This International Women’s Day, Coindesk author Michael J. Casey explored the oversight of women in the blockchain and cryptocurrency community—and calls for greater attention to meaningful inclusion.
His analysis of the gender imbalance in crypto and blockchain, addressing speaker lineups, an overall sexist narrative, omissions of women from texts on cryptocurrency and blockchain and from discussions in the field—despite many capable, insightful women ready and willing to share their expertise—and more.
Casey is all about women leading the way, but here he chiefly calls out his own—other men—and calls for an increased attention to diversity, support, and recognizing and lifting up women’s expertise and voices.
It’s International Women’s Day – a good time for a mea culpa to the overlooked women in the blockchain industry.
Last week, Paul Vigna and I presided over a Museum of American Finance event at Fordham University to mark the publication of our new book, The Truth Machine.
We sold a good number of books. We were very happy.
But the event could have, and should have, been different.
The lineup of speakers, excellent as it was, was entirely composed of white men. It further reinforced the idea that the world of cryptocurrency and blockchains is a male-dominated affair, and it did so before an impressionable audience of relative newcomers to the technology.
We helped perpetuate an imbalance in which the narrative, the access, the culture and thus the development and policymaking behind this technology has been steered by a small group of similar male elites. In planning the event, we’d fallen for the oldest mind trick in the book, and it had been played on us by very own minds: the bias of habit and of insufficient critical thinking.
I’m especially embarrassed about this because I’ve been preaching for some time the urgent need for diversity in the crypto community.
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