Just put together a PNK coin…
There’s a very common mistake that people make when proposing to do something for a good cause - they think that because it’s well intentioned it will most likely have a positive effect, or at worst no effect.
The possibility that what’s being proposed will have a negative effect on the people it’s aiming to help is never considered.
Not considering that there is even the possibility of a negative outcome leads to other failures of thinking:
-
Anyone arguing against a proposal is bad
~ why else would they argue against something that’s for good? -
Critics have bad intentions so the criticism they make shouldn’t be listened to
-
Good causes go towards a bad extreme because no criticism is allowed
The reason for this meta post is to point out that it’s always valuable to think critically because even things done with good intentions can have disastrous outcomes!
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Could the gender gap in blockchain actually be a result of increased choice for women?
It’s interesting to compare with the medical industry:
Female medics 'to outnumber male’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8077083.stm
Why is the medical industry so different to the tech industry in terms of gender ratio?
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This is completely predictable and obvious…
Teacher
Psychologist
Community manger
Medics
vs
Engineering
Software developement
Mathamatician
Goal mining
To name a few examples.
What is the core difference here? There is one BIG difference, and that is what it is ALL about.
If you leave out evolutionary biology, yes you will be confused, if you include it, it all makes perfect sense why there are “biases” of ratios in certain fields.
Men and Women had completely different survival strategies, and that has lead to “biases” of behavior and skills we have honed, which can be seen on a broad statistical basis. Just because our society has changed, that does not erase thousands and hundreds of thousands of years of Biology… But again they are “Biases and tendencies” which means they dont have to hold true on a “individual to individual comparison”
Just go talk with women (or men) about why they do what they do, and whats important for them in a job or what stimulates them. It will all be very clear if you talk to a significant amount.
To anyone who hasn’t figured out the difference… Its that it is People Centric Fields…
and why would most Women tend to have a bias for People centric fields… I wonder… So hard to figure out isn’t it… Such a mystery…
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Well said.
Good point. As a woman involved in this space, I’m not sure it’s an accurate representation anyway. I tend to hide my gender because of being talked down to and dismissed as not knowing anything. I’ve been involved since 2014 and get lectured by noobies all the time. I rarely engage in all the When Moon?! When Lambo?! Yeah that turns me off, bigly. So I research, research and research and get less pushback if my avatar is assumed to be a dude. So maybe, just maybe there are a lot more women than they know. Oh and the forums, telegram and discord is overrun with big tits and sexual memes. So again I just observe until something meaningful is broadcast on those mediums. I once gave an opinion on something, granted it was Youtube and that platform is rife for aggression towards women, anyway I was told by a man that because of my opinion I was a disgrace to the female population. Typically my comments when perceived as coming from a man, I get to debate the substance, as a woman, I have to protect myself from personal attacks not just defend my debate point.
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Thanks but further down I contradict myself by offering a suggestion. Equal rights: changing one’s mind is also now a man’s prerogative!
Nice to think there may be more women around… 
A interesting read…
and here is the issue, and this is the fault of what all so called “oppressed groups” cling to.
People use anything they can to get under your skin, and the best way to do this is through attacking differences from the norm of whatever the environment is. If you are a white man, and you had a huge black dot in your forehead… That would be an attack… If your fat, ugly, look strange, talk strange, that will be a potential attack… If you are a women in a group of men and vice verca if you are a men in a group of women… That could be an attack… EVERYTHING that can be used, WILL be used…
Things that are the norm, cant be used…
Everyone gets lectured, called things, and gets threatened on the internet.
I get that all the time. Just couple of hours ago, I got a msg that someone hoped me and my family got seriously beat up… It means absolutely nothing to me, Its just hilarious.
They dont do it because I am this or that… It has nothing to do with me… They do it because they are angry, emotional, irrational and often people of low intelligence.
I am just a trigger to expose what they are.
But because society have told you that women are discriminated against, and not that Its just bad people, most people will get a warped prism of seeing everything from… That you believe that they are only doing it because you are a woman… If you look for this… That is what you will see…
You see this in all groups…
If someone says something bad to a foreigner, you must be racist…
If someone says something bad to a woman, you must be sexist.
If someone says something bad about islam, you must be a islamphobe
If someone says something bad about a gay, you must be homophobe
You would probably then say Quote “Typically my comments when perceived as coming from a man, I get to debate the substance, as a woman, I have to protect myself from personal attacks not just defend my debate point.”
