From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 18:52:07 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: His and Her Anarchies
In-Reply-To: <v03007801aeaa7e5d06d0@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <32854189.48DF@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Timothy C. May wrote:
> At 6:59 PM -0500 11/8/96, jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca wrote:
> >I think it relates to crypto policy via policy in general, also to both the
> >libertarian and the inevitable cryptoanarchy argument we are currently tossing
> >about and brought to mind a comment a few months back from Tim about how the
> >occasional female members of this list tended to not make sense a lot of the time.

> Well, I think there clearly _is_ a gender gap on these sorts of issues.
> While we certainly have a handful of women subscribers, we have few active
> women posters, and none of the "ringleaders" are women.
> The woman I am currently seeing is a case in point. She occasionally wants
> to hear what interests me, in my "other life," and I have tried to explain
> the stuff we talk about here.

[snip]

> I suspect there may be a biological component to this. Many males enjoy
> adrenaline rushes, whether by bungee cord jumping, robbing houses, or
> plotting to smash the state. Many females have _other_ interests. Women I
> have known have generally not understood why I would be willing to be so
> upfront about my radical views and why I am apparently willing to "risk it
> all" for the adrenaline rush of being involved in this battle.

[mo' snip]

Adrenaline is too simple an explanation for computer gender gap.  Many, many women
like fast cars, motorcycles, etc. to ride in at least, if not to drive themselves.

Some women like being around men, for various reasons, security and so on, but they
don't want to be like men, so they don't try to act the same way.  While many, many
women have harrassed me on the road for my driving, they (unlike men, w/o exception)
have *never* tried to threaten me directly, as have hundreds of men.

As far as the risk goes, men are much more likely to get up and leave a place, and
possibly never come back, as are women.  Maybe this is the domestic instinct thing,
I don't know a whole lot about that.  I would suggest to any man that if he lived
in a society where a whole class of humans (i.e., female) were more aggressive and
confrontational, more domineering, etc. than he and nearly every other man he knew,
he would probably learn how best to get along with that other class of persons without
constantly butting heads with them.