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Poll: Male or female?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Male or female?

#81

Post by sundarurfriend »

tptacek wrote: post #67
axod wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'd definitely recommend it to women who are into hacking, but the number of women who are into hacking is low. Success rate is probably going to be similar to women recommending a site about fashion to male friends. I agree with making sure people are aware what they can do, what is possible etc, but trying to make everything a 50/50 split between sexes is an unachievable waste of time IMHO. Lets embrace and c…

Attentiveness to fashion is a cultural difference, not a gender difference. "Celebrating" the gender gap in engineering is a very bad idea.

Why must it be? Who is to say not having equal proportions of men and women in engineering is bad? If women choose not to go that way and instead choose what they like, who are we to judge that it is wrong? Being ourselves is more important than any artificially imposed equality. And recognizing and celebrating this uniqueness is in no way a 'bad idea'.

And attentiveness to fashion is not merely a 'cultural difference'; in every culture in the world, the female gender on an average gives more importance to such concerns than the male. Cultural differences do exist, but they form only the base level; the females deviate positively from it more than the males.

Re: Poll: Male or female?

#82

Post by SwellJoe »

gambling8nt wrote: post #79
SwellJoe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pg has said they fund as many great groups as they can find. So, if that's correct, then giving an additional point or two for being female founded, while assuming some base level of competence and dedication, is not "instead of" it is "in addition to". Note that we're all speculating here. We don't actually really know anything about YC and female founded companies (except that the number of female founders amongst…

Because PG has finite time, there are two fundamental possibilities at work here: (1) PG can find more "great groups" that he would want to fund than he has the time to work with. This, I expect, is almost certainly the case; PG then has to determine which amongst these groups of founders with whom to work. The question becomes, what function of the group of founders selected should be maximized. If you "give an addi…

OK. So, what's actually far more interesting to me is how much attention my idle ramblings about why a company like YC might (not that they do) encourage or even prefer female founders have gotten. I didn't realize reverse discrimination was such a sensitive area amongst the technical elite, particularly since males have had a dramatic lead for as long as technology has existed (a more pronounced lead than in pretty much any other field in modern first world economies).

Re: Poll: Male or female?

#83

Post by gambling8nt »

SwellJoe wrote: post #82
gambling8nt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because PG has finite time, there are two fundamental possibilities at work here: (1) PG can find more "great groups" that he would want to fund than he has the time to work with. This, I expect, is almost certainly the case; PG then has to determine which amongst these groups of founders with whom to work. The question becomes, what function of the group of founders selected should be maximized. If you "give an addi…

OK. So, what's actually far more interesting to me is how much attention my idle ramblings about why a company like YC might (not that they do) encourage or even prefer female founders have gotten. I didn't realize reverse discrimination was such a sensitive area amongst the technical elite, particularly since males have had a dramatic lead for as long as technology has existed (a more pronounced lead than in pretty…

Part of what makes this sort of thing a touchy subject for so many people is that, in the event of this sort of process being practiced (1) men who aren't selected feel angry about the nature of the process instead of feeling that they need to improve themselves to improve their chances for the next round, and (2) women who are selected are sometimes (often?) demeaned by men as needing additional assistance in order to make the cut (this is contrary to a common view I have encountered; that this sort of thing is fundamentally victimless). People subject to either of these circumstances (or close to such a person) are likely to have strong feelings on this subject.

As to why I personally supplied such a detailed response; it's mostly an opportunity to procrastinate by trying to change some minds regarding an issue important to me instead of working on something I've been avoiding.

Re: Poll: Male or female?

#84

Post by nocman »

octane wrote: post #18

Do you really need a poll for this? Just like every other tech site it's a bunch of 18-35 year old dudes sitting around clicking reload every 20 minutes.

I think you underestimate at least the top end of that age range. I am quite certain that a number of folks on HN are well above the age of 35. PG is in his 40's, and I'm sure he's not the only one here in that category (and I wouldn't be surprised to find hackers older than that here -- perhaps much older).

