Kotaku - Nerds and Male Privilege.
The idea that perhaps the way women are portrayed in fandom is aleetle sexist is regularly met with denials, justifications and outright dismissal of the issue. So regularly, in fact, that there's a Bingo card covering the most common responses. Part of the notion of male privilege in fandom is that nothing is wrong with fandom and that suggestions that it might benefit from some diversity is treated as a threat.
But what is that threat, exactly?
Prez wrote on Dec 19, 2011, 16:49:
Draugr:
I appreciate you are concerned above all for equal treatment for all, but in my view you are letting easily manipulated stats give you a false sense of unfairness in the workplace that simply doesn't exist, and hasn't for a very long time.
Numbers are funny things. They could be made to dance a jig, and one set of data can be used to argue a point from both sides. Stats are worse - they don't ever tell the complete story, and are almost never represented honestly when used in discussions like these.