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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

#271

Post by pstack »

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…

Well, the author was apparently there with her when this occurred. Doesn't sound like he spoke up about it. Frankly, that seems weird to me. If this happened to a friend I was out with, I would be expected to say something. Unless he was oblivious to this occurring, I don't understand how someone would just let a stranger grab their friend without stepping in.

As to stepping in and "adding yourself to the situation" with a stranger? I don't know about that, so much. I've had my fair share of trying to be the considerate stranger stepping in to help out, only to be screeched at by the person I was speaking up for. It often doesn't pay to try and help people out. (Not saying you shouldn't do it, anyway, just on principle).

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

#272

Post by vacri »

wonderzombie wrote: post #248
vacri wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many more caveats do I need? I even specified that the concept was up for debate and that it wasn't the victim's responsibility to do anything. everyone else in the room with her Unless everyone else in the room was attending to the interaction of her and that one guy, this is hyperbole and doesn't help. If I'm in a conversation on one side of the room, do you really expect me to run over and forbid someone putti…

Hey, I'm with you on the last part. I'm addressing the fact that merrit's comment has no merit, and it's safe to pigeonhole it as worthless. The debate in this thread is whether or not it's helpful, and I weighed in, trying to talk about it at a somewhat higher level. As far as "everyone else in the room" is concerned, that's absurd— it's a false dichotomy, excluded middle, etc. Rather than just write it off, think a…

On the 'everyone else in the room', you're effectively blaming some people for not responding to something they were unaware of, is my point.

In any case, look at what happened. There was the initial hug, and a subtle signal 'no' was sent'. There was the hand on the leg and a clearer 'no' was sent, at which point it stopped. What is there to intrude upon? As an observer, at want point do you launch into the defense? Stop your conversation because two people over there have initiated flirting, and you have no idea one way or the other that one of them isn't into it?

Breaking into the start of other people's nascent flirting makes you an arsehole. And "I thought you were one of those guys" isn't going to help the mood - it's basically saying to the other party "hey, I thought this guy was a creep". Wait until you have more information that one party isn't interested.

Similarly, with the encounter in the article, jumping in at a point before she was able to resolve it in the article is also robbing her of her own power. She resolved it pretty quickly and moved on to other things. Stepping in with an "is this guy bothering you" before she's even had time to send a clearer nonverbal 'no'? Someone has to be pretty helpless before you jump the gun that quickly.

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

#273

Post by throwawaycoder »

hosh wrote: post #230
hosh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 invo…

@throwawaycoder I see. You're underlying assumption is that there will ever be only one single "economy" of which there are multiple markets. I'm not sure that is wrong either (though I am not sure that is right). Thanks for bringing that up.

Until a couple of days ago I only took Bitcoin serious. But dogecoin might me think twice. And today I learned about Cthulhu "offerings" (another Bitcoin currency). I could just imagine how some people would prefer to use "offerings".

No idea how things will actually play out, though.

Most development energy is certainly poured into Bitcoin, but it tends to be easy to transfer the technical progress in Bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies. The wallets for dogecoin and Litecoin seem to be forked from Bitcoin, too.

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

#274

Post by DanBC »

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #69
DanBC wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the woman is dumb for leaving the home without having a plan to deal with people who physically assualt her in a public space? Is that what you're saying?

I don't think I actually said that, so I'm not sure where the hostility comes from, but... maybe? Sure, she shouldn't have to be competent at self-defense just to leave the house and meet-up with some fellow Bitcoiners (or any other hobbyists), but I think that if you don't have some sort of backup plan, you're basically at the will of whatever you meet along the way. It seems that you disagree. Care to talk about it…

Other people came to a similar conusion to me. So, being charitable, your post wasn't as clear as it could be. That's me being civil. If you agree that I misread your post you can stop reading here because the rest of this post is less civil and not relevant.

On the other hand maybe you really do think that women should learn self defence or somesuch because they could be the victims of violent crime.

Except this wasn't some mugger trying to rob her. The appropriate response is not to say "that sucks, but it would have sucked less if you learnt self defence". The appropriate response is to say "that sucked, and it sucked that noone steps up to tell him he was wrong".

People blame the victims of crime all the time and it fucking sucks.

"Contributory Negligence" (Attila the Stockbroker) was written in 1985. It's baffling why people still think that when a woman is groped in public it's somehow up to her to have a backup plan, with everyone else there getting a pass to just ignore it.

The really fucking baffling thing is that these abhorant views ("she deserved it") aren't going away.

http://www.newstatesman.com/glosswitch/2013/09/there-no-grea...

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

#275

Post by DanBC »

wtbob wrote: post #257
zeidrich wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the point is less to change it than to report on the fact that it's (still) happening. If she just told him off and he avoided her for the rest of the night, but otherwise she still felt as isolated and ogled, how would that change things? If she picked up a megaphone and shouted about how she needed to be treated with more respect, would she be? Or would everyone just think she was looking for attention…

> The thing is, it's not her responsibility to fix it. It is her responsibility to fix the things which immediately concern her. This guy's a creep; he was in her vicinity; it was her responsibility to fix the problem he presented.

Do you at least agree that he was in the vacinity of other people and they also had a responsibility to fix the problem?

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

#276

Post by Crito »

hbags wrote: post #237
pstack wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hbags, you are full of shit. Merritt said the behavior was unacceptable and the way to fix it is to address it when it occurs. Followed by the comment: --- "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 with you isn't going to make nearly as much of a difference as taking care of issues promptly". --- Then said that a story…

You owe Merritt an apology No way. Meritt clearly attempted to shame her for writing about something that, for whatever reason, she didn't confront immediately. He's a censor. He's shaming her for protesting outside his designated free-speech zone. Fuck him.

