I would say they aren't paying attention. It may not happened here but I'd be surprised that they haven't seen it somewhere.
I'll preface this with my belief that you may very well be referring to me in this comment and the one following. If that is the case then please, by all means do not hide behind some thinly veiled insult and at least tag me or the person you are seemingly singling out.
With that in mind, I will say that it has nothing to do with not paying attention. What you failed to consider is that perhaps I do not view whatever you think is happening on this site, and I am singling out this site, as sexism or anything that the blogger was trying to point out. I simply have not experienced it myself and this community, the entire home brewing community as a whole, has been nothing but welcoming to me.
Don't worry, its just feminist drivel (or dribbel, if you prefer the OP's parlance)...as we established, HBT isn't sexist, therefore sexism doesn't exist. Or at least that is what one female poster has indicated.
Looking at my own posts, there has not been a point where I have said that sexism doesn't exist because I never saw it. Perhaps you were singling out another member, that is a possibility. Making it seem as though I, or anyone else, has stated that this issue doesn't exist because we haven't seen it is an extremely inane comment to make. You may as well say that those who were not affected one way or the other by slavery also believe it never existed because they didn't see it. Do you see how incredibly inane that would be?
All I have said was that I have not witnessed it, I have not felt it, I have felt welcomed and I do not believe this is a huge issue overall. I will also include a fun fact, I'm not getting any special treatment as a women because I'm hot or young or anything of the sort. I believe the reason I am welcomed is because I tend to be welcoming to others, I tend to come off as respectful to others, and I do not immediately assume that I will be treated poorly because I am a woman in what really is a hobby dominated by men.
To expand, I have seen other female home brewers who have been welcomed exactly as I have both in person at events surrounding home brewing and on this site. I have even been to Reddit, since the blogger refers to that quite a bit in his responses, and I haven't felt that way. I have not felt as though I have made much of a connection there, but that is not specific to the home brew forum, it goes for the entire site. I never thought it had to do with me being female.
I will apologize if something I wrote even remotely made anyone think that I believe something doesn't exist because I've never seen it. That includes issues outside of home brewing.
Welp, I just got caught up on 12 pages of mostly nonsense that was posted since I last checked in.
So... in summation, this thread sparked some serious discussion, got totally derailed, then ran off into Sillyville. I'm going to call that a success.
I think this thread took the most appropriate turn.
What you have proven is that today's active posters on HBT disagree with my premise. The reddit discussion on this is a lot more split - with (gasp) actual women saying things like "I have seen/lived this this myself" (also, at least one who, like Hello here, disagrees).
Then, there are facebook discussions, one of which is almost at 100% of the comments agreeing that yeah, the homebrew community has some room for improvement.
Let's clap ourselves on the back here. Maybe we can get a "certified non-sexist internet site" button or the like. That doesn't mean it's not a good discussion to have.
Do note that I never singled out HBT. Being the largest homebrewing community online, I was rather hoping that this would be the best sort of place for this kind of discussion.
All right, so the take away is this blog is posted elsewhere to garner hits and discussion and the responses have been varied across social media and two forums.
It is hard to agree with your premise when it was so incredibly one-sided and unfair to every single male in the hobby. You made them out to be cavemen, in my opinion. Your response though is part of the problem. When you say that "actual women" responded and "gasp" what is it that you're attempting to convey? That heaven forbid actual women on Reddit (opposed to the not actual women here) agree with you? Kudos, you found your target audience. No one has said that it cannot happen, I personally (since you did point me out) have not experienced it personally. What you fail to point out is some agreed in principle with you, but again, didn't see it as an overwhelming problem here.
Side note: You posted this various places and that was not because you thought HBT would be the best place, this is just another place to post your blog, which is fine.
So here's the deal. I went to your Reddit thread this morning and glanced over some of the 256 replies. The first takeaway I have is that a fair amount of the responses were directly related to your issue with the Brewing Network. Many agreed with the issue with commercials, both men and women. Some chimed in agreeing but also defending as some of the top people there are women. It absolutely did take a turn that seemed center-focused on BN.
At some point you wrote this:
I think that it's pretty clear that a lot of people don't feel the way that I do. I think that it's pretty clear that a lot of them do. I'm not saying either frame of reference is wrong - who am I to say what someone has or has not experienced?
Who are you to say what someone has or has not experienced? I'm unsure but you sure did. You did it in your blog post, here, and on Reddit. I didn't bother with Facebook. I wouldn't go as far as to really dissect all posts and find out how many agree with you and how many done, but I think your portrayal of certain things that did happen on Reddit is slightly exaggerated because again, I think there was a good deal of focus on BN podcasts.
If you takeaway anything from this at all, takeaway this, I understand your point of view. I also believe that the emphasis on the Brewing Network suggests that you disapprove of their marketing and you feel as though they're drawing a line between genders. They likely are, but their target audience isn't the small population of female brewers, it's the larger population of men. At this point, it appears they do not care if their audience has women in it. If the hobby becomes more female-involved then perhaps they're change their marketing, but basically, they're hitting up the men for money and listeners. It is not to say you're not valid for feeling as though their marketing is crass, it kind of is.
From one fellow Cubs fan to another, can we just focus on LesterYear from here on out? It'll cut down on my wall-o-text responses for sure.
I'm going to the kitchen to make a sandwich.