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Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

techcrunch.com

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Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#111

Post by Goladus »

francesca wrote: post #63

I was hoping hackernews would have a better discussion on this topic but I guess not. I think I'm the only person who is infuriated by Penelope Trunk's article in TechCrunch Titled "Stop telling women to do startups" It moves up to the top of HackerNews very quickly, and I'm a little disappointed by the comments in the article. The title is pure nonsense first of all, and while there are maybe two points that I could…

For men, the startup legend is one they would like to fulfill

Ah, but why do you think that is? It's not the really legend they are chasing, for the most part. Men are competitive, driven to be successful, make lots of money, and driven to take risks because women reward decisive, winning, wealthy, successful risk-taking men with more attention than losers and boring, predictable guys. This drive to succeed is partly biological (higher testosterone, for example) and partly social conditioning reinforced by the behavior of the women they have known in their life.

In contrast, men aren't especially attracted to success. It's not unattractive, but they care more about beauty and personality. Most women know this, which is probably one reason why people turn to outside "empowerment" and other paternalistic encouragement and positive reinforcement to affect female behavior. Meanwhile, women are choosing fields and careers that interest them, like psychology, biology, and education, or that will result in a high-status profession like law or medicine.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, evidence points to women caring about male attention and caring about having children and a family.

[women] are also capable of building...

I think that by now it is more or less conclusively proven that women are capable of a great deal. Humans are highly adaptable and throughout history both men and women did whatever they could to survive and raise their children. The question is what do women really want? What will make them happy?

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#112

Post by russell »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #70

There are a lot of hidden prejudices both in this article and in the entire discussion around women in technology and the startup world. I have a startup. I love startups. So should everybody else love startups too? Not at all. A more direct question: roughly 50% of people are females. Should 50% of startup founders be female? I don't think so, but I find it difficult to continue the conversation past this conclusion…

In this discussion startup = hi-tech/software/web. But if you step back and think profit making business, women are not under-represented. An article linked to in the original post says that 44% of all business are partially ow wholly women owned. If you include part-time profit making business, I suspect most are women owned.

Some anecdotal data points from my family: my ex runs a daycare that provides her a nice income. My older daughter works for her but has a side business making tutus for babies, which is an absurdly small business. She says it gives her something to do while she watches television and pays for her Starbucks addiction. However, it is real. She had to learn all about selling internationally. My sister is a traveling consultant in theater costume design. My partner is an artist.

I have done several startups. My son started a hardware startup and his share of the exit was in the high 6 figures. Our startups were hi-tech, but overall we were outnumbered by the women.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#113

Post by gyardley »

DuncanIdaho wrote: post #105
gyardley wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is exactly the right thing to do. But completely honestly, why did you even develop this kind of culture in the first place? Don't you think you should have prevented the whole situation in the first place?

Heh, that's easy to answer - it's because I was an idiot!

Of course I should've prevented the whole situation in the first place, but I wasn't on the ball enough to realize it was a problem. I wasn't consciously trying to shape company culture at all, which is why it developed on its own in a suboptimal way.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#114

Post by im3w1l »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #70

There are a lot of hidden prejudices both in this article and in the entire discussion around women in technology and the startup world. I have a startup. I love startups. So should everybody else love startups too? Not at all. A more direct question: roughly 50% of people are females. Should 50% of startup founders be female? I don't think so, but I find it difficult to continue the conversation past this conclusion…

Science is hard, but don't lose heart: in due time we WILL know.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#115

Post by im3w1l »

wpietri wrote: post #75
kstenerud wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Come now. We know there's inequality, and we know there's bias. The question is always "is this particular outcome due to bias or some intrinsic difference?" When we honestly can't tell and the outcome is important, I think it's reasonable to proceed as if the problem is bias. First, because to just assume it's natural differences and be wrong means you're screwing up people's lives and supporting an unfair system. A…

Wouldn't the prudent thing be to give everyone equal opportunities, and then require solid science for every step away from that. For instance if you want to go on a campaign to specifically encourage women to make different choices than the ones they currently make, you should be pretty sure that what you are doing is helpful.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#116

Post by rsheridan6 »

gruseom wrote: post #76
127 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also women who have been hurt by the feminist way of life. They just want to be submissive, raise a family and let their man take care of everything difficult and challenging. But other women are shaming them into having an active career and delaying the starting of family. I don't support any dogmatic approach into shaming people doing anything. People should have accurate information without distortion an…

They just want to be submissive, raise a family and let their man take care of everything difficult and challenging. Whoa there. I can't think of any position in this debate that can be strengthened by such a contemptuous statement. Not to mention oxymoronic. "Raising a family" isn't "difficult and challenging"? Egad.

Are you denying that there are women who want to be submissive and raise a family? Nothing the parent said suggested that all women want that.

Agreed that raising a family is difficult and challenging.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#117

Post by im3w1l »

amcintyre wrote: post #107

And he himself points out that by the time women are 40 and they want to go back to work full-time, these women are not going to relocate to Silicon Valley. But the truth is that if there were really a problem with there not being enough women running startups, then people like Fred would fund startups in suburbia. He’d fund startups that run at half-speed to accommodate carpools. He’d fund startups that have part-ti…

One should be careful in assuming market efficiency

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#118

Post by usaar333 »

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…

I read the first link with the assumption of a satirical undertone. I really hope it's not just my brain.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#119

Post by im3w1l »

djtriptych wrote: post #72

The reason we need women doing startups is (as corroborated by the author's own argument) that women think differently than men do in many ways, and we need all kinds of ways of thinking amongst people who are creating on the web.

Are female entrepreneurs more successful than males? What does that imply about what is in undersupply?

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#120

Post by rsheridan6 »

rmc wrote: post #17
AznHisoka wrote: post #2

I love Penelope Trunk and her political incorrectness. Her advice may always be controversial, but she's never afraid to speak her mind. And she's right too about women. Their natural imperative is to raise children and nurture them - not to do startups. Most also want the social companionship from friends/family as they raise children (which is missing today as most people don't live near extended family), but they…

Their natural imperative is to raise children and nurture them - not to do startups. [citation needed] There is no evidence that women naturally want to only raise children. And the implication that a woman who doesn't want spend all their life at home is a 'unnatural' woman, and there is something wrong with her, is a terribly, false, harmful meme to spread. I find this comment offensive, since it spreads a meme tha…

>There is no evidence that women naturally want to only raise children.

Certainly most women don't, but motherhood and founding startups are both such difficult jobs that it would be difficult to do both at the same time.

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