Re: Poll: Male or female?

#85

Post by tptacek »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #81
tptacek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attentiveness to fashion is a cultural difference, not a gender difference. "Celebrating" the gender gap in engineering is a very bad idea.

Why must it be? Who is to say not having equal proportions of men and women in engineering is bad? If women choose not to go that way and instead choose what they like, who are we to judge that it is wrong? Being ourselves is more important than any artificially imposed equality. And recognizing and celebrating this uniqueness is in no way a 'bad idea'. And attentiveness to fashion is not merely a 'cultural differenc…

Take a vote of all the cultures throughout world history, and on that basis also consider revoking their right to vote and own property.

Re: Poll: Male or female?

#86

Post by arh »

pg wrote: post #46
rufius wrote: post #9

Who cares.

I do. People often ask about the number of female founders we fund. It would be interesting to know whether it's low because of something about startups, or just a reflection of the larger pool from which they're drawn.

I think it may have more to do with the latter. A quick Google Scholar query of "why is computer programming dominated by males" provides some interesting results, including an abstract with the key finding that "men had more confidence in using computers than did women even when statistically controlling quantitative ability. In fact, female CS majors had less computer confidence than did male non-majors." (Beyer et al., 2003)

Re: Poll: Male or female?

#87

Post by rokhayakebe »

jlees wrote: post #58
SwellJoe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC may consider diversity in their portfolio a positive trait. They may also consider the PR value of female startup founders (which is worth considering...it is quite high). And, they may consider their reputation as a forward-thinking, out on the edge of progress, sort of investor. Maybe it's a trend, and maybe they want to be ahead of it. I don't think one needs to look at what good could come of it in the future…

Well, quite frankly, I'm glad YC look at other criteria. Positive discrimination is a terrible thing. Imagine being a woman funded by an investor making an effort to focus on female-led startups. The world knows you were only funded because of your chromosomes. Self-esteem is a big enough problem as it is!

I think a venture firm that privileges woman ran startups with a focus on women-markets would be great. After all who does most of the spending in a household? Remember that web apps represents only a tiny tiny fraction of consumers' expenditures.

Re: Poll: Male or female?

#88

Post by cglee »

amichail wrote: post #78
thesethings wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Just upmodded your question, a decent one.) "Does reading comments you think are misguided make you sad?..." Yeah, kind of. I mean, it's pretty context dependent. First of all, outside of HN, I'd be much less sensitive to stuff I feel is off-base, after all, that's why I'm at HN, it's different, a refuge from a world I'm used to feeling out of place in. (Don't mean to make that sound so dramatic/emo. I like plenty o…

I guess it stings more at HN because there are many people here I highly, highly respect and am inspired by, and a few posters here who I try to follow very closely, as if their HN posts were a feed I subscribed to. Why would you think they are talking about you in particular? People who excel will always stand out no matter what group they come from. So why do you care about what people say about other members of yo…

Group identity. Just like you (or some of "us") get figgidty when people make fun of techies/hackers.

Update: I should clarify that "group identity" is strong when that identity is formed around an "out-group" (a minority or marginalized group). An "out-group" is just a group who is threatened in some way (as perceived by the group).

Re: Poll: Male or female?

#90

Post by jrockway »

thesethings wrote: post #38

Female here, just voted. I just wanted to say I love Hacker News. I'm an introvert and a nerd before I am a female, so I am of course drawn to Hacker News because it's a great place to find other over-sensitive folks who take themselves, their questions, and other peoples' questions very seriously. As others point out again and again, the quality of discourse here is just really high. Secondarily, but still present,…

I do wince and get bummed out whenever I read certain comments here (I've pretty much learned to just not even click threads about the ideal age to get married, what's more important relationships or programming, etc) but even when things make me sad, they're at least not crudely written.

I feel the same way about comments advocating the use of PHP or Java.

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