That's irrelevant to the discussion though, as that was simply the norm then across regimes, not a special characteristic of Athenian direct democracy.

Not to mention that the US representative democracy was only for males until the 1920s, had slaves until 1865 and segregation until the 1970s. And that's 2.5 millennia later than that pesky Athenian direct democracy.

You claimed "in most places where [direct democracy] was practiced (ancient Athens... etc.) it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to 'true numerical minorities' than most representative democracies." I'm disagreeing with that claim. I'm asking for a source for the the general claim because I'm confused about what separates "true numerical minorities" from other kinds of minorities.

I'm pushing back on the assertion that is has been shown direct democracy works well for minorities. It hasn't. (It has been shown that representative democracy works, or at the very least can be stable.) The tyranny of the majority has not been conclusively proven (nor disproven). This is an open question, and one that evolves as technology (and the population's education) progresses.

You can disagree, but not because ancient Athens had slaves or women didn't vote. That were common places until millennia later across systems of government, and not some inherent product of direct democracy (as opposed to representative democracy).

If you want to disagree, let's stick to differences in how the citizenry included or excluded in both is treated.

By definition, something found in both types of democracy (such as slavery or women not voting) wont tells us anything about how they differ.

>I'm asking for a source for the the general claim because I'm confused about what separates "true numerical minorities" from other kinds of minorities.

Nothing. I didn't chose the term "true numerical minorities" -- I just used the grandparent's (ff317) term.