XX Combinator

"I want a Y Combinator for women" is an incredibly ignorant comment. First, it suggests that YC somehow is not suited to women which is insulting to both parties. Secondly it is suggesting that a woman only YC is a step forward - I see it as a leap backwards.

And then she goes to speak for women everywhere with statements like

"Y Combinator participants are for the most part very young — in their early 20’s. This is not when women would be most inclined. Women who start businesses like to know what they’re doing, and be trained and experienced in it.".

That is so ridiculous I feel ignorant for responding to this post.

I strongly suspect that the vast majority of the differences are cultural in nature -- in fact I suspect that patterns exposed through culture that are identified as valid by the brains of the people experiencing them are biological differences, but they're not biological differences in the sense of what makes us a species (only that what people hold in their head about themselves and about how they should or shouldn't act, or what is masculine or feminine is stored, at some level, in a biological manner).

It really seems to me that the "classical" differences between "males" and "females" were really probably rather useful for a good chunk of humanity's history, and that they're really fairly useless now, and that people are recognizing that.

On a related note, gender and sex are a fuzzier topic for most than they were 10 or 20 years ago.

I freely admit that I do not know where the line between what part of a persons mindset is nature, and what part is culture lies, nor am I fully aware of of how they interact. Based on what I know, I strongly suspect that the vast majority of most peoples mindsets is based on culture -- based on patterns that they've seen since they were born that their minds recognize as valid (since that seems to be what our brains do).

I would suspect that if it was true, to a degree that would make it relevant for this company, that we wouldn't have had huge women's rights movements, and that feminism wouldn't exist. I suppose one could take the view that women and men are still somehow intrinsically predisposed to being better or worse at this or that, but have been able to be annoyed by it by being capable of higher-order abstraction, but I really doubt that that is the case.

I also don't think that the species is static -- that is, if there are said intrinsic differences, and our survival situation changes enough to make them redundant or change them, adaptation will happen. There's a large part of me that thinks that "you can't fight biology" is a hell of a cop-out for humans.

Eh, it's a can of worms really. I do work with the assumption that gender inequality is vastly more cultural than not. In fact, I work with the assumption that it is - for all practical intents and purposes - entirely cultural.

I could be wrong. I don't think I am, and I hope I'm not.

All you've pointed out is that there are indeed fundamental differences of some kinds, but not of the sort kaens was talking about. The inconclusiveness you raise supports his point.

Edit: Wow. Downvoted. What on earth for?

Sure, there will be some different things. For example female brains probably have learned to not bump into things with their chests, whereas male brains have learned not to bump into things with their groins.

I'm a 30-year old female entrepreneur and software developer. I would love to do Y-combinator or other incubator program. I also want to start a family. If I wait for years to have kids, there is a statistically higher risk of infertility. This isn't the case for men. I think the author is correct that women may be more ready to launch a start-up when they're 40.