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Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

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Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#81

Post by RobAtticus »

lindseybieda wrote: post #29

I'm not sure why people still take Penelope Trunk seriously. http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/08/16/blueprint-for-a-wom... This should be enough to convince you that she is full of shit. She doesn't practice what she preaches and holds very strongly to the status quo. She actively discourages women from entering the startup world, so no wonder she is annoyed that some people are trying to encourage women. http://bl…

In your first link, and also the link submitted, she states that women do better than men in school. I don't see where she gets this information (she doesn't cite any study that I can find), and I'm curious about the claim. Is it simply that men have a wider range of grades in school so there are many more in the failing range that brings down the average, whereas women have a smaller range with fewer women failing so the average is higher? Is it even measured in terms of grades? I only wonder because in my experience, my peers who did the best in school were mostly male (however, the ones doing the worst were also mostly male). Then again, maybe my peer group is just an exception to the norm?

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#82

Post by hackinthebochs »

zzzeek wrote: post #57
hackinthebochs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted for projecting opinions on to parent that are completely unwarranted. Pointing out what seem to be tendencies that a majority hold does not imply there is anything "wrong" with those who deviate from the norm, nor does it imply any attempt at "fixing" the deviation.

as it turns out, I disagree. > You just can't dish out career advice without considering human happiness and human nature as a whole. This is an article that doesn't just say, "keep in mind not all women want to do a startup". It says, "stop encouraging women to do startups!" Parent post then links this advice to the fact that "human nature must be considered when we give advice". So it links the inaccurate assumptio…

>It says, "stop encouraging women to do startups!"

The title is "stop telling women to do startups". I think the distinction is critical. (Perhaps this is her own strawman, but I think its important to get correct where she's coming from). Telling someone what to do is saying you know better than them, that somehow they're choice is sub-par and they need to be corrected. That's what she is ranting against. The implied assertion that women who choose to downshift their career must be doing so because of hidden sexism, not because they simply choose to.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#83

Post by gyardley »

kstenerud wrote: post #52
gyardley wrote: post #5

In a roundabout way, the author points out that because of differences in preferences between groups, equal access to opportunities don't lead to equal outcomes. However, the 'equal opportunities don't lead to equal outcomes' argument is often used as an excuse to ignore inequality - if we all pretend we've all got perfectly equal access to opportunities, we can attribute any difference in outcomes between groups to…

Thus begins yet another unendable initiative. Differences exist, therefore we say there could be inequality. Since there could be inequality, better to consciously bias against the alleged inequality, just in case the inequality actually exists. And since it's impossible to prove its nonexistence, better to simply state that it exists. After all, there HAS to exist some bias somewhere, no matter how significant. It's…

My eyes rolled so hard at this, it woke up my wife in the next room. Then we both had a laugh at me being described as 'enlightened' - in my neck of the woods, most people think I'm a troglodyte.

Look, sometimes people do real, obvious, correctable things that result in inequality. There's nothing 'alleged' about these things, and correcting them isn't an 'unendable initiative' - usually, all you've got to do is be a little more self-aware.

A case in point - a startup I co-founded a few years back was all-male for a while, and without getting into the details, we didn't always maintain a sophisticated level of conversation around the office. We didn't change our habits after we hired a couple of female college students part-time.

Later, I found out our part-time employees were uncomfortable with our office banter. Not cool, since this was their first exposure to startups and the type of people that work for them. When I found out about this, my unendable initiative to fix the problem was a quick email, which took care of it. (Still irritated that I didn't pick up on this earlier.)

That's it - no systematic bias in the other direction, no big bureaucratic programs by government authorities, just being aware enough of your surroundings to not be an asshole. You can do it too.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#84

Post by gruseom »

look_at_me wrote: post #62
tptacek wrote: post #59

tl;dr: Some women say it's hard for women to start startups. But none of them have started startups like I have. Except for Facebook's C.O.O. But who wants her life? Wouldn't most women want to be GOOD moms? VCs say they want to encourage women to start startups. But since they're not themselves women who have started startups, they can't know what I know, which is that women have ovaries and want to work part time.…

Now please excuse Thomas while he repeatedly hits refresh on his EVERYTHING stats until he gets his daily dose of narcissism. All comments Copyright © 2009, 2010, 2011 Thomas H. Ptacek, All Rights Reserved.

