Re: While we're on the topic of forks, here's one of a different sort

I have no idea whether that link is on topic for this list. Maybe a mod could provide some guidance here?

In the meantime, I’ll point out that Arianna Simpson (subject of the article) took issue with it:

https://twitter.com/AriannaSimpson/status/591406001674321921

Re:
> The lack of women in Bitcoin isn't just an issue of equality. It's a fundamental weakness of the currency itself. As long as the Bitcoin community is dominated by men geeking out about the blockchain, it's never going to be able to make the human connections that are required for widespread adoption.


The word “fundamental” should be reserved for things that are fundamental, not “possibly associated with”.

The “lack of women in Bitcoin” is not an issue of equality any more that the lack of men in nursing is an issue of equality. Nor does it really have anything to do with Bitcoin, but is more likely simply reflective of the gender gap in tech.

The title of the article also seems to be nonsensical clickbait.

The word “Bitcoin” could refer to a piece of software, a currency, a network, or a community. None of those, except for the community, are capable of expressing feelings toward women (or anything else).

As far as the community goes, I have seen no evidence that the Bitcoin community has any “problem” with women, at least in the Bay Area. To the contrary, in the many meetups that I’ve attended, it’s been entirely supportive.

The only exception to that which I can think of was a single instance of a poorly worded comment by a presenter at a Bitcoin meetup group. I don’t think it was reflective of the “Bitcoin community”, however. It might have been reflective of poor social skills, a different cultural background, the speaker’s honest real-world experience, the fact that English was not his native language, or any number of other possibilities related to him as an individual.

The Bitcoin community (in the Bay Area at least) seems to have a healthy relationship with women (to my male eyes and ears, at least). The largest Bitcoin meetup group in SF (and probably the entire Bay Area) is organized by two wonderful ladies who’ve been doing a fantastic job of running the meetup.

Yes, there are few women in tech. In most of my CS classes, there were two or fewer women. It may therefore be surprising to some when a technically sophisticated female enters the room, because in some circles it is simply a rare event, and expressing reaction to rare events is pretty much the definition of surprise.

That said, it’s worth reading the source material, Arianna’s post, to understand what it’s like to be in her shoes (or similar shoes), and how not to behave:

https://medium.com/@ariannasimpson/this-is-what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-at-a-bitcoin-meetup-b07f3bb6ab5b

- Greg

--
Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also sharing with the NSA.

> On Apr 26, 2015, at 6:40 PM, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
> 
> Bitcoin's Problem With Women
> http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/04/bitcoin-women-problem <http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/04/bitcoin-women-problem>
> 
> --
> Joseph Potvin