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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#111

Post by Darmody »

jimbob45 wrote: post #33
mattlondon wrote: post #15

Anecdotal 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 le…

The only solution to cancel culture is to cancel those out of your life who would cancel you. I would be doing the same thing if I was in your shoes. On the bright side, this is hopefully a healthy opportunity for us all to find some friends outside of work.

That's like fighting for freedom of speech forbidding those who are against it to speak.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#113

Post by asjldkfin »

TLightful wrote: post #107
asjldkfin wrote: post #94

It doesn't help that the benchmark for oppression gets lower every day. It used to be a concerted, systematic action that's targeted at a small group. Today, it's pretty much anything which hurts one's feelings. Here's a hot take: This is what happens when kids don't get bullied at school. They don't learn to build the necessary emotional circuitry and calluses to deal with emotional damage.

Hot == dumb@ss

That's what they called Galileo too. Alas, I will suffer for truth.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/melodrama.png

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#114

Post by colechristensen »

oblio wrote: post #31
throwaway_-_-_- wrote: post #18

Creating 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 advic…

You tried to be clever and it backfired :-) What was wrong with a "be bolder"/"be more assertive"/"don't be afraid of taking credit for your work"?

There is a lot of value in the "imagine what someone else would think or do" mechanic of giving people advice. There certainly are dragons in asking somebody to act like a white dude, so don't do that.

"Be bolder" is different than "what do you think a bold person would do?"

I have had many conversations with people going through a tough time and unsure of what to do or how to feel in a situation and there is this trick to getting people to think differently that almost always works... ask the question

"What would a reasonable person do in your situation?"

Suddenly the person having trouble coming up with the answer "What should I do?" has a perfect answer to "What would a reasonable person do?"

It's a psychological trick that goes after how one thinks about one's self and how one thinks about someone else being quite different. If you refocus your attention to view yourself from an external objective, you often end up with much better judgement.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#115

Post by thereare5lights »

throwaway_-_-_- wrote: post #18

Creating 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 advic…

Your "trick" shows whether or not the other person will consider the whole range of things you could have meant instead of assuming the most likely thing in their judgement. So it's useful. It reminds me of shit tests in dating where you trigger situations just to see their reactions to certain situations.

Regarding why you can't just say the same thing word for word, that's because shared context matters.

This is basic social skills. If you don't have the same shared background and context, then it's unclear if you mean one thing or the other.

So when one woman says "Think about what a white man would do", to another woman, there's the implication that they're talking about their shared experiences regarding society's expectations around women.

When a man says that to a woman, especially it's a white man saying that to a black woman, your contexts and backgrounds are so wildly different that surface area of what you could mean is quite large.

So when you had the chance to clarify yourself and you backpedaled, that made it look even worse because it implied that you had bad intentions and were trying to take your words back.

So yes, it's true. You can't say the same thing word for word as one person say to another if you and the other person do not share the same contexts.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#116

Post by baby »

throwaway20222 wrote: post #79

I also work in a very “woke culture.” In fact, as a straight, white, cis man I am in the extreme minority. I have been told that I can’t do my job which includes negotiating with LGBTQ+ companies because I am an “old, white, cis guy and there is always an unfair power dynamic there” just because of my identity. It is discrimination plain and simple, but I literally stand to have my career derailed if I fight back. On…

had to google what cis is:

> A cisgender person (sometimes cissexual, informally abbreviated cis) is one whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. For example, someone who identifies as a woman and was identified as female at birth is a cisgender woman. The word cisgender is the antonym of transgender.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#119

Post by dragonwriter »

throwaway_-_-_- wrote: post #18

Creating 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 advic…

> 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."

That's...horrible advice generally, though there are specific circumstances where it might be useful, and it is tragic if it was an example used in a diversity panel as anything but a negative example without a whole lot of context because it (1) appeals to race/gender stereotypes, and (2) requires, for it to even approximate actionable advice, for the mentor and mentee to share race/gender stereotypes. In fact, I've been to lots of such panels/trainings, and fairly commonly seen exactly that used as a negative example.

What would be more useful if your first instinct is to give this advice is to first unpack what behavior you are stereotyping as white/male behavior that you actually want to encourage, and then just advise that behavior without appeal to race and gender stereotypes.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#120

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

throwaway_-_-_- wrote: post #18

Creating 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 advic…

South park did an episode on that mentality where cartman helped minority kids in an inner city school graduate.
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