Very pleased to hear about this. I've applied, even though I'd have to travel from Texas.
Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
111–120 of 295 posts
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#112I'm against these, because I'm against gender discrimination. Gender discrimination means that one gender is treated differently from another. It's also interesting to know whether transwomen will be allowed. Some radical feminists only accept 'born as women' to their conferences. And if transwomen are accepted, what's their definition of that.
1. The invitation form ask for gender, implying men are allowed to attend.
2. If we assume that an imbalance in a system is self-enforcing, then it is unlikely to remedy itself - even if we remove what initially caused the imbalance, because it is self-enforcing.
3. I don't think you brought up the transgender issue in good faith. The organizers of this event have given no indication that they align themselves such a fringe group.
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only problem is when the people who are throwing the sexist event go on to claim they are against sexism. The logical position is to say that it is indeed sexist but that it is necessary, but they lose their standing to complain about a Founder's Club - Men Only event.
The event is targeted to women, but they are not exclusionary. Look at the invitation form. As to your main point, when there is a power asymmetry, I think it is unlikely for that asymmetry to remedy itself without explicit efforts targeted at it.
There is no mention of males involved or invited to come anywhere else, so I'm going to believe that drop down exists to send a "thanks for your support" or is simply an oversight.
I don't have a moral problem with gender exclusive events. It's sexist and exclusionary and that's ok, and I hope the ladies putting on the event feel the same.
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm fairly sure Jessica will just apply common sense though and would put me somewhere below full (trans-)women but above cisgendered men as far as priority goes, which would make sense. Why? If anything, a heterosexual man would be more likely to benefit from a conference for female founders because his SO is a founder or wants to start a company. (Not trying to start a flame war — I just can't see the difference…
The key part there is 'gender-dysphoric' which basically my identity lies somewhere in the middle between male and female. That basically means that while I don't feel like I'm in the wrong body, I do prefer (to some degree) to socially act and be treated as a woman. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity_disorder
Sorry, I'd missed that. I had seen 'gender-dysphoric' before but didn't know the meaning of dysphoria and hadn't looked it up.
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#115I'm assuming some HNers are soon to arrive saying things like "why does it matter that a founder is a female?", "why make an excluding event? isn't it sexism all the same", "imagine if someone make a 'male founders conference'?" I would like to ask you to think for a moment, before raising this concerns (I am not bothering here to debate with haters, only with those who are genuinely concerned that this might sexism…
Great comment. If anyone would like to learn more about feminism, I can't recommend highly enough the book "Feminism is for Everybody" by bell hooks. I find a lot of commenters here and on other sites form (strong!) opinions about feminism and sexism despite not understanding basic concepts like privilege, oppression, and intersectionality. That book is an accessible primer on those topics.
Where I really crossed the threshold into understanding Feminism was in a class I took in college (as trite as it sounds). We were discussing gender-specific organizations, not unlike the one in this post, when someone asked why it's OK for women to have a conference, but if men did, people would flip. The teacher gave a long-winded answer, but what really stuck with me most was a single statement: "Because every other organization is already a men's organization." YMMV.
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
The event is targeted to women, but they are not exclusionary. Look at the invitation form. As to your main point, when there is a power asymmetry, I think it is unlikely for that asymmetry to remedy itself without explicit efforts targeted at it.
There is no mention of males involved or invited to come anywhere else, so I'm going to believe that drop down exists to send a "thanks for your support" or is simply an oversight. I don't have a moral problem with gender exclusive events. It's sexist and exclusionary and that's ok, and I hope the ladies putting on the event feel the same.
Did you read the thread where people running the event have said that males can apply, but that females are goven priority?
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to share your research data that this has to do with stigmatisation? And what exactly is "this field"? Field of those believing that the cause is stigmatisation? How about this assumption, which, I believe is also false?
"This field" refers to tech, and the startup scene in particular.
"Tech" is far too broad a term to be a legitimate field. I presume you don't really claim to speak for all technology-based industries.
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#118Aren't the autistic-transgendered-albino hackers are also an underrepresented group? Where does the fragmentation stop?
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some radical feminists only accept 'born as women' to their conferences. And if transwomen are accepted, what's their definition of that. Really. That's interesting. I know... a few feminists 'round these parts who might be characterized "radical." Can't think of anyone getting their hate on against trans women. And I don't know why you would raise such a specter of exclusion with no basis.
Feminists fighting against trans women is a fairly well known phenomenon. Feminist and transphobic are hardly mutually exclusive worldviews. Edit: dug up a few pointer links: http://www.transadvocate.com/unpacking-transphobia-in-femini... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia#Transphobia_in_fem... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_views_on_transgenderi... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=transphobia+feminism
I think the phenomenon is brought up in discussions of sexism in the tech industry disproportionate to the degree to which it occurs. I don't think people who typically bring it up are actually concerned with the issue, but rather want to poke a stick at the notion of feminism itself.
Re: Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
#120I'm against these, because I'm against gender discrimination. Gender discrimination means that one gender is treated differently from another. It's also interesting to know whether transwomen will be allowed. Some radical feminists only accept 'born as women' to their conferences. And if transwomen are accepted, what's their definition of that.
Imagine you're a woman. The legislature that governs your country is more than 80% male, and that's after a lot of very recent gains by women. You feel this status quo is the direct result of historical as well as current bias against women, and bias for men. Much worse, since this legislature makes the laws and performs checks on the other branches of government, the inclusion or lack thereof of women in the legisla…
>Is it not rational, in fact extremely smart, to have a preference toward electing women into office, when all other factors are more or less equal or less important?
If one assumes falsehoods, many irrational decisions becomes rational. For example, like the assumption that a male politician doesn't care about women's issues. In fact, I live in a country with 40% of the parliament being women, even though 60% of the voters are women. Women decide the outcome of the election, which might be one reason that men are used in forced labour but women are not.
Anyways, if the choice is between a male and a female politician who are completely identical in every respect other than gender, then it's a roll of dice - but such a situation is not realistic.