(Raises hand.) I don't advertise my gender, and most people who refer to me by a gendered pronoun assume I'm male. I don't usually bother to disabuse them of that notion, because it's typically irrelevant to the current topic of conversation. Exactly once did someone call out that assumption, which I appreciated.

HN is a perfectly comfortable place to be a woman... in conversations that don't touch at all on social issues.

On those that touch on lifestyle and family structure, I find that the assumptions here tend to be different than in other (not tech or startup oriented) communities I frequent. The direction of the discussion often implicitly hinges on the notion that anyone participating in the conversation either is single and childless or has a partner who is responsible for all things related to home and childrearing. That if one parent is going to prioritize childrearing over career it will be the mother. Etc.

It's not hostile. It's just... uncomfortable. The source of a lot of cognitive dissonance and a sense of being an outsider. A lack of identification and support within the community. If I brought it up in those contexts, I would expect to be shouted down by some for being off-topic and by others for being "shrill".

Then there are the topics that touch explicitly on gendered issues. Gender equality and the imbalance in tech. Sexual harassment in the workplace. Etc.

Those discussions are much less excruciating than they were even five years ago. And that's saying a lot because they are still extremely uncomfortable for me.

Oh, if it's about something truly egregious and inexcusable like a rape caught on video, I'm confident that the community here will express appropriate outrage. (Despite the very vocal 0.5% who post enough to make themselves look like 5% and will inevitably find a way to blame the victim. At least these days those schmucks generally get downvoted into oblivion. That wasn't always the case.)

But if there's even the slightest bit of uncertainty, the community as a whole seems to get defensive and use that as an excuse to question any claim that a man wronged a woman or that there might be society-wide biases that interfere with women a) getting equal consideration for opportunities or b) being able to just do their damn jobs or disagree with someone in discussions on the internet without having to fend off anything from leering to rape-and-murder threats.

That's probably, again, a tiny group of reactionaries being extremely vocal. But I don't see enough of the rest of the community making it clear that that's what they are.

In short, there are times (not all the time, but sometimes) when HN feels like a hostile place to be as a woman. There have been at least a few times when I've rage-quit (for a few weeks at least, the addiction is too strong). I've even abandoned a few accounts here in the past out of frustration or even fear generated by that hostility.

Those conversations are a tiny minority of the ones I have here, but they have a hold on my perception of the community that's disproportionate to their frequency because, well, adrenaline will do that to the brain.

In short, MOST of the time HN is a perfectly fine place to be a woman. Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but heck, to some degree the world is an uncomfortable place to be a woman. But on occasion it's hostile.

It's come a long way, but there's still a lot farther to go.

And if women who check out the community don't register accounts or don't stick around or don't participate... or even if they don't reveal their gender, those may be some of the reasons why.

By the way, I've been a member of co-ed communities where the default assumption upon meeting someone with a non-gendered handle was that they were female. The perception and assumption here that everyone is male is a self-reinforcing stereotype. It's like walking into a mall and thinking you don't see anyone who's gay if you don't see any men holding hands with one another. There are almost certainly gay people there, they're just invisible to you because you don't think to question the assumption that each person you encounter is straight.

There are more women here than you think.