Well first, by removing your gender you are taking away a point of attack or divergence… Because it would be something different from the norm of the environment you are in… and again there can be stereotypes of a specific group that tends to brand everyone within which is completely logical.
You also state that you once gave a opinion on Youtube, and then someone told you that you were a disgrace to the female population… again, he properly disagreed a lot with your opinion and is using a angle of attack.
Youtube is filled with people that have anger toward both women and men, Ive seen it all, from killing all men, to all sorts of stuff…
The point I am making, if you take these things and use them as a foundation and proof for that women are being discriminated in society, you will be fighting a battle that simply isn’t there.
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I think groups dominated by men or groups dominated by women socialize
with each other in a little bit different ways. If you are a women you have to realize this.
The same goes for a man in a group of women. You have to both give and take.
Today it is some kind of sport for radical feminists with blue hair to enter male dominated areas.
They say they are interested in tech but the only thing they talk about is women.
Many are very hostile and demand change in totalitarian ways, unable to see things from different perspectives.
They destroy communities and make careers by victimohood instead of competence.
Same kind of radicals see themselfs as representaives for women.
I do not see these persons as typical women, they are just terrible people.
I see the first part of the original text as an invitation to these.
The tendency to view fundamentals as more real than other aspects is known as fundamentalism – whether in religion, economics, sociology or wherever.
The fact that all forms of discrimination have fundamentals in common in no way detracts from the impact of specific types and instances of discrimination on those affected.
You can also say to people discriminated against or victimised in any way “you mustn’t take it personally, it’s not about you, it’s just some crazy ideas about you that they have in their head.” And while that is entirely true, it also doesn’t help much.
Complex phenomena can be analysed in many ways, but the best ways to view them are those that help deal with them.
Specifics are not less real than fundamentals.
I sometimes wonder what happened to the great American tradition of pragmatism. 
You have to distinguish what is the underlying fundamentals…
If someone is bullied and they are calling this person fat…If you think that this is a discrimination of fat people, and you think that it is because people have something against fat people and thats where the problem lies… Then you will be fighting something that doesn’t exist… Because that is not the root of it… It has very little to do with fatness…
People attack each other verbally, and anything that can be used, will be used.
This will never end, this is a core part of humans and it has to due with the psychological structure and social hierarchies… Which is unfortunate, but that is the way we are build… Including what is also “shaming of behavior” that deviate from the norm, this is a specie survival element that is impended into us.
If that person was not fat, and it was something else that could have been used, then that would have been used.
Its all about Good and Evil people or behavior, making it into something else, you will never solve anything.
If you tell someone that because someone makes X comments about you being a Woman on the internet or even IRL, is actually because of specifically discrimination against women and sexism… Then you will warp your whole world into this, and then when you are presented with statistics that show differences between men and women, you will correlate the two… and you spiral into a deep world of nonsense? Do you think this is helpful?
A story from my own life, just one out of many… Had a foreign friend living most of her life here in the US, never ever said or claimed she had ever experienced racism or any type of discrimination… Then she made a specific friend who was into all of this victimhood, and suddenly she started seeing everything differently, that bad stuff (that happens to everyone) was suddenly due to racism… Small things like a waitor looking at her… just wtf… She was now suddenly a victim… This is absolutely poisonous… and many people are gullible like this - many people love being victims, because they suddenly dont have to take responsibility for anything, they can explain all their failures or anything bad away with this victimhood…
People do this all the time with all sorts of things, blaiming their parents, their childhood, bla bla bla bla… This is just something some people inherently yearn for… Because people have been BSing them or each other their whole lives, It is much easier than telling the truth. That you as an Individual is responsible for your outcome, and helping people letting go of excuses and to go out there and achieve what they want.
You say that the truth is also not always the most helpful, I think the truth, and deep understanding of the root issues and the world, is the most helpful there is of all. Instead of feeding people with BS how they are victims because of X… It might make make you feel good, it might make you popular, but it certainty wont help anything.
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This is my general look on things.
