You were minimizing people's feelings.  Hey women! When working towards empowering your own community to increase participation rates for women?  Well, screw you if you can't work with men.  <--  If that wasn't what you were intended to say, then rethink your comments.  You're a man.  You are in a place of privilege.  You just told some one in a place of non-privilege that their concerns aren't important.

Whether or not you intended to do that, even assuming in good faith that your intent wasn't to tell women that, it is how the message was recieved.  (And if we posted your comments along side Erik's comment about equality of the sexes on a list dedicated to helping increase a marginalized group, you'd be slammed just as much, if not more.)

 

What is this assumption based on?  Seriously?

I want a place where women can work together to increase WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION RATES.  I don't want to a place to commiserate about my feelings.  Seriously, what a sexist thing to say.  And way to have reading comprehension fail.

The reason that male participation to be minimal is that we want to empower women to work together to increase female participation rates.  We do not want a place to commiserate.  We want to develop strategies to increase female participation rates on Wikipedia.

And you're not helping to make Wikipedia a more female friendly place.  You're not helping to increase female participation rates.  Your comments run counter to the goal of increasing female participation rates, because if shown to women, they would make them less likely to contribute.


 

A separate list could be created to develop strategies for increasing women's participation rates on Wikipedia?  Then what is this list about?  Is this the "Make men feel good" list?  The list to increase the gender gap between male and female participation by providing a lot of fodder that demonstrates how Wikipedia is fundamentally sexist?  The list dedicated to proving that men can't get over their own male privilege?

Women empowering women is counter productive to decreasing the gender gap on Wikiedia, but your comments are helpful to decreasing the gender gap because they demonstrate a clear idea of women's concerns and present a happy atmosphere that of Wikipedia not being filled with sexists?

I've identified a problem.  The problem is you.  The problem is Fred.  The problem is Erik.  The problem is male privilege.  How do we resolve the problem to get on to the next step?  We create a fork for men to work on.  We ask men to read the list and remain silent unless they can specifically offer help to address specific needs.  We encourage men to recruit women to join the list.

There.  I've done what you said.  Still, same conclusion: You and other men need to go.  You haven't demonstrated your relevance, but rather have behaved counter productively to the stated goal: Increasing female participation rates.