Link to article: Manscaping the Blockchain: The Unchallenged Misogyny in Healthcare Innovation
Link to article: Women are powering the blockchain
I hope that the absurdity of the present situation is self-evident here.
As a culture, we are just so very anxious and determined to frame ANY new subject that comes to the public consciousness (blockchain) as a gender issue that it really doesn’t matter whether women are being victimized by it or driving it, so long as it’s clear that men are the problem.
There was a famous New Yorker cartoon “back in the day” that became a cultural meme, showing two dogs talking, one at a computer keyboard, and he says to the other “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. That applies to blockchain and pretty much every other online technology as well. It’s there to be exploited in whatever way you can, and it doesn’t care at all who you are.
Unfortunately, this runs completely counter to the messaging of an age that is all about “identity politics”. It has to be unfair, somehow, and if it isn’t, we’ll show you how it’s unfair anyway. Whether it’s because women are being unfairly excluded or because they are driving the whole thing and not getting credit, or even if it’s somehow both simultaneously doesn’t matter at all, so long it is very clear that it is a major social injustice, of some sort, and that men are to blame.
Note that the two articles, though they differ in tone and intent, have a premise in common. The key difference between them is whether the blockchain is portrayed as being good or bad. If bad, as in the first article, it’s because men created it and control it. If good, as in the second article, then men are preventing women from getting due credit for it.
Get over it. The blockchain is not a male conspiracy. It doesn’t know or care who you are, any more than a rock or a steam engine does. If you want to use it, use it. If you want to develop new variations on it or applications based on it, do that. If you can, you can, and if you can’t, you can’t, and nobody but you can change that. The barriers-to-entry of technology are lower than they’ve ever been, and that applies to anyone… but that’s a two-edged sword; unlike human-run institutions the tech is not going to favor you and cut you extra slack because you claim to be a victim of some imagined (or fabricated) unfairness.
– Robert the Wombat