This assumes that people care what their friends think about their doings on the internet. I don’t need to use anything as an excuse for coming to this site, because none of my friends (male or female) are likely to know.
Your solution would apply more to being the only girl going to chess club in high school, and I don’t know any girls who avoided that because they were afraid of ostracization from other girls. For me, it was because I was afraid of looking stupid in front of boys when I inevitably lost. To me, that’s the most threatening part of entering an all-male or mostly-male space: the fear (whether founded or not) that my mistakes will be chalked up to my femaleness.
This assumes that people care what their friends think about their doings on the internet. I don’t need to use anything as an excuse for coming to this site, because none of my friends (male or female) are likely to know.
Your solution would apply more to being the only girl going to chess club in high school, and I don’t know any girls who avoided that because they were afraid of ostracization from other girls. For me, it was because I was afraid of looking stupid in front of boys when I inevitably lost. To me, that’s the most threatening part of entering an all-male or mostly-male space: the fear (whether founded or not) that my mistakes will be chalked up to my femaleness.