For the sexism/biases: since this thread is very new I want to give some people in the community time to reflect and address their own biases so I won’t be naming names or situations at this time. It also may not be my place to take lead on addressing these specific issues because someone from an underrepresented community that is directly feeling the effects of these biases may be better to address them. I have only received some stigma once on this forum because of my mental health issues and self-admission to a mental health facility. Those comments were quickly tagged and moderated as inappropriate by the community and many people defended me (thanks for that all).
For the power structure comment: The two largest pillars of power in the community are the Zcash Foundation and the Electric Coin Company. It appears to me that within them there are personalities that hold influence over the direction of Zcash in ways that are a net negative for adoption and the chance for community input. I don’t blame anyone specifically for this and it’s likely just a growing pain of becoming more mature of an ecosystem. Everyone I have met from both orgs mean well, work incredibly hard to bring privacy to the masses, and are generally nicer than most other cryptocurrency communities. There’s a brewing cauldron of disagreements that are building about the direction of Zcash, culminated by previous disagreements and sour feelings over things like the temporary trademark disagreement. I don’t personally have clarity in how Zcash as a whole plans to accomplish it’s goals. Maybe the goals are too broad to be accomplished without some sub-goals or a non-technical roadmap. I could be very off base on these assumptions and I don’t have the answers for how to resolve this, but think this will be an important and exciting challenge for the Zcash community.
I’ll end by saying I am giving a perspective of someone who doesn’t have as much insight into the Zcash ecosystem as other members of the forum, including you @mistfpga, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.