I was never the advocate for conversation because I believe in simply doing, but recently I’ve been proven that the conversation is the means to an end. I used to think the conversation was a way for people to complain, but it is not that. I see an error that people make when addressing research such as what is provided above. I see the error is thinking men are the problem and bringing women of all kinds aboard will be the solution. For me, this “solution” may solve the skewed chart, but doesn’t address the deeper issue. Simply, men have dominated the financial industry and businesses alike for years now. To be clear, I don’t believe this is the way it should be. But in America, this was the idea that was sold. It was how things were perceived in the past, and it is as simple as that. Fast forwarding to 2018, I am thankful for the brave and curious women who have worked their way to immense success in many industries. According to www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-financial-services “women represent nearly half of all employees in the global financial services industry.”
This impressive number has taken years and years of dedicated women breaking the stigma that women could not work in finance. The financial industry is a more level playing field now.
The problem is not that crypto/Blockchain organizations aren’t hiring enough women, the problem is more women haven’t ventured into the crypto/Blockchain space. Hiring women will not benefit anyone, but hiring women who understand developing, cryptography, coding, investing, regulation will. There is no argument to be made against that. One program that in my opinion is doing amazing work is “Kode With Klossy” (www.kodewithklossy). Karlie Kloss created a non profit in 2015 with the intent to encourage girls from the age of 13-18 to learn how to code, and the industry. To give women the encouragement and opportunity to join this emerging industry will have a direct reflection on minimizing the gender gap.
Cheers to one day never having to argue about gender and/or race unfairness—in any context.
Regards,
Matthew Plourde
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Funny how so many argue against quotas, positive discrimination and such, when absolutely nobody (here) suggested any such thing.
Most seem to be in favour of encouragement, and following from the OP, the discussion should have been about how best to do that. But instead we get all that ideological BS. Ah well…
You are twisting things here.
OP started the discussion with “ideological BS”.
People are tired of this perspective because it is wrong and unscientific.
It is like declaring hospitals the most dangerous places on earth, because
so many people dies there and then discuss how we can make it less dangerous.
Correlation and causality.
There is no eigenvalue in closing a gender gap, if it is natural.
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@maki.mukai So the blockchain space is full of reactionaries with outmoded ideas about what’s “natural”. But as long as they’re not actively excluding women they might not be too much of a problem. You just need to do an end run around them. (IMO it’s all about the women who are already in encouraging others to come in.)
I recently watched a tv documentary about the construction of the new Copenhagen Metro subway line. The engineers were gathered together to celebrate the breakthrough marking the end of the tunnel boring phase. I reckon at least a third of them were women. (They had a big cake shaped like a tunnel boring machine on a rotating platform and it “broke through” its packaging. 
) What’s most definitely BS is the idea that women pursuing such careers is “unnatural”. The problem is not nature but nurture.
Blockchain might be one of the last bastions of male chauvinism, but it’s happening in many industries and it will happen here too, eventually. Onward and upward!
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Men tend to take more / bigger risks. Blockchain is new, speculative and therefore risky. Personally I think that explains the disparity. In a way I think women are smarter, I mean who would sink their wage packet into crypto? only a man. 
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@RobJF Stop acting stupid and twisting things, you are “arguing” against a straw man.
More like a natural consequence of free choice and different interest…
It is no news that countries with greater gender equality tend to be those where men and women
choose more different when it comes to career.
Some people may think it is the “cis-white-hetero-patriarchy” forcing womyn in the West? 
I do not.
Not true! “acting stupid” Expect at least 1 free Cardano for this one. 
For sure, but I see some problems right from the beginning.
Your post starts with a link to: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/business/cryptocurrency-women-blockchain-bros.html
This is an ideological text with a lot of buzzwords, subjective feelings and anecdotes trying to paint a dark
picture of men and victimize women. Men are described as “Blockchain Bros” and “clowns around us”.
A cryptocurrency start-up shut down last month and left behind one word on its website: penis.
What healthy discussions do you expect from this other than polarizing?
I just want to point out that I wrote this post to spark healthy, engaging discussion. So please refrain from becoming negative (calling others stupid, etc). Remember that everyone is entitled to their opinion AND that it is easy to misconstrue what someone is saying online over text.
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And that is what goes back to Nature vs. Nurture argument. I think there ARE things that occur to boys and girls at a young age that push girls towards people-oriented interests and boys to things-oriented interests, and thus creating these engrained stereotypes. I am surely not the only one who was given dolls as gifts while my brother was given Lego and robotics toys.
