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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#361

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…

"Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky because the media makes it seem like there are murderers lurking around every corner."

They're called cars. Houses are packed tighter and there's more cars per household than when I was growing up (maybe due to everyone being double income now). Streets are also narrower and most have street parking, creating visibility issues. Go check out a development than went up 40-50 years ago compared to one that went up in the last 5 years. The difference is pretty stark and pretty hostile to kids running around doing kid stuff.

I don't think media's focus on bad guys has nearly the impact that the enormous increase in cars has had.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#362

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…

One explanation here is certainly the media being sensationalist for sensation's sake. An alternative is that some in media might think the crackdown on sexism is bad. Hence they focus on the bad effects. Whether this is explicit propaganda or honest reporting on what they consider the more important issue almost seems like a semantic question.

I suspect both elements play a role. How big a role I have little idea.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#363
post #74
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you learned the wrong trick. The "trick" is to not have a trick. Use mature, respectful language and not echo the divisive political language wielded by activists.

I think he tried to use mature, respectful language. But he apparently anyway put his foot in his mouth. Of course everyone should do their best in being sensitive in their ways of expressing themselves. But many people could definitely show a little bit more generosity in their interpretations and not jump on every chance to interpret something like racism or sexism.

> I think he tried to use mature, respectful language.

Resorting to advice that consists entirely of race/gender stereotyping isn't “mature, respectful language”.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#364

Creating a throwaway for obvious reasons. I'm not an investor but someone who is in a position to make key decisions about peoples' careers and give advice, and I do have a bit of a trick I use for this. There was one black female mentee who I noticed was timid in taking credit for her work. I had recently attended a diversity panel where someone in a similar role as me said that in a similar situation, and her advic…

"Think about what a white man would do"

This does contain the essence of your advice; namely, to take credit for work more often, and or more clearly.

My approach is very different.

And I have had the pleasure of mentoring women into male dominated roles a time or two. Fortunately, we were able to establish trust and another male coworker involved in mentoring worked in a similar way. There were challenges, but we made them team ones, not just hers. That made a big difference, IMHO.

What we did was take gender out of it early on, unless it made sense.

In this case, the advice would be, "you should take credit more." And the follow on would be ways to do that and to support the person who will benefit from doing it. That can be as simple as some recognition and sharing later:

"I saw you go for it. Nice! So, how do you feel about it? What happened? Will you do it again?" Etc...

Where gender does come up, that discussion almost always involved a telling of things. And the reason, explained if need be, is just simple understanding.

"How is it for you?"

And that helps with, "what if it were me?"

And then advice makes sense, because there is context, a shared basis.

That is not always needed. Hard to say when it is. But when it is, having it really helps get past or through whatever the challenge is.

I have been fortunate to have women in my life who will share, who I have worked with, who I have helped, and who have helped me. And the things they share have highlighted the fact that their experience is different. Same goes for many attributes, race, beauty, etc...

Often, the barrier to sharing and understanding boils down to some shame, or blame, or admission of weakness, or the perception of making excuses. And while those things can be part of the discussion, it is unhealthy to presume they are, and my experience shows me that presumption happens more than it should.

And that all contributes to how hard this matter is, or can be.

I am a guy, and have found myself discriminated against for seriously considering, "what if it were me?" Or for asking, "How is it for her, or them?"

It is almost like a betrayal, or threat... something I am expressing poorly. Sorry for that, I just do not have precise words.

Often we are asking people different from us to see things from a more familiar point of view. More familiar to us, but what good is that when it simply is foreign to them?

I resolved it this way: we should be seeking a better perception of what it is like for people very different from us. Mutual understanding and respect, consideration.

In my view, there should be no shame in any of that. But there is! And all this is harder.

Since that time, I have paid a lot more attention to these dynamics. Barriers to understanding one another better present real costs and risks that can be avoided, again in my view.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#365
The payout matrix for "give honest advice / don't give honest advice" has changed, radically. Then some people noticed that, and then their behavior changed to match. It isn't punishing anyone, it's adaptation to a new risk. The "Pence Fence" is a defensive strategem and it didn't arise in a vacuum. It is a costly defense, too, so it being kept up is likely worth the cost to mitigate the risk.

