CRYPTOCURRENCY
Will Women Join Hoge Army?
The new cryptocurrency has gathered lots of attention, but can it sway women into becoming crypto investors?
One of the most beautiful things about decentralized finance (DeFi) is that it works no matter who you are. Instead of human decision-makers who have the potential to judge us unfairly because of their biases, there are instead smart contracts that execute automatically for anonymous buyers and sellers. These contracts obediently perform vital operations such as lending and borrowing in a censorship-proof way. They do so completely unaffected by the issues that so tragically divide our society today, such as political affiliation, race, religion, and gender.
Even so, an egalitarian utopia remains a distant hope because so far the adoption of these tools has been demographically limited (source 1, source 2, source 3).
Hoge hopes to change that. This is an inclusive and supportive community as well as a cryptocurrency. Its greatest value proposition comes not from addressing a technical problem, but in using its resources to focus on a variety of social problems.
First and foremost, through artwork and meme culture, Hoge will be a bridge between the tech community and the wider public. It will connect people from across the world to the powerful new tools of DeFi in a fun and friendly way.
To become what it could be, however, the Hoge community first has to take an honest look at where it is. Since I’m a highly vocal member of Hoge who appreciates the outspoken, I believe that starts with learning from the perspectives of women who have also decided to express themselves.
A member of the Core Hoge team recently passed along to me a message he received. I knew right away that she’s on to something and needs to be heard.
Hi, I'm listening to your voice chat and wanted to say something. I don't want to speak on voice chat though and, if you discuss this, I'd prefer if you don't mention my name ( kinda concerned I might get dogpiled for what i wanna say, lol ) I'm sure it's not intentional, but the marketing of Hoge, the website and the Hoge community give off ( probably unintentional ) a "this is a guy's only coin. Ladies need not apply". Now yes, I have noticed you have a few females in the community, but if you look around, you'll notice there are very few.
That's not because women aren't interested in crypto; we are. We have money and we buy. But there's just this "hey ladies, we ain't gonna flat out tell ya to leave, but - well, this is supposed to a guy's only". The only thing associated with Hoge that indicates women aren't excluded is that there's a picture of a women's t-shirt. That being said, look at all your marketing, the community, and the website and notice the message it serves ( it'd be just like a man considering a coin and finding everything about it is pink and purses ) Considering the strength of Hoge is being built on community, this might be causing you a problem. Example - all the NFTs - all geared to men ( women aren't gonna want a Chad NFT ). I don't think I've ever encountered a female admin ( if there are any, it's very few ). I could give you many examples.
I really want to go into Hoge, but with the aura around it subtly excluding 50 percent of the population...
I do NOT mean this offensive or anything like that. I really like Hoge. And because I do, that's why I'm saying this. You guys have worked incredibly hard and I want you to succeed. I'm so nervous to send this. But I respect all of the hard work you all are putting in and that makes me feel like I really should. So... Clicking send
To the anonymous author, I’m glad you did click send. Thank you.
To the women who feel the same way she feels, I’m not going to ask you to trust us when I say we want you to join us. Words are cheap. I’m going to ask you to keep watching what's happening with Hoge so you can see through action that this is a place for you.
To the Hoge community, my challenge to you is to promote memes and marketing that women look at and say “I like that and I want to be part of that.” So let’s get to it. Who’s going to draw the female Hoge? Which of the remaining whales is going to offer a prize for it? Let’s make this happen.
[Edit: end of the original article. Below is a continuation added on 3/30]
Follow-Up and Reactions
It has been a day or two since the release of this article and so there’s a little bit of time to get some reactions.
Some people loved that I addressed the author’s feelings in a validating way.
But I think that overall I may have missed the mark.
Not everyone was happy with what I wrote because the article seemed to just accept the casual impressions of the anonymous author as fact with no pushback when the reality is that there are a number of high-ranking members of Hoge Core that are women.
I’m still very new to all this, so honestly, I didn’t know that either. In my defense, how could I know? It feels a little like M.I.B. where the identities of most of the high-ranking people that I interact with are cool code names like “F” and “Z” — and here I am, the dorky old guy using his real name.
Might as well direct people from this covert, anonymous cyber world over to my LinkedIn profile while I’m at it, right? I imagine that the collision between my naive openness and the new realities of technology must be the reason why throughout the pandemic, every 30 minutes or so I get the same caller insisting that they’re trying to reach me about my car’s extended warranty.
But I digress.
The point is that there are women throughout the Hoge community already. Some of those women responded to my article by saying “been here”. So I don’t think I initially did a good enough job of getting that point across about how diverse and chill our community already is. It almost sounded like we had this scandalous challenge in front of us in the way I originally left it. Like there’s some kind of toxic problem to fix. But that just isn’t the case.
Women already like and buy Hoge, promote the heck out of it, and create dank memes. And if I was less of an amateur, that’s the story I’d have managed to get across the first time.
Again, in my defense, I wanted to get the article out as quickly as I could to address this important issue. But the quality may not have been up to the usual standard because my pregnant wife kept rushing this OG Hoge Mafia Boss to quit writing so I could go rub her feet.
“Yes, dear.” *publish*
That’s how a boss does it, son.
I’ll leave the final word to my favorite responder, a HOGEler named KatieCans who replied in the Telegram Lounge with
“Hi, I’m an ovary-haver, the thing that makes coin communities seem not so female friendly is all the dick-centric enthusiasm. Like I don’t want the chart going up to be equated with a hard on, just sayin’. Like do you but I don’t wan to hear about your weird boner for charts.
…I will say Hoge is my jam and all the dicks in the world won’t make me sell…
…the hoge community has been the most welcoming and helpful out of all the ones I’ve been in, there have been very few cringy moments that I’ve seen here. I’ve been to other telegrams, completely different story”