Other than the whole tone of the article being somewhat disrespectful to me, even more so considering he did not write it to me and if you hadn’t tweeted about it I would never even have seen it and had a chance to reply, those are the main points I disagree with:

 “The problem arises because now we have a woman agreeing, in a sense, with a rather offensive “genetic” argument that it is made all the fucking time in any competitive activity in which women do not participate in large numbers.”

First of all, this is not offensive in any way. Some people are more competitive than others, there is no judging here - who is saying being competitive is even better? Being competitive is liking competition. From the dictionary: having a strong desire to compete  or to succeed. When I was young, I played cards with my family. My mother would always be like “hey, let’s just play and have fun, who cares”. I would always be like “NOO, MUST WIN”. They’re just two different approaches, neither is necessarily wrong.

Second, there are two ways to approach this question. The first way is “There is an image in society that says women are less competitive than men (there is an image - fact). Paulo actually DISAGREES, but he wants to see what some women think about it, so he asks”. The second way is “Paulo misleads women into saying “women are not competitive” as to validate the point, since it was said by a woman”. This poster seems to think it’s option number two, though it’s OBVIOUSLY option number one. If you actually read it, you’ll see that I say I think women are actually MORE COMPETITIVE towards other women than men are competitive with other men, but less so with men than men vs men. By his logic, I am offending all men in this by saying they’re less competitive? I just wanted their opinions, I am not trying to prove a point. Look at the question as what it really is.

“The question feels rigged from the start, and whether that was intentional or not is irrelevant because the question itself is irrelevant, and worse, harmful.  “

The question is not irrelevant because I wanna know what they think, so I asked. When YOU interview people, you decide what is relevant, I ask what I want to know.

“The way the question is set up and presented just fucking reeks of entitlement and objectification, because it is immediately implying that women will be flirted with and asks them how they feel about it.  It’s an extension of the “women are down to fuck or they are bitches” mentality that drives me so goddam insane.  “

What?
First of all, whenever you put women and men in the same environment, there will be flirting and stuff like that going on. How old are you, 12?

It will obviously happen more in an environment that naturally has less women. I think that the fact that guys cannot see a Magic playing girl without swarming her is a point against the men, not against the women! My argument is “I feel like the men might try to hit on playing women too much, and that’s annoying for them and might drive them away. Is that annoying to you?” and you say I’m objectifying WOMEN?

I think at this point, you’re reacting to the stereotype that you (and many women) have created about men, and not to what I actually wrote. When you opened the article, you expected to see something, and then you saw it, even if it was not there.

“Ok, look, PV is cute and charming and smart and great at Magic, BUT...”.

 Funny that you would bring up looks (and other women did so in the forums too), when I never did. I’m sure that if I had started a sentence with “sure, she is cute, but she is wrong”, a lot of people would go berserk on me by associating “cute” with “right” and including looks in a discussion where they don’t belong. Thanks for the compliment, though.

“Evolutionary psychology, and by extension the idea that “women are good at feelings and men are good at maths”, has not been a legitimate scientific standpoint in a very long time.  It is not real.  It is, and always has been, a reason to separate people and explain away social structures and their negative impact.  “

There certainly are many scientists who think it is, so I don’t know what you consider the legitimate scientific standpoint. I DO think women have to win a bigger lottery than men to get the traits that will translate into Magic talent, just like men have to win bigger lotteries for a lot of other things. I also think the impact is not as big as cultural and numbers, which I write. And, again, it is ONLY MY OPINION.

You might not understand, but replies like yours will actually discourage people from talking about the subject. Anything people write will be met with sexist accusation, because this is what people expect. I don’t know how you did not get this by reading the article, but I AM PRO WOMEN. I WANT MORE WOMEN IN MAGIC. I DO NOT THINK WOMEN DO NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO PLAY MAGIC. Why would I write the article otherwise? If you hope to improve the situation, there are better ways to do that than being this hostile to someone who, ultimately, is on the same side, even with slightly different opinions.