RE: Is the Gender Divide in the Crypto World Necessary?
I think that making a small effort to be sure women are included and not specifically excluded isn't a lot to ask.
I agree with this 100%. I think the biggest problem is figuring out if the lower female representation is the result of exclusion versus lower interest by females. I don't know if you've tried to get other women interested in crypto, but if they're anything like my male friends, their eyes likely glaze over with disinterest or you get "Ponzi scheme" comments. Crypto is difficult to get people interested in, male or female. Add monetary risk, nerdy computer stuff, and very little social interaction (outside of Steemit) and it's not surprising to me that more males would dedicate their free time to educate themselves about this topic than females would.
Holding part of a conference at a strip club was stupid, and would have still been stupid if 100% of the attendees were men. Lots of men don't like strip clubs either. To me, it sounds like some crypto-rich kids wanted to play "Wolf of Wall Street" at their conference. It seems unlikely that future conferences will be held in strip clubs (unless they're adult entertainment related conferences), and that's fine with me.
Just because many fields are open to women on paper doesn't mean that women can't be discouraged from taking part through the still crappy socialization we've all had
Possibly, but I think you're giving our socialization more credit than it deserves. Our interests are also influenced by our biology, and I believe that we ignore our biological directives at our own peril. It would be a shame to influence and pressure girls away from their true interests for the sake of fighting the patriarchy or for "girl power". If a girl's primary interest is motherhood and a stable partner, she shouldn't be shamed or excluded by other women who would rather work. Similarly, if she's interested in robotics or the blockchain, she shouldn't be shamed or excluded by the people in those fields.
I'm trying to learn how to express my ideas on what feels like an overwhelming and deeply emotional subject within me and I recognize that my post is VERY incomplete, but I'm trying.
I think you're doing a good job at it. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this. It's helping me to look deeper into the issues and try to figure out what makes the most sense to me.
Some good thinking here @fronttowardenemy and I appreciate you taking the time to have the discussion here!! I've been thinking about what you've said here in the back of my mind over the last day or so and agree that the subject of biology is important to consider.
You may be right that it plays larger role than I'm giving it credit for but a few things that have come up in my process of thinking about this -
I do solidly believe that even in an equal society - and I use the word equal not to mean sameness, but to refer to a context where all members of the society are believed to have equal value and are treated as such including having equal access - there will definitely not be the same amounts of women and men in every field or perhaps any field! Yes we ARE different in important and wonderful ways.
But while women collectively may rarely choose a job involving heavy lifting on a daily basis, some individual women (or men) might want to and shouldn't be shut out from the career either overtly nor covertly. And when we're talking about something like tech, it's pretty unclear how many women would actually be in the field if they weren't socialized not to be. Take me for instance, I'm truly the least likely person to find myself in the position of being interested in crypto! And I'll probably never be interested in programming, but here I am because the opportunity came up and I decided to overcome my squeamishness for the things I had to learn partially because I knew my friend (a woman) could do it so I kept telling myself that I could too, so I didn't believe my internal doubt-dialogue. Plus I didn't encounter any specific discouragement. But what about the women who do encounter discouragement in tiny or obvious ways - it's easy to discourage someone who is already socialized not to do something! Those really small roadblocks combined with socialization could mean that she just doesn't pursue it.
You're right that women and men both glaze over when it comes to crypto but the subtle and overt sexism out there combined with socialization can't help but to have an effect on how many women are in crypto. Perhaps there will never be 50-50, but what about 70-30 or something. I know lots of women interested in math and science now that those fields are far more open to women.
A few weeks ago I met up with my brilliant physicist roommate from college I hadn't seen in 25 years and learned that she had been discouraged by a male guidance counselor from pursuing physics specifically because she couldn't be a good mother and hold that career. And that was the straw that broke the camel's back for her. Yes she had been encouraged by others but the combined resistance just made her give in and choose a different path. Yes that's only one example and I'm sure there are 10 others who were encouraged by their male guidance counselors, but until this kind of story becomes so rare we never even hear about it, I'm just not convinced that biology is the biggest factor at work when it comes to the gender imbalance in the crypto world.
I guess the two issues I keep returning to are
Ok that was a LONG stream of consciousness....hope i'm not going on and on. Again, thanks for caring enough about this topic to even comment, read, disagree, respond etc.... it's exactly what gives me hope :-))