I guess it depends on how you look at it. When I see phrases like "boy's club" (not in this paper), it implies to me that there's a group of men who work (consciously or unconsciously) to keep women out. I'm aware that it's not at all an uncommon finding that women are pretty hard on other women, yet I think that receives very little play in the popular media.
Perhaps I do take it too personally - I do my very best to be fair and reasonable with all my fellows, whatever their various deviations (or not) from the industry norm might be. It's upsetting to me to be tarred with this guilt-by-association. I find it particularly disheartening in the venue of OSS: I've always viewed it as a truly fantastic collective charitable effort, yet lately it seems to be getting depicted more and more as some kind of refuge for white men to exclude everyone else.
I feel the same guilt, I'm a student - I'm excluded from scholarships, meetups and career events because of my gender, that plus the regular criticism aimed at the industry - I feel ashamed every time I'm asked to fill out an equality form. I don't know what to do about it.
Don't let it effect you? Or, "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character" can be applied to sex and any other identifiable trait as well.
Perhaps I do take it too personally - I do my very best to be fair and reasonable with all my fellows, whatever their various deviations (or not) from the industry norm might be. It's upsetting to me to be tarred with this guilt-by-association. I find it particularly disheartening in the venue of OSS: I've always viewed it as a truly fantastic collective charitable effort, yet lately it seems to be getting depicted more and more as some kind of refuge for white men to exclude everyone else.