Twitterers Dub TechCrunch Women's Panel a #catfight

By Lauren Smiley Tue., Sep. 28 2010 at 3:45 PM

Categories: Tech

You know the age-old complaint: When a man bosses people around, he's "in charge," but a woman who does the same is a "bitch." Well, here's a new one for the cyber age: When women in tech hold a provocative panel discussion about being women in tech, Twitterers call it a "catfight." Elaine from Seinfeld would be livid.

Check you twitter feed: People tweeting about the women's panel at Tech Crunch's Disrupt conference this morning have added the hashtag #catfight (which Twitterers generally append to tweets calling for a rumble or other such fangs-bared showdown). More twitterers then entered the fray, remarking about the irony of labeling the panel a #catfight in the first place.

We missed the livestream of the panel, but as far as we can tell, it was absent any true Jerry Springer-style eye-gouging or hair-pulling. Jezebel characterized it as devolving into "anger, ambivalence." TechCrunch's own blog post on the debate gives us a "recap of a lot of the bitching":

the "Women In Tech" panel was full of strife and awkwardness, bi-furcating into arguments about NYC vs. Silicon Valley and 23 year-olds versus 37 year-olds etc....

What most of the women on the panel could agree on however was that none of them actually wanted to be on the panel, "I don't believe in a all-women panel and putting people on stage unless it's merit driven," said Banister, "I've seen nothing but red carpets in our industry."

Enter the Twitter catfight over the #catfight:

What do you think, is the #catfight grounds for a feminist hissy fit?

And we take it the reaction to the #catfight will be labeled a #hissyfit?

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