Finally, this country can move forward. Unfortunately, many that made it all possible can not be here in person to celebrate with all of us.

I see large gaps between men and women in terms of social expectations and communication styles, typically wider in geek circles. Unfortunately these gaps create perceptions that fester into bigger issues.

I was at this event and saw a couple of the situations you reported here. I saw women clustered together and thought that was odd. Wasn’t like that at other events (e.g. Refresh DC).

I remember my impressions of you during the “Geekette” discussion. “Who is she? Twitterer with a sense of humor.” I got uncomfortable when the speaker kept going over the word “geekette” with you - did he not hear you the first time? I was slightly annoyed with him about that and who knows, maybe I had an expression on my face that I wasn’t aware of and didn’t erase when I looked over at you. If so, communication gap. Or it could have been someone else. I get that you perceived an unfriendly message regardless.

I didn’t get to meet you, but I did meet a few other women for the first time. All of them were in mixed groups with guys I knew. I never tried to break into groups I didn’t know, including women-only groups. I never saw women try to break into groups of all men where the guys were all strangers.

For whatever reason, I simply don’t see many tech women hanging out socially. Or women in general hanging out in the hard core tech circles. I suspect that some kind of self-perpetuating dynamic is involved. I get the impression from women I’ve invited to tech events (such as my wife) that it’s just not a priority to geek it out socially. Should I be working harder at inviting women? I don’t know.

Well enough of my rambling … thanks for posting! Hopefully our paths will cross again.

And in some ways it is perpetrated by other women. If we want men to change towards us, we need to change our own stance. Among other things that means being authoritative, positive and standing our ground without blame.

However, this is not the only or the first place where such separation and inequality happens. We just have to get back with arguments that are now in the public domain and show why in certain circumstances women are not only equal to the task but also better at it. Scial networking happens to be one of those!

Thank you for sharing this and good luck with your work.

First, no need t be