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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

femfosec.com

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#281

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj »

TLightful wrote: post #70
mattlondon wrote: post #15

Anecdotal but my office is ultra -woke. There are endless internal emails about whatever-week, or veterans-this, or LBGTQ+-that etc etc. People have been hounded out and either quit or been fired for fairly minor "infractions" of the groupthink (...and also some people have rightly been fired for actual inappropriate behaviour). And guess what all this talk about "toxic masculinity" and generally vilifying all men le…

Care to define what those "fairly minor infractions of the groupthink" were? With respect, and I'm not saying this is you, but often I've heard that type of line - and then when you get into the detail, the firing was an obvious correct decision. Edit: lol @ the downvotes, you can k!ss my @ss. Glad to have you here as I guess you were rejected from Parler.

Given the context is the dogmatic approach to office culture, this comment is super ironic. Of course the firings were a correct decision from your (insane and skewed) perspective.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#282

Post by fao_ »

idyio wrote: post #156
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #17

This is kind of the end result we're heading for, where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy. The shitty part is that I'm pretty sure 99% of people are reasonable human beings but the media has to make it seem like that isn't the case so the risk equation changes. Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky becaus…

> people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy This supposed hierarchy of oppression, based on identity characteristics such as race, gender and sexuality, really is the biggest scam going. Almost all of the oppression we see around us can be explained by wealth disparities, corruption, and abuse of power. Yet, identarians insist on shoehorning everything into their flawed worldview. The Black L…

> The Black Lives Matter movement was a telling example of this - police brutality is indeed an ongoing problem in society, but it doesn't just apply to black people. It's anyone the police feel they can get away with abusing. Just look at how they treat homeless people, drug addicts, and so on, regardless of race.

And if you actually stuck around in leftist circles you would see how the "indentarians" as you so called them are in opposition to those, too.

> First mixed-race female Vice President of the USA - okay, but what sort of shitty role model is this?

Everyone I know in identity politics circles was critical of her too! Indeed!

I think you've essentially misunderstood why there was a push against solely class-based analysis, and why identity-specific systemic oppression was introduced to this concept -- the two are not in opposition. The reason it was brought in was because measures to deconstruct and eliminate class-based oppression, often kept systemic inequality between identity.

For example, the push to eliminate sexism has for the most part only advantaged white women (You'll have to trust me on the proof for this since I'm writing this while on the go -- however look up books like Carceral Capitalism and "Why I Don't Talk To White People About Race" for examples). The introduction of how your identity impacts how class boundaries affect you was necessary to better understand the dynamics and better shed and cast off systems of oppression

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#283

Post by blt »

idyio wrote: post #156
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #17

This is kind of the end result we're heading for, where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy. The shitty part is that I'm pretty sure 99% of people are reasonable human beings but the media has to make it seem like that isn't the case so the risk equation changes. Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky becaus…

> people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy This supposed hierarchy of oppression, based on identity characteristics such as race, gender and sexuality, really is the biggest scam going. Almost all of the oppression we see around us can be explained by wealth disparities, corruption, and abuse of power. Yet, identarians insist on shoehorning everything into their flawed worldview. The Black L…

But the Black Lives Matter movement never proclaimed that police brutality only applies to Black people.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#284

Post by path411 »

mjevans wrote: post #240
tryonenow wrote: post #216

Exactly as intended. Beneath the surface, this "social justice" movement is nothing but a power grab, primarily from those who could not attain such power by merit. All of society suffers when decisions are made according to gender or race rather than ability. This is an organized, quasi-religious campaign of oppression, self-justified by perceived oppression. The key word here is perceived - it is trivial to "find"…

A person or group whom is wronged seems to instinctively react by desiring that particular wrong to be corrected. It is sadly rare for any to take a full step back and view the wrong within the broader context and redress the true wrong(s) which lead to the individual persecution and often a myopically inverse racist or sexist or group-ist patch that still fails to address the root cause of the issue(s).

I think the key is that wronged parties really do not care that much about the wrong being corrected as much as they desire retaliation

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#285

Post by magicalhippo »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #269
ridethebike wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't Theranos debacle because the tech was never going to work due to it being borderline snake oil and whishful thinking hyped by con(wom)man?

