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Female Founders Conference

femalefoundersconference.org

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Re: Female Founders Conference

#71

Post by steveklabnik »

gizmo686 wrote: post #61
tomasien wrote: post #37

This thread made me want to cry..... this thread..... oh my god you guys this thread is so awful! Does anyone have ideas about what could be done to educate against the constant same old "If it's just for women, it's sexism, same as if we said something was just for men" crap? I mean this is basically internet discussion canon at this point. As a side note, we COULD have a conference just for men if it was aimed (as…

On a meta-level, I think you are observing the vocal minority bias. As evidence, consider the fact that your comment currently holds the first comment position, suggesting that it received a significant amount of upvotes relative to the other comments. I observe the same effect on other, similar, threads, where the first comment tends to be a response to the overwhelming "If it's just for women, it's sexism, same as…

> suggesting that it received a significant amount of upvotes relative to the other comments.

This is not strictly true, position is based on a lot of factors.

Re: Female Founders Conference

#72

Post by kyro »

Crake wrote: post #64
kyro wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you? I've read your comments. You claim to know the real reasons why women aren't going into tech, you reply to comments about gender/racial disparity with such simple-minded arrogance and assurance, yet your profile says you're a college student studying EE and physics. You're nothing more than the typical puffed-up ignorant college asshole who thinks he has the world figured out. Wait till all the pubes hav…

Who am I? You told me what I am in your comment, so I guess I'll have to bow to your superior expertise on the matter. Interesting how you think you know all about what sort of person I am without knowing anything about my background, my life experiences, or the circumstances and fields of work that I have/have not encountered sexism in. SJWs always think they know everything about people who disagree with them, just…

Thanks for editing your profile. Anyway, you've put more thought and words in this one reply than you have in most of your recent ones in response to racial/gender/socioeconomic disparity. You've mocked the OP for crying (which was a "hilariously inaccurate personal attack" that's a joke now, apparently), and you've responded to my and others' comments with simple-minded quips.

I'd have kept your age a secret.

Re: Female Founders Conference

#73

Post by Crake »

kartikkumar wrote: post #45

Interestingly, although the event description clearly asks: "Are you a woman interested in starting a startup?", if you click through to the application, it actually asks you for your gender. Is that because YC would still like to know now many men want to be present at the event? Is it because men are allowed, but they're not advertising it? Or will they simply inform all men that applied that regretfully their appl…

And for trans people who don't conform to the gender binary, no option whatsoever: there's only "male" and "female" as an option. Now, I'm not asking for that crazy xe and xir stuff, but if you're going to go to a conference where their main claim to fame is being gender themed, you should be able to put down "other" or "prefer not to specify" (the latter of which may be preferred even by some people who are firmly on one end of the gender spectrum). One big problem I have with events that are either thematically or exclusively gender segregated is that all it really does is reinforce gender roles. You've got to pitch in with one camp or the other, so that the privilege checkers know how many points to assign you. I don't like it. My computer doesn't care what my gender is or isn't, or what's between my legs. That's actually one--of many--things that has drawn me to tech.

That said, these are all good questions.

Re: Female Founders Conference

#74

Post by mcantelon »

kyro wrote: post #44
mcantelon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some believe it to be due to the damaging effects of medical experiments conducted on African Americans Or an even simpler explanation: medical education is expensive and many blacks (and members of other races) are working class. So perhaps scholarships tailored towards the economically disadvantaged, rather than any specific race, would address the disparity.

High tuition is one reason, yes, but it isn't the entire story. Check out: - http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-... - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2575862/ - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9395587

Interesting. In the abstracts of the two studies of the issue that you link to, one highlights financial concerns and the other ignores this factor.

Re: Female Founders Conference

#75

Post by alukima »

iandanforth wrote: post #4

Questions for the women of HN. Do you see gender specific events as something that will fade away with time? Are they something you are comfortable with being part of society for the foreseeable future?

I hope that gender/race/sexual orientation/anything specific events will fade away eventually. But right now there's still a lot of casual sexism in tech that goes well beyond the well meant joke.

I've worked in the adult industry, gaming and lighter tech(IT) before transitioning to development. Prior to entering the dev job market I wrote off women who complained about the tech industry as whiny or overly sensitive. On one of my very first interviews the CEO told me women aren't math minded so he was going to skip some of the questions for me. On another interview I was asked why "he should take on the liability of hiring a female programmer".

To be honest I personally could not care less about the sexual aspect of it, getting hit on, ect., as that stuff can and does happen anywhere. But I've never ever had people question my intelligence because of my gender until I got involved in development. (Or at least not bold enough to voice it to my face in a professional setting.) At first I was even against the idea of female only learn to program classes until I started volunteering at several LTC type events and saw the difference in how comfortable women are. It's not even about sex in 99.9% of cases, which is where a lot of people take it. This comic gets brought a lot to demonstrate what I'm describing and it's really spot on: http://xkcd.com/385/.

