“I am used to being the only woman in the room,” Joni Pirovich told Cointelegraph over the phone. Her tone wasn’t impassioned like she was claiming
“I am used to being the only woman in the room,” Joni Pirovich told Cointelegraph over the phone.
Her tone wasn’t impassioned like she was claiming an injustice. It was matter-of-fact, resigned to the truth of it. Pirovich is a blockchain and digital assets lawyer and has been involved in the crypto industry for years. She’s also a mom of two.
“In some ways, it’s been a real struggle to have my voice heard, to be seen as a legitimate person at the table that has views worth listening to — let alone respecting or following.”
Her claim wasn’t shocking, since gender disparity in this industry isn’t exactly a new talking point. Back in August, CNBC released a survey that found that women are still less than half as likely to invest in cryptocurrencies than men, with 16% of men investing vs 7% of women.
These results echoed what Finder’s Crypto Report had claimed months earlier in June.It stated that 22% of men own at least one sort of cryptocurrency, while only 15% of women do.
Reminder that twice as many men invest in crypto than women, and women only make up 16% of the NFT market. Thanks @ReeseW and other women leaders in the space who are committed to changing that.
— bobbyhundreds.eth (@bobbyhundreds) December 5, 2021
The crypto industry sits at a crossroads between finance and technology, two sectors that have been traditionally dogged by gender disparity.
A 2021 report by Accenture and Girls Who Code found that the gender gap for women working in the tech sector has actually worsened since 1984, from 35% to 32%. It also found that half of the young women who go into tech drop out by the age of 35, giving credence to Pirovich’s unfavorable experiences working in the industry.
Some of you have never had to schedule dedicated time each month in your calendar to remove all the “nice boobs”https://cointelegraph.com/”she’s cute”https://cointelegraph.com/”can she actually code?”https://cointelegraph.com/”get back in the kitchen” comments from your technical videos on YouTube, and honestly? It shows.
— Chloe Condon (@ChloeCondon) August 10, 2021
Meanwhile, an Oct. 2020 research report from Women in VC found that only 4.9% of United States-based VC partners are women. The data gets even more sobering when looking at how the numbers stack up against women from minority groups — only 0.2% of VC partners are Latinx women and 0.2% are black women.
Susan Banhegyi, author of Women in Crypto and founder of Crypto Women Global agreed that the issues women face in crypto are the same plaguing women across the whole scope of male-dominated industries.
“Some crypto communities can be less than welcoming,” she told Cointelegraph, citing harassment and a lack of inclusion as some issues.
The first time I genuinely felt the sexism in tech was when I applied for a sys admin role when I was 16, and the interviewer told me “you’re a girl so you can’t do this job. You’re too weak to lift desktop computers”.
Yes these guys exist.
— Lou (@lovelacecoding) November 29, 2021
Emilie Wright is the founder of PULSE, a charity-focused and women-led NFT project. She said that in her experience, men in the industry tend to naturally make space for other men.
“My experience, as a woman, is that it is harder to occupy that space, and if you push for it you are often met with questions about how deserving you are of it or your credibility,” she told Cointelegraph.
“If I were a man, I would probably feel more accepted, doubt myself less and feel less of an imposter in the space.”
The adoption gap
Gendered obstacles don’t only come for women wanting to work in the crypto industry, but also for those looking to invest in it.
Previous discourse about the crypto gender tends to blame risk aversion. Crypto makes a notoriously volatile investment which is a pull factor for many investors chasing lucrative gains. Women stereotypically tend to be more conservative and risk-averse investors.
But, perhaps this is an easy answer to a complicated question. Wright suggested that if risk aversion does exist among female investors, that’s only because it’s more “socially acceptable” for men to gamble and take risks.
“Maybe as women, there is an underlying pressure on us to be safe, secure and stick to the known. For me, this risk is much more significantly acknowledged in the cryptocurrency space, and I see less women involved in cryptocurrency.”
She added that when she first started investing in crypto, she would spend hours learning about the industry after working her usual nine-to-five job. She said, “I wonder if, as women with families, commitments and busy lives, it makes it much more difficult to actually enter the space.”
Amy-Rose Goodey, the operations and membership manager at Blockchain Australia, has an alternative explanation. She said that women tend to shy away from investing because they aren’t confident in their understanding of how crypto works, and they don’t ask for help for fear of…
cointelegraph.com