger. I went to college and started to go to tech conferences and events at 15. You will not believe how many men, including married men and men old enough to be my father, would hit on me and worse. One of my pipe dreams is wishing I could tell them that they tried to grope a 15 year old. Alas it was almost a decade ago and I can't do anything about it now (except making sure that everyone has resources to discourage that behavior).

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

#137

Post by hbags »

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 think it's absolutely disgusting that you criticize the victim for documenting what happened to her.

It's despicable and downright fucking evil that you basically accuse her of sharing her story solely because she wants attention.

The worst part of your god-awful post is that it's currently pinned to the top of this board.

The fact that your disgusting, insensitive post is at the top is why women don't work in tech. They don't want to have to deal with assholes like you who have nothing better to do than say "she should do X instead of sharing her story", or whatever else you want to do to silence her, and shame her for sharing her story.

She is brave for doing anything, because she knew the world is full of assholes like you: cowardly bigots who will criticize ANY action she takes.

I'm sorry she had a problem. And I'm more sorry that HN has degraded to the point where a cowardly attack from a piece of shit like you is pinned to the top.

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

#138

Post by sliverstorm »

gnaritas wrote: post #125
sliverstorm wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

meek people get walked on; that's simply how the world works

I agree, and so my personal advice to individuals is to not be meek.

But one of the points of civilized society is to defend the meek.

So, the two messages (stop being meek for your own sake; we need to defend the meek) are not incompatible.

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

#139

Post by moron4hire »

I've had some experience with managing tech meetups, and the inevitable occurrence of creepers making the attending women uncomfortable. The correct solution is for the people running the event to be paying attention to the behavior of the attendees and kick people out who are being disrespectful. And to do it noisily. It needs to be made an example of.

Unfortunately, these guys creep out other guys, too, so it's often the case that you see nothing happen because nobody wants to deal with the 'tard.

But it's no excuse. Pull up your big boy pants and give the asshole the boot.

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

#140

Post by ossreality »

rfnslyr wrote: post #133
ossreality wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I'm reading, all I can think "Are you even remotely serious? We now can't have a discussion about gender without rfnslyr derailing the conversation, this time because he wants to harken back to early pioneer days?" Your trollish derailment of gender threads on HN is rather telling. Or do you have any point related to how this woman was groped without her consent, repeatedly?

Yeah actually I do. I have a huge problem with it. I have a huge problem with: some douchebag acted less than human towards me -> this is how it is like to be a woman in the tech industry. Next time somebody gives me an off handed remark about something, I'm going to generalize as well and cry wolf online. It's blowing up a problem that isn't a problem at all, way out of proportion. I get groped at bars all the time…

It's very amusing and ironic to me that you are completely projecting the air of "generalization". I didn't see the author anywhere saying "All bitcoin users are like this" and in fact, you'll find me chiding someone else, here, for saying that.

You just want to reduce this to something that you can dismiss and ignore, because it's complicated and you can't hold your own when it comes to the details. And, in this case, you're just putting words in the author's mouth in order to invent a way to demean and dismiss her. Classy.

>Did she do something about it? Of course she didn't.

I don't even know what "Of course" is supposed to mean there, but I'm pretty sure it says something not-so-great about your default position and open-mindedness on this issue.

edit: Can't keep up with your edits (it's okay, I do it too)

>Kind of funny she made the post and claimed to "have a thick skin".

And again, you'll note that this is very much a recount of what happened. In fact, she explicitly said she doesn't think she was violated (and I disagree with her, but that's her prerogative).

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