No, please no. Not the snide novelty swipe. You don't like something, have the guts to say it straight.

But I do think TP was unfair to PT. She's saying things that a lot of strong, smart women I know would agree with. For example: For the most part, women are not complaining about the lack of VC funding in the world. They are complaining about the lack of jobs with flexible hours. That is so true of the women I know that my guess is one would have to be at a statistical frontier to see anything different.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#85

Post by jfager »

Of all the things women are told on a day-in, day-out basis, "you should start a start-up" seems really low on the list in terms of both frequency and maliciousness.

It's also odd to simultaneously state that women are perfectly capable of making their own decisions, but it's somehow damaging to present them with another choice they can decide on. Why, exactly, do we need to protect women against the awful specter of another option in life?

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#86

Post by hackinthebochs »

rmc wrote: post #78
hackinthebochs wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we can't discuss sensitive subjects like this. People always take an innocent comment, which seems to be borne out by observational evidence at the very least, and then twist it to mean something entirely different. >There is no evidence that women naturally want to only raise children. Do you see what you did there? You (perhaps unconsciously) inserted "only" in the parent's statement, completely changin…

I would not call what you said an "innocent comment". It's spreading a meme and idea that has frequently been used to keep half the population as second class citizens. You have part of a point about my "only" comment. However there is no evidence that women (and not men) want to naturally raise children. There is no evidence that there is anything "unnatural" about a woman (or man) who doesn't want children.

I don't think her argument is meant to be taken exclusively for women. It's just that women are singled out as needing to be told to do a startup. The assumption is that there's no way a woman would freely choose to downshift her career for children, so it must be because of hidden sexism. Her argument was meant to specifically address this misconception.

It doesn't mean the same thing doesn't apply to men, its just that this particular misconception applies to woman so that's where she's focusing her argument.

Natural vs unnatural is a complete red-herring. I agree that we all should stop using that word in discussions like this. It carries too many connotations and it implies beliefs that I don't think anyone has (that someone that deviates from "natural" behavior is wrong).

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#87

Post by mjijackson »

"If you are worried that women don’t feel capable of doing whatever they want, you can stop worrying."

This comment from the article gets at the heart of what the author is trying to say. Behind the desire to single out women as a group that needs a special invitation to pursue a career doing startups are two assumptions: 1) that women actually want a career doing startups and 2) that they do not feel empowered to pursue that course on their own.

The author simply isn't comfortable making those assumptions, which point of view is completely valid given the subjectivity of the topic.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#88

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #59

tl;dr: Some women say it's hard for women to start startups. But none of them have started startups like I have. Except for Facebook's C.O.O. But who wants her life? Wouldn't most women want to be GOOD moms? VCs say they want to encourage women to start startups. But since they're not themselves women who have started startups, they can't know what I know, which is that women have ovaries and want to work part time.…

[deleted]

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#89

Post by _pius »

Penelope is known for throwing out controversial memes and running with the ones that get attention.

This idea got her some pageviews last year and she's been rewriting the same article over and over again ever since:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/09/women-startups-childre/

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505143_162-47140168/are-startups...

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/08/16/blueprint-for-a-wom...

http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/29/woman-problem-what-woman-p...

And now, of course, today's link bait. As with other trolls, the best thing to do is to just ignore her.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#90

Post by tptacek »

gruseom wrote: post #84
look_at_me wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now please excuse Thomas while he repeatedly hits refresh on his EVERYTHING stats until he gets his daily dose of narcissism. All comments Copyright © 2009, 2010, 2011 Thomas H. Ptacek, All Rights Reserved.

No, please no. Not the snide novelty swipe. You don't like something, have the guts to say it straight. But I do think TP was unfair to PT. She's saying things that a lot of strong, smart women I know would agree with. For example: For the most part, women are not complaining about the lack of VC funding in the world. They are complaining about the lack of jobs with flexible hours. That is so true of the women I know…

How often do those women you know interview for tech jobs? Because the flip side of that coin is the prospective employer who asks, "how are you planning to handle child care if you take this job?" It seems like a sentiment that plays directly into one of the places where I've seen discrimination firsthand in our field.

It's true, though: my comment was motivated as much by visceral contempt for Penelope Trunk than anything else. I could probably stand to keep that to myself.

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