This is a really great piece. While it's unfortunate this phenomenon occurs, in a way it's also an opportunity for the many talented female VCs in the industry. I hope they capitalize on it!
Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#12I'm really glad to see this here. I don't have a better word readily available than sexism for trying to talk about patterns like this but when I use the word sexism , I think people think I mean "Men are intentionally exclusionary assholes just to be assholes because they simply hate women." and that's never what I'm trying to say. I find my gender is a barrier to getting traction and my experience is that it's due…
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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#13Reminds me of the phenomenon recorded of men avoiding women after the original #metoo thing. Part of this is that I think that men feel they are walking on egg shells. The kinds of male assertiveness that my wife found attractive when she met me also can leave women who aren't into this assertiveness feeling harassed. I feel that we need to be clear more about what is "desirable" masculinity it "desirable assertivene…
I guess there's going to be a calibration period. The pendulum was stuck, it's started swinging, and the first few swings are completely out of whack. We'll get there, eventually.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#14Seems like online twitter mobs and callouts are actually counterproductive to the "-isms" that employ them. Too bad but expect more of the same as we've basicslly given a global megaphone to any hyper-purist or power-tripper with a social media account. This stops when people have to pay a price for engaging in a cancel action.
They don't care cause they are not the same people.
It's like how 100% of women complaining about there not being enough girls in STEM, are themselves women who have chosen a non-STEM career.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#15Anecdotal but my office is ultra-woke. There are endless internal emails about whatever-week, or veterans-this, or LBGTQ+-that etc etc. People have been hounded out and either quit or been fired for fairly minor "infractions" of the groupthink (...and also some people have rightly been fired for actual inappropriate behaviour).
And guess what all this talk about "toxic masculinity" and generally vilifying all men leads to? If you said "chilling effect" then you are bang on. It is a bloody minefield. Keep your head down, never talk about non-work stuff, refuse to provide feedback or do interviews, refuse to help people out unless it is directly your job' responsibility to do so etc and hope you don't get fired.
It genuinely feels like I have a target on my back.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuine question, if you were a man in that situation, what would you do?
In what situation?
Well the situation in the article seems like a good example, you think the female ceo should swap with the male co founder. You're invested but not massively and you've not really known either for years.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#17This is kind of the end result we're heading for, where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy. The shitty part is that I'm pretty sure 99% of people are reasonable human beings but the media has to make it seem like that isn't the case so the risk equation changes. Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky because the media makes it seem like there are murderers lurking around every corner.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#18Creating a throwaway for obvious reasons. I'm not an investor but someone who is in a position to make key decisions about peoples' careers and give advice, and I do have a bit of a trick I use for this.
There was one black female mentee who I noticed was timid in taking credit for her work. I had recently attended a diversity panel where someone in a similar role as me said that in a similar situation, and her advice to her mentee was "Think about what a white man would do" and everyone applaud such an insightful advice. So identifying such an opportunity, I said the exact same thing word for word, basically "I see you're hesitating to take credit for your work. Think about what a white man would do."
Immediately after saying that, I could tell it wasn't taken well, and she asked "what does that mean?" I couldn't come up with an answer for that which wouldn't be taken in a really bad way, so I backpedaled. She later reported me to an administrative person who luckily felt it was too vague to file a serious report about, but told me to watch what I say.
But I do have a solution (my trick). From that point on, I definitely give more subtle advice unless they have passed my test, which is I see how they react to situations where they could give the benefit of the doubt to others in vague situations. Sometimes, I'll bring up a past story about another anonymous person and see if they are outraged and want to get them in trouble. Only the ones who remark that they probably had good intentions, and don't react too strongly, I'll give more candid advice to.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what situation?
Well the situation in the article seems like a good example, you think the female ceo should swap with the male co founder. You're invested but not massively and you've not really known either for years.
The odds are good I would err on the side of not risking it
Which is why this needs to be discussed: So a path forward can be found. Our current default patterns aren't working well.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#20I think fear is making people in general just clam up.
Anything you say can be taken as offensive and the crowds bay for blood.