The most sickening variation of this to me is how women have been in competitive video gaming scenes since inception, but their history has been completely omitted from cultural memory and women are still being treated as newcomers to the scene. The fact that women existing in that space for decades didn't "pave the way" but were instead erased entirely

A comforting lie that a lot of men tell themselves is that sexism exists because some fools don't believe that women are as intelligent or capable as men, so if we just *show* them, when confronted with the evidence, they will stop being sexist. And you see this attitude projected backwards in historical fiction, men 200 years ago must not have known women can do any intellectual task a man can! They did know. They do know. This "just show them the evidence" strat doesn't work bc they've seen it

I have been able to suceed in my career as a female game developer due to my exceptional ability. All the other female developers I've worked with have also been exceptional. It's not that women are better devs, it's that mediocre female devs are brutally ejected. Nearly any man believes that there exist exceptional women who are very capable. What's more unusual is a man willing to tolerate a mediocre woman with the compassion he extends to a mediocre man