[OT]

> about: hell-banned by bigoted assholes

I don't see any evidence of you being hellbanned^. Furthermore, hellbanning is (typically, at least) an automated process. It is done by an algorithm that evaluates the quality of your posts using their score as the metric of quality. At the time that I am writing this, this seems to be your only post in this thread that has been voted into the negatives.

^ I have showdead turned on, so unless you deleted the comments that you have made since being hellbanned, I would see them in your comment history.

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

#277

Post by pavelrub »

zeidrich wrote: post #106
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 that the point is less to change it than to report on the fact that it's (still) happening. If she just told him off and he avoided her for the rest of the night, but otherwise she still felt as isolated and ogled, how would that change things? If she picked up a megaphone and shouted about how she needed to be treated with more respect, would she be? Or would everyone just think she was looking for attention…

What? This is horrible advice - exactly the opposite of what we should be encouraging. This is like saying women shouldn't resist if their boss sexually harasses them, because it might damage their careers.

I seriously hope nobody here will sacrifice their own basic rights because they are afraid of what others might think if they defend themselves.

If she is being harassed - this needs to stop right there. What other people might think is irrelevant. Those idiots at those meetups need to be aware of how disgusting their behavior is. You do this by telling it to them, directly. Not by bringing hordes of women that are somehow expected to suffer through the same crap until it magically gets better 5 years from now.

This guy will continue groping women at the next meetup as well, I'm sure of it. He will continue doing it until it is made clear to him that he is a creep.

Telling a stranger not to grope you is what expected of you, and not being afraid to do so is what we should be encouraging. It certainly has nothing to do with not being able to talk about bitcoins.

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

#278

Post by gbags »

Crito wrote: post #276
hbags wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You owe Merritt an apology No way. Meritt clearly attempted to shame her for writing about something that, for whatever reason, she didn't confront immediately. He's a censor. He's shaming her for protesting outside his designated free-speech zone. Fuck him.

[OT] > about: hell-banned by bigoted assholes I don't see any evidence of you being hellbanned^. Furthermore, hellbanning is (typically, at least) an automated process. It is done by an algorithm that evaluates the quality of your posts using their score as the metric of quality. At the time that I am writing this, this seems to be your only post in this thread that has been voted into the negatives. ^ I have showdea…

You're right. I wasn't hell-banned. I was straight-up banned from commenting.

So yeah.... no dead posts. Or any posts at all.

And you're correct, only one comment went down at all (only down by one) and the rest were up voted, often substantially.

It's this dynamic (lots of up votes on controversial content) that made me think it was likely human intervention.

Not that it matters. HN is an absolute cesspool when it comes to bigotry, so it's not like it really matters. The most vocal HNers think it's fine to make stupid generalizations about women and their interest, and they think it's a woman's fault if she gets groped. (or they just assume she's lying, because she's a woman).

But whatever. Thanks for your failed detective-work.

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

#279

Post by clavalle »

andrewflnr wrote: post #267
clavalle wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did we all start agreeing that some amorphous force called 'culture' is out there compelling individuals to act badly? It seems like an extremely convenient gremlin. It can mean almost anything in any context and can act as both a sink and a fountain for blame.

Most people are mostly products of their culture. It's very possible to rise above it, but it takes work, and you first have to figure out which of the values and attitudes you've already absorbed, from culture and other sources, need to be changed. This doesn't compel anyone to do anything, but if culture makes a certain behavior the low-energy path, that's worth some blame. Individual responsibility to get out of t…

I don't buy it.

I think 'culture' was, at one point, a convenient label, a shorthand, for very complex phenomena. A label that only had significant meaning at a macro level where individual variables are smoothed out and even then should be suspect as a concept sturdy enough to build other ideas.

It is as if we conveniently labelled something 'x' and then ended up talking about how the angle of the two lines crossing affected the underlying idea we're actually referring to.

A word that can mean anything has no meaning.

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

#280

Post by selmnoo »

DanBC wrote: post #275
wtbob wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, it's not her responsibility to fix it. It is her responsibility to fix the things which immediately concern her. This guy's a creep; he was in her vicinity; it was her responsibility to fix the problem he presented.

Do you at least agree that he was in the vacinity of other people and they also had a responsibility to fix the problem?

Honestly? It's unclear. The rules here are soooo murky, and so very dependent on so many things that there's really no telling. Some girls are simply okay with it -- hell, they even like it when some guys do this. Note, that's some girls. It all depends on things like context, culture (of the place, company, country, etc.), situation, history, the persons involved, the social standing of the persons involved, the physical appearances of the person involved, etc. etc.

In this specific instance (a meetup event, about a tech-related subject) one would certainly think that the guy was in the wrong. But yet I've been to enough business parties that would even put this to question -- I've seen girls react positively to behavior I would describe as groping like "that guy should be arrested" groping (I've inquired girls who were recipients of this treatment, they seemed genuinely fine with it -- that it was just "playful fun", and "not a big deal"). So, I really think that grand-parent post has the best answer: if you feel you're not being treated right, just say it then and there, tell them "hey, you're not being cool right now", "hey, you're making me feel uncomfortable, please stop with this, and don't do it again", whatever, just say it. That's the only surefire way to put a stop to getting harassed.

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