I think everyone can agree that we would like to get to the point where attribute specific outreach programs are not needed but until we get there they are a good resource.

This wasn't part of your question but I'm sure it was brought up somewhere in the thread: Obvious sexism is not long dead. I'm only 30 and when I was in school men had to take shop and women had to take home ec. I was actively discouraged from college as it was viewed as a waste of money because women would only spend a few years working before becoming moms (if they finished school at all).

Re: Female Founders Conference

#76

Post by teh_klev »

steveklabnik wrote: post #71
gizmo686 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a meta-level, I think you are observing the vocal minority bias. As evidence, consider the fact that your comment currently holds the first comment position, suggesting that it received a significant amount of upvotes relative to the other comments. I observe the same effect on other, similar, threads, where the first comment tends to be a response to the overwhelming "If it's just for women, it's sexism, same as…

> suggesting that it received a significant amount of upvotes relative to the other comments. This is not strictly true, position is based on a lot of factors.

Please explain these other factors, I am genuinely interested. How do top comments stay top whilst accumulating a huge number of polar opposite commentary?

Re: Female Founders Conference

#77

Post by Crake »

kyro wrote: post #72
Crake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who am I? You told me what I am in your comment, so I guess I'll have to bow to your superior expertise on the matter. Interesting how you think you know all about what sort of person I am without knowing anything about my background, my life experiences, or the circumstances and fields of work that I have/have not encountered sexism in. SJWs always think they know everything about people who disagree with them, just…

Thanks for editing your profile. Anyway, you've put more thought and words in this one reply than you have in most of your recent ones in response to racial/gender/socioeconomic disparity. You've mocked the OP for crying (which was a "hilariously inaccurate personal attack" that's a joke now, apparently), and you've responded to my and others' comments with simple-minded quips. I'd have kept your age a secret.

Eh, same info, tidier writing. I'd forgotten about it for a while.

Man, SJWs really take anything involving the word "privilege" seriously, even when it's obvious sarcasm. Anyone have any theories as to why their sense of humor is so underdeveloped?

Re: Female Founders Conference

#78

Post by steveklabnik »

teh_klev wrote: post #76
steveklabnik wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> suggesting that it received a significant amount of upvotes relative to the other comments. This is not strictly true, position is based on a lot of factors.

Please explain these other factors, I am genuinely interested. How do top comments stay top whilst accumulating a huge number of polar opposite commentary?

> How do top comments stay top whilst accumulating a huge number of polar opposite commentary?

Note that this is not what I said. I just said that votes are not the only factor.

> On the front page, by points divided by a power of the time since they were submitted. Comments in comment threads are ranked the same way.

http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Now, HN runs on a slightly modified version of news.arc, so we can't be 100% for sure. pg did give the formula a long time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781417

TL;DR: time since the comment was left is often a factor.

Re: Female Founders Conference

#79

Post by tomasien »

001sky wrote: post #68
tomasien wrote: post #37

This thread made me want to cry..... this thread..... oh my god you guys this thread is so awful! Does anyone have ideas about what could be done to educate against the constant same old "If it's just for women, it's sexism, same as if we said something was just for men" crap? I mean this is basically internet discussion canon at this point. As a side note, we COULD have a conference just for men if it was aimed (as…

This thread made me want to cry..... this thread..... The irony in this manipulative[1] use of language in a topic on sexism is outstanding . Seriously, could you have tried any harder (to fan the flames)[2]? _________________ [1] http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/a-chemical-signal-in-human-... [2] eg, courtesy of google http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2011/01/11/crying-... Crying At Work, A Woman's Burden T…

Didn't consider it, I'm a man though. That seems relevant. I also can not have achieved any of the chemical benefits of crying because you aren't near me. So... I don't know. I don't even really know what you're trying to say.

If you're saying my use of language was extremely strong, you're right - intentionally so because I actually felt like crying and did, in fact, cry a tiny bit after reading these comments. They're horrible and I love HN so much, I can't stand that it can't deal with gender issues in a reasonable way.

Re: Female Founders Conference

#80

Post by Permit »

dkhenry wrote: post #5

Cool I am going to host the "Male Founders Conference" And no girls are allowed. What are you implicitly stating here? Women aren't good enough to stand toe to toe with male founders so the only way they will ever be able to succeed is if they are given special treatment. Why can't I go to this event and learn from female founders do they have nothing of value to convey to me as a male ?

It makes a lot of sense to encourage minority groups to join a field. An example including men would be something like the American Assembly for Men in Nursing.[1]

Alternatively, there are men-only classes for parenting, and those aimed at stay-at-home fathers.

These sorts of groups are not exclusive to women.

[1]http://aamn.org/

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