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Female Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: Female Founders

#511

Post by dragonwriter »

sbov wrote: post #495
jessedhillon wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, you know what? If every black person sees you and thinks "honkey," you will likely experience hurt feelings, and a slight discomfort when in certain neighborhoods. You probably will stop going to those places. It would be very hard to blame lack of progress in your professional or academic career on this perception. You could go almost your whole life without that perception having any tangible manifestation in…

Not that it changes your overall point, but note that California no longer has a majority population along racial lines.

(Sorry, accidental downvote while attempting to select text)

> Not that it changes your overall point, but note that California no longer has a majority population along racial lines.

California still has a very substantial White racial majority (74.0% as of the 2010 census), it just doesn't appear to when people of Hispanic ethnicity are counted as a separate group from their race (non-Hispanic Whites were only 39.7% in the same census), as is frequently done in the US.

Re: Female Founders

#512

Post by notdrunkatall »

mcantelon wrote: post #269
cynicalkane wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the shallowness of that kind of P.C. bullying--Paul Graham has done much more for women in technology than any Internet bully, but he will continue to be attacked because it is possible to assign uncharitable interpretations to a few things he said once. When one realizes that this whole kerfuffle is not about being pro-woman, it's about posturing such that one appears to be pro-woman, then the attackers' vie…

I'm reminded of Ted Kaczynski's take on P.C. activism: "Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist…

Your 'potential threat' level with the NSA has risen from 10 to 9.

Re: Female Founders

#513

Post by dspeyer »

rhizome wrote: post #344
eatitraw wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the fuck is this being downvoted? The comment isn't stupid: such gender/race discrimination _may_ backfire(for example, if your message is read not as "black girls have the same abilities but may need extra help" but as "black girls need extra help because they are black & girls -- inherently less smart and talented". Now, I'm not saying that it _will_ backfire(I guess it probably won't) but it _may_. Also, the a…

Come back when black women run the Federal Reserve and have corrupted it to their own benefit. Then, maybe , we can talk about "backfiring."

That's not the only way a project can backfire.

For example, if BlackGirlsCode produces a generation of black women who are perfectly capable programmers but believe that they're only capable "for black girls" and not by the tougher standards of asian men, that's backfiring. Such graduates will not go on to found startups or even apply for jobs at the best companies. They will probably have less overall life success than if they hadn't entered the program.

Or if the graduates are fine, but it's a resume stain, because everyone who hears about it thinks "These are people who need special help. I don't want to work with people like that. I want to work with self-sufficient people." So the graduates can't find jobs or investors. That's a backfire.

Or if it works well for the small number of people directly touched, but the much larger number of people peripherally touched become more likely to think that programmers are divided into "black" and "nonblack" and subconsciously act on that. It's a smaller effect, but a larger group of people and could easily be a net loss. That's a backfire too.

Re: Female Founders

#515

Post by dspeyer »

redthrowaway wrote: post #49
parfe wrote: post #26

I find myself disappointed by this blog post. The second paragraph amounts to a sexist version of "I'm not racist! I have black friends!" Then he follows up with statistics comparing YC to the general VC market. Fine, you do better than most. However, not the worst does not mean not bad. He comes closest to saying anything of substance with the paragraph: So how would you cause there to be more female programmers? Th…

It's not pg's job to equalize the gender ratio in programming, nor is it his job to get girls interested in it. Saying he thinks you need to reach girls young does not obligate him to go research what organizations are out there doing just that. He meant the post to be a statement of his position, not a rallying cry to fix a societal problem. You seem to have wanted the latter, not the former. That's fine, but it's n…

With power comes responsibility, and he has more than most.

Re: Female Founders

#516

Post by vijucat »

The whole affair reminds of how Larry Summers was taken down. Basically, there is a type of gender activist that takes pleasure from dragging down males, especially White males, in positions of power because they have been indoctrinated to believe that White male privilege is the source of all evil.

Thus, if one considers the whole Game, the White male is the Evil Boss : if you take him down, you get, like, a bajillion points. There is immense psychological satisfaction in witch hunts for this type of neurotic persona.

If this were not the case, any normal person would be red-faced with embarrassment and profusely apologetic when they discover that they previous rant was due to the misinterpretation of a quote out of context. Anyone interested in being truthful, that is.

Re: Female Founders

#517

Post by DanBC »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #129
DanBC wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note that there is no similar hand-wringing about the lack of women in the fields of sanitation, construction, Yes there is, and examples of programmes to get men into. Ursing or women into construction have been posted to HN before. Someone always always makes the same point as you and for some reason it always manages to infuriate me. I've had to re-write this 4 times because it was so vicious at first. But it do…

'But it does feel tbat a person must be deliberately trollin when they trot out the same tired bullshit that other idiots spout, especially when that bullshit has been debunked on the same forum that they're posting to and when it is so easy to debunk with a simple websearch. It feels as if some people like living their lives with the blinkers on.' Well then, since I'm spouting "bullshit" (your words): Educate me. Le…

Just search HN for [women construction] and you'll see a bunch of MRAs making the point that there are no programmes to get women into construction, and people giving examples of such programmes across a range of countries.

Your inability, or unwillingness, to perform a simple websearch even when given suitable search terms tells me all I need to know about your desire to find facts and make corrections to your weong statements.

Re: Female Founders

#518

Post by asksol »

reinhardt wrote: post #474
crassus wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember this guy, for starters. Nobody's holier than him: https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41791439674503168... https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41790492741167923... https://mobile.twitter.com/jacobian/status/41777583546709606...

What's embarrassing is that this self-righteous, guilt-tripped social justice douchebag is a BDFL of Django. I wouldn't be surprised if some current or potential Django users or contributors get sick of his jihad and turn to to a different developer community.

Could you please educate the rest of us what is so upsetting about these tweets (other than the fact that he received death threats)?

Jacob is doing a fantastic job at making people of all types feel welcome, which I believe is more likely to make the Django developer community thrive (as it already is).

Also, the footnote mentioned where pg writes that he enjoys that startups can freely discriminate is worrying. It does not mean that pg is a sexist, but he is a role model and we would expect him to be more sensitive.

Re: Female Founders

#519

Post by theorique »

aragot wrote: post #475
theorique wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pg is neither a racist nor a sexist, but because he does not jump to support every pet cause of every self-described "social justice jihadi", he is lambasted as such. Well, guess what? pg is his own person. He's just a guy who invests in startups, not some sort of idol upon whom you can project all your transformational, social-justice dreams for the tech industry. Is there racism and sexism in tech? Sure. Is that pg…

Just a question, why is pg in person supposed to care about equality and what happens if he loses the fight? Do you have prison sentences or civil excommunication about that?

It's nice if he supports fairness - i.e. equality of opportunity, as opposed to guaranteed outcomes. That's the best that should be expected of YC or any other selector.

Re: Female Founders

#520

Post by pbhjpbhj »

moocowduckquack wrote: post #408
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside: I've looked at that BlackGirlsCode link a bit more and I'm quite shocked that such segregation is encouraged, lauded even. Now there's some argument to support educating the sexes separately but if you're an asian girl living in Brooklyn (say) you can't go? Just because you're Asian ... ??? Really? What if you're half-Asian+half-African, how about your skins black but you're South American. Damn. Do people rea…

Is BlackGirlsCode, not OnlyBlackGirlsCode. Is a message that something is possible, not that the skill is exclusive. I suspect you are fully aware of this anyway and are just disrailing the argument for fun.

No derailment intended - I was genuinely shocked. That may have made my response more emotional that it should have been.
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