Yes, but it was called a "decacorn" because it was valued at $10 billion dollars and its valuation dropped overnight to zero when it was outed as a fraud. I posit that it wouldn't have gotten so crazy overvalued if it hadn't been headed by a pretty young woman. But trying to explain that is probably "off topic" and just thinking about trying to explain it makes me tired. I'd rather not.

> crazy overvalued

I didn't pay too close attention to the story. If they had managed to produce the tech they claimed for the price they claimed, would $10 billion be crazy overvalued?

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#286

Post by blast »

arnath wrote: post #220

I can't be the only one who thinks this is bullshit, right? The scenario described in the article isn't a dilemma unless the gender of the CEO is part of your reason. If it's not, you will have some rational explanation and should be able to point to your history of not being a sexist asshole.

The article explains why having a rational explanation is not enough. You may not agree but it's not as if the point is unaddressed.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#287

Post by stcredzero »

Another word for "Clamming Up" is "The Thermocline of Truth."

https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-...

"Clamming Up" because of power dynamics is inherent to hierarchy. This is why relationships with co-founders and employees need to be nurtured carefully. It's the same set of dynamics that happen inside a band.

If you always want candid advice, honest feedback, and critical though unpleasant information to flow freely and undistorted, then you must remember that actions speak louder than words. If someone tried to tell you something you really need to hear, though you may not have wanted to hear it, what did you do? How did you react? It's not enough to just say that you're for honesty and openness. It's not enough to say you value someone's opinion. You have to actually do that!

Did you counter-attack? Did you order your underling to never speak of "it" again? Did you use the differential in power to just shut-up and shut-off? If you were asked to give a detailed account of what the other person had to say, would they be satisfied that you gave a full and fair account of what they were trying to convey? Would you even be able to recall such details, or would your account be sketchy and vague?

Paying your employees well and having a great environment is actually a double-edged sword, here. What happens, if one day, your early employee comes to you with something they know you don't want to hear, and you react badly? What if you raise your voice and manage to make them feel threatened. That employee will get the message that, despite your lip-service, you don't want to hear it. What's that employee going to do? It's not too unlikely they will "get the message" and clam up, go with the flow, and play it safe to keep their cushy 6-figure job. The flow of candid information from that employee will drop by a lot!

Now, to bring things back to the semi-political: If just having hierarchy/authority, period, can raise such sticky problems in communication and corporate epistemology, then let me ask this: What effect would granting power to accusations without evidence have? This is not an argument for the blanket elimination of accusations. Rather, it's an argument for the importance of *evidence."

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#288

Post by raarts »

eli wrote: post #247
haltingproblem wrote: post #239

[deleted]

How come other professions like Law and Medicine were able to make huge progress overcoming similar problems while tech continues to lag behind? This is not an intractable problem.

One thing I read is that the biggest difference between men and women has been found to be interest in things vs interest in people.

If true this could explain the differences in attraction of various fields.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#289

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj »

arnath wrote: post #220

I can't be the only one who thinks this is bullshit, right? The scenario described in the article isn't a dilemma unless the gender of the CEO is part of your reason. If it's not, you will have some rational explanation and should be able to point to your history of not being a sexist asshole.

>If it's not, you will have some rational explanation and should be able to point to your history of not being a sexist asshole.

Ah yes, this always works for calming woke mobs

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#290

Post by dalbasal »

theptip wrote: post #168

It’s worth noting this issue/disutility. But I don’t give it a lot of weight vs. the historical default. Presumably this doesn’t occur if a female VC is giving that advice to females founders; maybe this will be an additional incentive to actually promote some women to be partners. VC is one of the most male-dominated professions around. More generally, it’s easy to look at just the costs of a social change, without…

I agree, but I don't think that means you can only ever speak about the gains. Ignoring costs leads down disingenuous roads, and not necessarily the best path to change.

If the resulting cultural is permanently clammier professional relationships between men and women.. I have a hard time believing it's things going right. OTOH, I don't really think there is a permanent "clamming up." Hopefully it passes. It's not like everyone was gender blind in 2015 either.

Regardless of what we think of wider issues, I think Femfo is probably observing something real.

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