Most of what comes after when discussing the issue is "how to 'fix' this 'problem.'" by encouraging men to speak anyway. But that is the wrong approach, because it relies on people changing their behavior back like hurling themselves on grenades -- you can't count on it. Still high-risk, low-reward. Perhaps even no-reward. Making plans on people (well, men in this instance but it could be anyone) being irrationally drawn to self-sacrifice is not going to pan out, especially if your reputation is destroyed in the mix after. Leaping on grenades typically earns a medal, but here it gets you vilification.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#366

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…

I don't blame the media for this. The media just magnifies a very real and sizable aspect of our culture that already exists. Just like how these people are seeking someone to blame, you are seeking the same when you blame the media. It's not just the media, what's going on here is something we're all responsible for.

The magnification distorts reality and alters peoples behavior such that everyone is a little bit more irrational.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#367
It's not news. A female entrepreneur observed similar patterns and talked about it in a TED talk:

Is Modern Feminism starting to undermine Itself? | Jess Butcher | TEDxAstonUniversity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgIgytWyo_A

Unfortunately, I think those kind of videos do no reach their required target: new age feminists. It doesn't help either that the comments on the video are mostly made by men, who are angry at the current social situation in the anglophone countries.

IMO, these social issues are pretty inconsequential compared to the bigger problems we face: climate change and wealth+income inequality worldwide. I believe that social inequality would drastically improve if we concentrated on those major problems first.

Education is the linchpin, imo. Were we to work backwards from that, our world would radically change. You can't concentrate on education if you have to worry about housing, food, transport, and access to education. So, those should be as cheap as possible for every citizen.

Educators should have amongst the highest paying jobs in the country and competition should be fierce to become one at any level.

With an educated populace, there's no telling what we could achieve. We could think and reason for ourselves instead of listening to pundits. We could actually discuss things instead of scream at each other all the time.

But eh... y'all would rather fund another war on some poor country over oil, support another big corp to underpay people you don't care about, huddle into groups and be belligerent against those your group deems the enemy, vote for people who wield fear as a tool, or just be indifferent to the world around you as long as you're doing fine...

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#368
This is true, even from (oddly) investors. Met a solo female founder at a coffee shop this week (my state is open). She's a non-technical founder, building an app which is a marketplace that also will compete with Yelp or Google Maps, for a customer segment with no money also hit hard by COVID. All she's heard to date is positive things from everyone. Her app is buggy trash with terrible UX developed offshore at bargain basement rates. Since she's nontechnical it took a while to help her ascertain that it was done in React Native. We had a very long conversation about business principles (lessons I've learned the hard way mostly), all of them came as a very painful shock, like validating the business model before doing a full build out of the app, simple things. Look, I've seem some insane shit succeed and I wish her the best, but somebody filled her head with dreamy bullshit and she knew nothing of business including her market and nobody had yet to ask her a single hard question. All of the questions I asked seemed table stakes, just making conversation about her business, she couldn't answer. Yet an investor from Mexico had given her $10k, to match her personal $7k investment, to build an app.

At some point I had to stop the conversation because I realized that what I was doing was giving her the first honest conversation about her business she'd ever had with anyone and to be honest I wasn't really the person to be giving any advice. Mostly I just asked questions and shared some lessons from similar experiences.

tl;dr: somebody lied to this gal (perhaps through omission) and she's going to learn some hard lessons.

Apologies for any typos.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#370

I have been extremely fortuante that women have always found me very attractive and there is not a single job I've had where female co-workers didn't make comments at work which would not have been seen as extremely inappropriate the other way around. Even when I was 19 and I got my first job some 30+/40+ year old female co-workers heavily flirted with me in the most inappropriate way. I'm not gonna lie, I enjoyed it…

Nice humblebrag, but at the end of it all, "all humans are the same" is a thought-terminating cliché.
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