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Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

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Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#141

Post by roguecoder »

gruseom wrote: post #121
rsheridan6 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Submissive" is pejorative. You might as well say "bitch" (edit: almost). I mightn't have picked up on this if he hadn't also said " everything difficult and challenging". I actually agree with the point about feminism being to some extent a prejudice of its own that makes some women feel bad about wanting what they want. But they're figuring it out. We're, what, 50 years into this? That's lightning-fast change. It's…

The problem is that we gave women more options without actually dismantling patriarchy. We just gave them the option to join in men's crappy patriarchal bargain, which still kind of sucks. If feminism had succeeded as many men as women would want to stay at home in a D/s relationship and raise the children, though I think there would also be Doms who'd want to stay home and raise children. As long as we think of "Staying Home and Raising Children" as something women do, or something that is a separate and mutually exclusive choice with being in the public sphere, we have at best applied bandaids.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#142

Post by chadp »

Here is someone talking sense. Who cares whether people starting startups are black, yellow, purple, men or women.

There doesn't need to be any equality. Everyone is already equal and can decide to start a startup whenever they wish.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#143

Post by sunahsuh »

Mz wrote: post #132
roguecoder wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any feminism I could subscribe to would include valuing childcare, teaching the skills early to everyone explicitly, and eventually re-integrating children into day-to-day life. I get incredibly frustrated with all my friends who hate ever being around children, such that I can't have over my fiends with kids and my friends without at the same time. I was always around children growing up, and it was a part of life.…

(when) we demand that women and only women who produce children must care for them, "choice" is an illusion. "Would you like the rack or the thumbscrews?" Yes, I basically agree. "Would you like to be childless or give up your career?" is a sucky choice, and if we are going to force women to make it I believe it is only fair that men be forced to make it to. In some sense, men are asked to make this choice and men fa…

> The fact that women (and children) are getting screwed by our societal norms/policies does not prove men really have it much better.

But economics does.

And yes, how many men would be happier if society didn't try to tie so much of their self-worth into career advancement (just as it tries to tie so much of women's self-worth into wife/motherhood) and gave them the respect they deserve if they decide to focus on their families?

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#144

Post by Mz »

sunahsuh wrote: post #143
Mz wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(when) we demand that women and only women who produce children must care for them, "choice" is an illusion. "Would you like the rack or the thumbscrews?" Yes, I basically agree. "Would you like to be childless or give up your career?" is a sucky choice, and if we are going to force women to make it I believe it is only fair that men be forced to make it to. In some sense, men are asked to make this choice and men fa…

> The fact that women (and children) are getting screwed by our societal norms/policies does not prove men really have it much better. But economics does. And yes, how many men would be happier if society didn't try to tie so much of their self-worth into career advancement (just as it tries to tie so much of women's self-worth into wife/motherhood) and gave them the respect they deserve if they decide to focus on th…

But economics does.

Last I heard, when a man dies, it often plunges the wife into poverty. But when a woman dies, it often leads to the death of the husband within a year. And in spite of being over-represented among the "poor" and "chronically poor", women live on average several years longer.

Me thinks you have a rather one dimensional view of quality of life which I don't happen to share. Which strikes me as a bit odd coming from someone trying to advocate for stay-at-home dads.

Peace.

(Will add I did appreciate your remarks here and did upvote it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3341367)

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#145

Post by mindcrime »

DaniFong wrote: post #101
yummyfajitas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that if stereotype threat is real, and applies to more circumstances than just an examination, then this is truly compelling evidence that women really are inferior to men (in aggregate, individuals may vary of course). After all, a man and a woman of equal intrinsic ability may perform just as well under ideal circumstances, but the woman's performance is fragile. If the woman is reminded of her gender at l…

That doesn't follow at all; and is phrased in a completely insensitive way. If you want to have a civilized conversation, stop that. Boys/Men are also susceptible to stereotype threat. The priming with race is well known. They are also especially susceptible if they are primed with an "immutable talent" over "hard work = success" lesson, and then undertake a very difficult task. Boys struggle with this, and perform m…

Crap, I just fat-fingered a downvote. Sorry, that was totally accidental. ;-(

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#146

Post by seanp2k2 »

DaniFong wrote: post #21

There are many women, myself included, who have directly benefited from the message that I could (if not, should ) do a startup. I was previously on an academic treadmill. It was more or less assumed that if you were capable, you wanted to be a professor. It took awhile before I could really see the pros/cons of tying my research to that particular structure. I think a lot of women -- highly competent women -- are st…

Yup. This article does more harm than good.

