An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself • Hacker News Board

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#41

Post by Jun8 » Sun, Jul 11, 2010, 5:05 PM UTC

limedaring wrote: post #21

Jun8 wrote: post #17

Obviously NYT was having a slow day. However, what I'd like to point out is the discrimination: Do you think the same piece would be created if the entrepreneur in question was an average looking guy? People always talk about how women get discriminated against in CS, EE and the like (which is true to a point) while refusing to see the advantages of being a woman in these areas. When we were interviewing people for p…

I started to agree with you (my first initial reaction while reading this article was "Huh, typical 'I don't do what's easy and became an entrepreneur and now I'm semi successful' story"). But what does make it different that is that women don't usually go this route, whereas it might seem more normal for a man. So it's worth heralding someone who is technically a minority for doing something difficult. I don't see i…

Completely agree with you, need more role models in that area. My point was that, the fact that her appearance was predominantly pushed on her personal web page, may send the wrong message, i.e. you have to be intelligent and beautiful/sexy or something to be featured in NYT, not that there's anything wrong with a beautiful entrepreneur woman, but that shouldn't be the first thing that is pushed on you.

There are awesome hacker role models, such as Leah Buechley, that can be covered. HN recently had an excellent discussion on exactly this topic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1430281

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#42

Post by thesethings » Sun, Jul 11, 2010, 5:15 PM UTC

Jun8 wrote: post #40

thesethings wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. The NYT site didn't make it easy, but I just browsed about 12 months worth of this column(?) "Preoccupations." Female and male profiles were about 50-50, and everybody else seemed pretty average looking. Less than half the time is it a profile of an individual, the rest of the time it's a profile of a "trend" (This Hashrocket pair programming article that was on HN a while back, is from this same NYT column…

An interesting addition to your proposed study would be this: in addition to other people, how often does the person covered push their appearance. This was my main objection to this lady, when you go to her web page, her modeling and vanity shots are predominant, e.g. this is how she chooses to represent herself. She may be thinking that this would be advantageous in a male dominated profession.

Heh, I didn't check out her site. It sounds obnoxious. (And I see from your other HN comments, we share a distaste for another cheeseball who flaunts his/her appearance, w/multiple "in action" shots all over his/her website, who I won't give further attention by typing his/her name :D).

But I'm simply objecting to you using the word discrimination, and suggesting an average looking guy would not get this piece written. I even covered the "citation please" angle (not that you said that, but so many people on HN abuse that construct as a way to discredit pretty reasonable ideas, without having to provide a citation themselves.)

I'll take your word that she's pushing her appearance, just not that it's responsible for her coverage.

And my "proposed study" tone was maybe too snarky, I apologize. (I try to avoid that), I just had to give you a hard time about using "discrimination" and "average looking guys" in the same posit. Are we on the same site, seeing the same stories that make the front page?! (Said in friendly tone, poking as much as fun at myself for reading, as HN for posting 99% of its content about/by average looking guys, usually comparing Android + iPhone.)

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#43

Post by Jun8 » Sun, Jul 11, 2010, 5:28 PM UTC

thesethings wrote: post #42

Jun8 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting addition to your proposed study would be this: in addition to other people, how often does the person covered push their appearance. This was my main objection to this lady, when you go to her web page, her modeling and vanity shots are predominant, e.g. this is how she chooses to represent herself. She may be thinking that this would be advantageous in a male dominated profession.

Heh, I didn't check out her site. It sounds obnoxious. (And I see from your other HN comments, we share a distaste for another cheeseball who flaunts his/her appearance, w/multiple "in action" shots all over his/her website, who I won't give further attention by typing his/her name :D). But I'm simply objecting to you using the word discrimination, and suggesting an average looking guy would not get this piece writte…

I agree with you, "discrimination" was perhaps too strong, a subliminal preferance, perhaps?

BTW, this is by far the best/nicest response I got to one of my comments.

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#44

Post by limedaring » Sun, Jul 11, 2010, 7:03 PM UTC

Jun8 wrote: post #41

limedaring wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started to agree with you (my first initial reaction while reading this article was "Huh, typical 'I don't do what's easy and became an entrepreneur and now I'm semi successful' story"). But what does make it different that is that women don't usually go this route, whereas it might seem more normal for a man. So it's worth heralding someone who is technically a minority for doing something difficult. I don't see i…

Completely agree with you, need more role models in that area. My point was that, the fact that her appearance was predominantly pushed on her personal web page, may send the wrong message, i.e. you have to be intelligent and beautiful/sexy or something to be featured in NYT, not that there's anything wrong with a beautiful entrepreneur woman, but that shouldn't be the first thing that is pushed on you. There are awe…

Ugh, yes. I'll admit that since I've quit my day job and started building my own company, I've also started to really focus on my diet and my appearance, since there is a chance that people might pay more attention to me if I fit the standard of beauty. I love getting healthier as well, but it does kind of suck to have that message pushed on my brain.

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#45

Post by alexro » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 12:43 PM UTC

alexro wrote: post #36

In spite of the positive outcome for that woman, do you find that article having a depressing effect for you? She was on track for "six figure salary in 3 years" and worked for very reputable enterprises, and still she was not able to come up with any realistic business-model for herself. An iPhone app while definitely an achievement may as well serve as a proof of a "normal" web-oriented startups going out of fashio…

These who downvote silently are the freaks afraid of expressing their opinion.

Isn't the whole purpose of a website like HN to have discussions?