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Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

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Re: Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

#61

Post by projectileboy »

_delirium wrote: post #35

From the headline, I was hoping this involved some research, some sort of new finding, at least with tentative causality ("because" is hard to prove, but there is evidence that is more persuasive and less persuasive). But it's just someone's opinion based on anecdotes. And it's not really a new one: the "women do more/less of X because they want to have a family" argument is written about all the time . It vies with…

Reminds of Paul Buchheit's classic truism: limited life experience + overgeneralization = advice

Re: Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

#63

Post by mklg1266 »

_delirium wrote: post #35

From the headline, I was hoping this involved some research, some sort of new finding, at least with tentative causality ("because" is hard to prove, but there is evidence that is more persuasive and less persuasive). But it's just someone's opinion based on anecdotes. And it's not really a new one: the "women do more/less of X because they want to have a family" argument is written about all the time . It vies with…

Ignoring even Penelope Trunk's tendency to extrapolate from her experiences to the rest of the female world, the conclusion she's drawing doesn't actually follow from her own experiences. She says she's taking time away from her third startup to spend time with her children. Therefore women don't do startups because they want to have time with their children. What now? Wouldn't that suggest rather that women who want to do startups can do so and then have time for children afterwards?

Re: Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

#64

Post by Mz »

I think children and the whole biological clock thing are a huge factor in this (and in the low percentage of women in any job that has crazy long hours, like law or medicine). But I also believe that the effect is both more subtle and far-reaching than is generally appreciated.

There are studies that show that people from a racist culture who believe "racism is wrong" will still tend to believe secondary and tertiary things that are basically racist but aren't directly about skin color per se -- like conversations I have had with people who say they would vote for or hire a black person if they were articulate enough and claim it is not racist, it is just that most blacks aren't educated/articulate enough. My reply to that is "If articulation were the issue, then George W Bush should have never been elected president. He is infamous for butchering the English language." Of course, he's white and male and went to the right schools and came from the right family. It makes people very uncomfortable to point out the flaw in their logic and point out that this is a social form of "Jim Crow Law".

So, basically, I think there is kind of a female version of social "Jim Crow Law" going on: Even women who don't specifically want to have kids may still make choices that are rooted in the goal of having mom available to the kids. Or may be discouraged by subtle social things that are rooted in those assumptions. People who make such assumptions usually don't even realize they are making them. So it gets hard to root out.

My 2 cents.

Re: Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

#65

Post by mklg1266 »

cletus wrote: post #10

I think this post is skipping the crucial factor in all this. It's not about children--at least not directly. It's about risk. Several years ago I read an article that analyzed the work preferences of the genders. It demonstrably showed that: - Men are more likely to do riskier jobs; - Men are more likely to travel further to work (including internationally); - Women tend to choose that are closer to home. Basically…

"Nowadays there aren't any barriers preventing women from taking these paths (quite the opposite, actually). It's simply that less women choose these routes."

Begging the question. As you point out, there are no laws or physical barriers preventing women in the US from doing just about anything, so their heavy relative underrepresentation means by definition they're choosing not to. The question is: why not? Choices aren't made in a vacuum. What is it about our culture and society that has led to the percentage of women in tech/computing to drop pretty much consistently since the field was invented while their numbers increase in many other formerly all-male professions?

You posit that women are observed to be more risk-averse, and that this explains why they avoid founding startups. Leaving aside whether this is true, I repeat my question: why?

(Tangentially, as I think someone else pointed out, the "women are biologically risk-averse" trope can only explain why women "choose" to not found startups, not why they "choose" to not work as a dev at a big tech company, for example, where the risk level is close to nil. Have you looked at the health benefits/maternity leave/termination policies at places like IBM or Microsoft?)

Everyone loves to triangulate complex evolutionary explanations to this kind of question, but a cultural argument is even simpler to make: women get paid less, are taken less seriously, are subject to glass ceilings, harassment, discrimination, have a higher probability of being raped, etc etc, every single day. Moreover, women are explicitly told from an early age not to dress too provocatively, never leave a drink unattended, never ever ever walk home alone at night. . .and that's leaving aside the more subtle cultural pressures that discourage them from the sciences. Women are at higher "risk" than men just by virtue of their gender, and they're reminded of this, with an implicit or explicit injunction to be careful, all the damned time. That might serve as a reasonable explanation for why they'd be more risk-averse, but is unfortunate in that it can't be shrugged aside with a trite evolutionary explanation.

Just because there are no laws preventing women from doing something does not mean that the playing field is equal.

Re: Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

#66

Post by SabrinaDent »

Couple of points:

1. If by "startup" you mean tech startups as opposed to bricks and mortar businesses, there are fewer women programmers around to front tech startups. The law of averages is at work there, but I don't think it accounts for the whole disparity.

2. The VC model specific to tech startups is not what you'd call kid friendly. Please note that we are discussing this issue at Y Combinator. Submitting your startup to YC requires that you be willing to move to the Valley for three months. This is incredibly difficult if you have kids; if you are primary custodial parent, it is virtually impossible.

3. When women do run tech startups, they are not necessarily granted the credibility or profile. Penelope Trunk's article appears on Techcrunch. Ravelry has 850,000 members. It's been covered exactly once by TC, when it rolled into beta, with the line "If you’re a knitter, join the waiting list immediately. Everyone else, nothing to see here." Thanks, Michael.

All of that said, it is being done - just not necessarily according to the popular startup formula Penelope herself followed for Brazen Careerist.

Re: Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

#67

Post by [deleted] »

ahoyhere wrote: post #30

I do wish women with a chip on their shoulders would stop getting all aggro about observations that are not prescriptions . You saying "that's not true" is just as globalizing as "this is true." There is just something about women and product businesses that's weird. I recently put on a conference about bootstrapping paying products only, and I looked for ages to find a single woman bootstrapper like myself. They can…

[deleted]

Re: Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

#69

Post by barredo »

edw519 wrote: post #22

As I read this, I couldn't stop thinking about my sister: Age 25 - met her future husband Age 26 - got married Age 27 - Child #1 Age 27 - graduated law school Age 29 - Child #2 Age 33 - Child #3 Age 35 - Child #4 Age 39 - Child #5 Age 46 - Child #6 Now - runs a minor league baseball team (I don't really know how she does it. But, then again, no one does.)

We live in amazing times if a woman can have her 6th child at 46, I assuming both the mother and the child are completely healthy.

Re: Women Don't Want To Run Startups Because They'd Rather Have Children

#70

Post by leftnode »

zavulon wrote: post #19
cperciva wrote: post #2

The author points out that women who want to have kids can't wait very long, generally don't have time to do a startup first, and that you'd have to be crazy to try to do a startup and raise young kids at the same time. I'm not sure that I believe her arguments about men, though: For men it’s different. We all know that men do not search all over town finding the perfect ballet teacher. Men are more likely to settle…

I'm with you as I'm also a single 29 year old working 80 hour weeks on my startup, and still hoping one day to get married and have a lot of kids. The difference is though, we as men can (hopefully) keep spending 80 hour weeks on work now, get insanely rich by 35, meet a woman of our dreams at 40, get married at 45, and have kids at 50. Women don't have that option.

Alternatively, I have a 6 month old and I'm only 26. I'm glad I had him early: being up late has allowed me to work on my startup and maintain a full time job. I'd love to be independently wealthy by 35. He'd be set up for life, and I would have plenty of time to spend with him and pursue other ventures. No way I'd want the burden of a child at age 50.
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