Women face hostility in cryptocurrency spaces, but they’re fighting back

Several weeks ago, I wrote about how I began investing in cryptocurrency, and why it’s so attractive for women. The article explained that only five percent of cryptocurrency investors are women, and why this means women may be missing out on excellent financial opportunities.

What I didn’t explain fully was why so few women are involved. Some reasons are obvious: women have traditionally been discouraged from participation in tech fields; women have been taught to lack confidence with maths, money and electronics; and women have been persuaded to leave their finances to men.

But there’s another reason women don’t invest — or, at least, why they don’t hang around for long enough to benefit. And this is that many men in cryptocurrency spaces are actively hostile and sexist to women.When I first started investing, I joined social media groups in an attempt to learn as much as possible. Yet before long, I had retreated from most, and remained only in women’s groups such as this one. As an activist working mainly in women’s empowerment, I have antennae finely tuned to notice sexism, and many mixed-gender crypto groups are an absolute pigswill of misogyny. Read more

Jennie Hill - SmartCompany - 1 August 2018