TC is grasping at straws trying to stay relevant.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#147

Post by sunahsuh »

Mz wrote: post #144
sunahsuh wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that women (and children) are getting screwed by our societal norms/policies does not prove men really have it much better. But economics does. And yes, how many men would be happier if society didn't try to tie so much of their self-worth into career advancement (just as it tries to tie so much of women's self-worth into wife/motherhood) and gave them the respect they deserve if they decide to focus on th…

But economics does. Last I heard, when a man dies, it often plunges the wife into poverty. But when a woman dies, it often leads to the death of the husband within a year. And in spite of being over-represented among the "poor" and "chronically poor", women live on average several years longer. Me thinks you have a rather one dimensional view of quality of life which I don't happen to share. Which strikes me as a bit…

It is an inadequate measure, and what I meant is that in that dimension, men still have it better (I suppose in my attempt to be pithy, I opened myself up for misinterpretation). Economics is a metric that's relatively easy to measure as opposed to personal happiness and so it's a yardstick we can look at that's not unrelated (as a grad student that left a good tech job for school, I can say not having to stress about the state of your bank account is a privilege that I took for granted). And from what I've read in recent studies regarding happiness among men and women, men seem to be doing better at the expense of women (see, for instance, this 2009 overview: bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Female_Happiness.pdf)

So yes, I definitely agree with you in that quality of life is made up of so much more than your economic situation, but making enough to live on (with a strong emphasis on enough) is for a disproportionate number of women a source of unhappiness and unfulfilled aspirations. I suspect if we as a society were to attack the root causes for the gender gap in wealth and income, we'd also rectify some of the causes of unhappiness for both genders.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#148

Post by zerostar07 »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #31
DaniFong wrote: post #21

There are many women, myself included, who have directly benefited from the message that I could (if not, should ) do a startup. I was previously on an academic treadmill. It was more or less assumed that if you were capable, you wanted to be a professor. It took awhile before I could really see the pros/cons of tying my research to that particular structure. I think a lot of women -- highly competent women -- are st…

I would really love to see some research on this topic, because I would love to know if that is really that different from men. Growing up, I was told many options about what I could do: Founder was never one of them. It wasn't until I took stock and looked around at my corporate career that I decided it wasn't working for me. And that doesn't sound too different from your experience. I want my daughters to have ever…

There is lots of relevant research on gender stereotypes identifying how early these stereotypes are formed[1]. The inequality is equally bad in scientific research too, with even the most advanced countries performing bad in that respect [2].

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw-a-Scientist_Test

2: http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_librar...

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#149

Post by politician »

mindcrime wrote: post #145
DaniFong wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't follow at all; and is phrased in a completely insensitive way. If you want to have a civilized conversation, stop that. Boys/Men are also susceptible to stereotype threat. The priming with race is well known. They are also especially susceptible if they are primed with an "immutable talent" over "hard work = success" lesson, and then undertake a very difficult task. Boys struggle with this, and perform m…

Crap, I just fat-fingered a downvote. Sorry, that was totally accidental. ;-(

An a[id^=up]:hover { background: green; } rule (and a similar one for down links) would do wonders to help with the usability of the up/down buttons.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#150

Post by Mz »

sunahsuh wrote: post #147
Mz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But economics does. Last I heard, when a man dies, it often plunges the wife into poverty. But when a woman dies, it often leads to the death of the husband within a year. And in spite of being over-represented among the "poor" and "chronically poor", women live on average several years longer. Me thinks you have a rather one dimensional view of quality of life which I don't happen to share. Which strikes me as a bit…

It is an inadequate measure, and what I meant is that in that dimension, men still have it better (I suppose in my attempt to be pithy, I opened myself up for misinterpretation). Economics is a metric that's relatively easy to measure as opposed to personal happiness and so it's a yardstick we can look at that's not unrelated (as a grad student that left a good tech job for school, I can say not having to stress abou…

It's a complex topic, which I suspect cannot be done justice in a post on HN.

I am currently being evicted. My mother has informed me that due to my father's medical situation, I am not welcome to come home again. My two adult, unemployed special needs sons still live with me. I am deeply in debt and in very serious trouble. In some sense, I suppose I probably look like "the poster child" for all the financial issues your "typical" divorced homemaker can have. But it's really not that simple.

I have a deadly genetic disorder. So does my oldest son. I not only raised my sons, I also homeschooled them for many years. They both have a long list of special needs but are also incredibly intelligent. I nearly died about 11 years ago and this led to being diagnosed late in life with "atpical cystic fibrosis". All of this ultimately led to me getting divorced, in part so I would be in a position to save my life and get well. My sons were on the same page with me. My husband was on the same page with the doctors, who were all too happy to wash their hands of trying to get me well and just blame my genes.

I could not have gotten well without the ongoing dedicated care of my two sons, who were 11 and 13 when this journey began. I had their backing when most of the world was actively trying to talk me out of my crazy scheme to actually take care of myself. Getting well has destroyed me financially but had I not gotten well, I would likely be in worse straits by far, both financially and in overall quality of life. I have gotten off boatloads of drugs and the hole in my left lung has closed. I have been well enough to work a full-time paid job the past five years, which I really was never well enough to do before. The condition I and my son have is one of the more expensive, chronic medical conditions around. And though I have gotten myself basically health, there is no cure. For me, it will be a case of "management" for the rest of my life, but the answers I have come up with are vastly superior to anything else out there, both in terms of quality of life and in terms of financial impact. This miracle could not have been pulled out without the backing of my sons.

I wish there were easy answers with regards to the whole gender equality thing. I think of such things as a matter of "sexual morality" in that as long as heterosexual people have sex, children will result. Human need is a complex thing and cannot be boiled down to any one thing, not money, not length of life, not career success. Given the details of my situation, in spite of my current dire financial situation, I think I got the better deal in keeping the kids. If I get through this, a career can come later. But first I had to live. I've done that.

Perhaps it's time to go play a game. Examining my navel in public is an old habit that I like indulging but it often comes across as shocking, disturbing and problematic for other people.

Peace and have a great evening.

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