Some choice facts from honest nature vs. nurture research: even day-old babies show a measurable difference in interest between boys and girls, when presented with both a mechanical toy and a human face. Genetically identical twins have similar IQs and depression rates and research with adopted children shows a similar relation to their biological parents, much more than their adoptive ones. This is no reason to treat individuals any different, but some averages differ innately across gender lines, and I don't see that as something we can or should fix by overcompensating.

Breaking Out of The Filter Bubble

Above all, there's a common thread I can't ignore. The women I admire and respect in tech did so primarily on their own merit, letting nobody speak for them but themselves. Like the men I look up to, they point people to their accomplishments, not their likeability. Their Twitter bios don't consist of one ism after another, showing their adherence to a pre-approved set of beliefs. They don't let random trolls derail them, and they don't find themselves at the center of fires of their own making, expecting others to put them out.

It's also the ideal I aim for. When a couple thousand people on YouTube told me I had no life, I laughed my ass off at the absurdity. I'd just created an accidental experiment in viral media, and learned tons in the process. Meanwhile they just watched a video they apparently didn't like, and then wasted more of their time to point this out. They weren't talking about me, they were talking about themselves.

When people told me I killed Unix, that I should be shot, and that I was just some idiot designer who didn't understand code, I didn't have the privilege to retweet the offense and let my posse roll in. I could only ignore it, taking the reputation hit, or refute the misconceptions with arguments and insight, changing people's minds one post at a time. The arrogant Unix greybeards who bugged me in private? Simple: you bait them into telling you everything they know, pan for gold amongst the mud, and move on. One person against the might of Twitter, HackerNews and Reddit: it's really not so bad, just don't take it too seriously. Once the novelty wears off, the bystander effect kicks in, unless you keep stoking the fires yourself.

Of course, I did let it inform my choices: I stopped working on that project in public, realizing I wasn't going to get much useful participation until much later, and I could do without the distraction. But it no longer bothers me, it's just one in a long line of useful experiments. The lingering frustration I feel is about people's short sightedness, not bruised ego. Ever since then, I treat the internet like I would a lovable-but-backwards grandparent, who makes racist comments over Christmas dinner. Yes Grandma, it's all the damn commie jews and faggots' fault, now, who wants dessert?

No, I don't feel bad for dropping in those sacrilegious words in there just now. I like to think you are mature enough to let those letters pass under your eyes, without burning me at the stake because it reminds you of something unpleasant. I trust you to focus on the couple thousand words I started with, rather than just two at the end. See, the reason people say the n-word instead of nigger when talking about racism, is that they don't yet realize they too would have owned slaves back then.

When the internet gets its panties in a bunch for the umpteenth time, it's worth asking: where are people getting their information from? The plural of anecdote is not data, after all. Every incident I've heard of lately was massively blown out of proportion. Kony 2012 anyone? Look, finally a cause we can all be equally offended by.

Women are adamant about not being pigeonholed by their gender. I see no reason why we should encourage and celebrate doing it to men. Whether male or female, or any of the shades in between and around, people can have wildly different points of view, and reducing everything to a gender battle is as myopic as pretending no issues exist at all.

The most reasonable people are now afraid to speak their mind. They rightly fear being shamed and harassed by those who scream the loudest of abuse. I've debated writing about this for a while, because I know what a certain part of the response will be. But I'm not the only one saying it, so I'm doing it here, once, in full length, with honest citations, after discussion with people of experience. Women and men, in case you're wondering. "Good luck" was a common theme.

Remember, I'm not the one trying to make hay out of gender issues, turning them into ad revenue, TV appearances or book sales. In my line of work, we're expected to fix things, not just tell people they're broken in increasingly hyperbolic words.

Don't man the cannons or summon the horde. Instead, go check out the ton of links I just dropped into your lap, listen to what's already been said, and see if you can't hear the sound of a record skipping somewhere in the distance. It's not the one you think it is.

For the future then, something to think about. If I step outside, I can walk a couple blocks in any direction to encounter these.

I've taken the liberty of making them more honest:

This is what we allow advertisers to paste onto our streets, our newspapers, our TV shows. Our brains. And then the media turns around to tell us how everyone's being selfish and insecure, but sexism is to blame.

As a smarter person put it, it's narcissism repackaged as a gender battle.

Don't say it doesn't affect you, not when a picture of dollar bills makes you more reluctant to help someone pick up pencils.