So to say that there is no ‘issue’ of gender disparity and making it sound like women or other “oppressed groups” as you put it, is a bit close-minded in my opinion. As I stated in my post, I am not for preferential treatment and believe in meritocracy but I think it makes sense to still acknowledge perceived societal norms and the differences in upbringing that occur.
Yes there are differences in upbringing, also I would say that in this day and age and in Western societies, the differences are very minuscule. I would say in general, the differences that do exis is because that Boys and Girls are typically different, it is not the upbringing that causes this, it is the upbringing (that has been honed over time) has been adjusted to reality. It is very easy to draw these conclusions, that Its the upbringing that causes the differences, but this is faulty and there is lots of research behind it - not enough, but that is because it is limited how far we can go when experimenting with Children.
Yes there are exceptions, but the exception does not change norm.
The exceptions are also completely explainable using evolutionary biology, but that is a much more complicated topics and we have to dive in deep.
I’ve heard this argument before, and whom I typically hear it from, is from someone who was a outlier in their own gender. But being a outlier does not change, the norm.
Lego can work for both girls and boys, because it is a creative vehicle, I am from the country where it was invented. But there is definitely a bias for more boys being interested in lego, and sure you might want to be one of these girls playing with lego, and parents should just adjust to that, there is no problem in this. But assuming you wanted to play with dolls, is not some sort of discrimination. I also think the doll is pretty stereotypical, I mean there many other things girls tend to play/ or with, specially these days where “toys” are kinda on their way out…
I would compare dolls to like actions-figures, and yeah there is a clear bias here for which the girl and the boy wants.
Who you are attracted to, has nothing to do with upbringing either, most men are going to be attracted to women and most women are going to be attracted to men. This is completely biological, there is no teaching needed, and you cant force attraction through teachings, that is not how it works, and this goes far beyond just attraction. Your menstrual cycle affects your behavior, things like testosterone both in men, and women affect behavior, this is just one example out of thousands. Your biology has much more influence on you, than people would like to believe.
When I was a Child, I had some toys, not many… I never liked action-men or these kind of toys. I never played with that, even if I had them and some in my peers did… I was interested toys like airplanes, trains, and most of all opening everything… from the age of 2-5 I would open TVs, electronics I found, basically everything to find out what was inside etc and how things worked… My Mother had to hide things, because I would open stuff up.
None of this was taught to me, in fact the exact opposite, I was discouraged to do this, but it didn’t matter, because nature is nature. I wanted to know what was inside of stuff, and how things worked - no one was going to stop me from this.
I remember clearly in kindergarten etc, we boys and girls played together, but we play differently.
and Its not only people centric-fields, I just gave this as One example of where there is a bias, Its also in the arts, and creatives, anything that stimulates emotions.
Again, some women are more masculine than the average guy and some guys are more feminine than the average women. Again, it is not the norm, these are outlines and some are in between. So you will always find men and women in everything, but there will be biases in many areas of which tend to attract most women and most men and each are there for deeper and complicated reasons.
I have already looked at this and thought about it deeply, and if I thought there was a issue of discrimination I would be more than happy to point it out and be on that side. But its simply just not there, and I am not a close-minded, but I am a person for truth. I dont care about anything else, these are not my opinions, these are my objective conclusions - and you are more than welcome to disagree with them, and challenge them with both anecdotal or scientific evidence. I love these talks.
What I also have an issue with is very few Women seem to be fighting against what is definitely and without any question gender discrimination in the Arabic world.
I have no beef in this fight, I dont care about the gender stuff. One thing I can say though, also many would say, why not let it go if it is “positive” but the thing is… It actually isn’t… women are more miserable than ever, and Its been going straight down for the last 40 years. This is no surprise, and I might reply with a longer explanation of why this is, but that is what you get for fighting “nature” just a telling/trying to get a gay person to be straight, is fighting nature, that person is going to deeply unhappy.
I totally acknowledge differences in upbringing and perceived social norms, but these are mere sympton of the underlying - What I also acknowledged is biology. I am saying exactly that there IS a Disparity, but a disparity does not equal a problem if what causes the disparity is a non-issue. We do not want equal outcome, we want equal opportunity.
When the root reason is actually behavioral, and not a difference of genitalia, then it is a non-issue - You would have to argue it was not behavioral for it to be discrimination, even it was upbringing (which it is not) but if it was, that was causing boys and girls to be different and that was why behaviors were different in the future, this would also mean that there weren’t any discrimination. Then this would be a thing about parenting.
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