Stop Telling Women To Do Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#181

Post by amcintyre » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 4:01 AM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #117

amcintyre wrote: post #107

And he himself points out that by the time women are 40 and they want to go back to work full-time, these women are not going to relocate to Silicon Valley. But the truth is that if there were really a problem with there not being enough women running startups, then people like Fred would fund startups in suburbia. He’d fund startups that run at half-speed to accommodate carpools. He’d fund startups that have part-ti…

One should be careful in assuming market efficiency

I'm not assuming that it's efficient, just that there are a lot of people that would probably be very useful in a startup that aren't of any interest to people funding startups.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#182

Post by stickfigure » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 4:24 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #176

kstenerud wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on! The last thing we need is more busybody do-gooders trying to fix something without sufficient evidence that it's even broken. What really gets my goat is how people willfully ignore or marginalize anyone in the "victim" group who doesn't toe the line. For example, look at the editor's note for this article: "Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Penelope Trunk, writer and founder of Brazen Careeri…

You may not think there's sufficient evidence that there's something broken. In which case, you aren't obliged to help fix it. But unless you have strong evidence that things are working perfectly, then by your own standard you should stop interfering with people trying to fix the problems they see.

You just illustrated the entire point of the TC article. The "problem" you see (not enough women in startups) is only a problem in your mind. Maybe this is caused by generations of gender role programming, maybe this is caused by biological differences, maybe it's caused by the divine will of the flying spaghetti monster. What right do you have to "fix" other people's voluntary decisions?

What I don't hear is the argument that "women want to run startups and they are being blocked from the field". That would bother me. But a skewed outcome, by itself, is not a problem that needs to be fixed... and why shouldn't there be some scientific rigor applied to social meddling?

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#183

Post by Tsagadai » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 4:49 AM UTC

Cl4rity wrote: post #106

sunahsuh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, the fact that the patterns of behavior aren't random does clue you in that there are systemic factors involved, which can be analyzed and tested. Yes, every person makes an individual decision based on countless variables but that doesn't mean you can't make reliable conclusions based on the aggregate. This is like the reverse of the probabalistic fallacy that the 100th coin flip will be affected by the fact…

"However, the fact that the patterns of behavior aren't random does clue you in that there are systemic factors involved, which can be analyzed and tested." That's exactly what I was going to say. With regards to the article, everyone can bash Penelope Trunk all they want, but the fact remains that she's right. As an entrepreneur and adviser, she is correct. People are always complaining about the lack of women in ce…

You know men have children too. The difference is more that fewer men are completely dedicated to being a father than mothers dedicated to being mothers. This is a significant societal issue where many men don't take responsibility for raising their children.

If it was equal, as the article highlights, you would see an even percentage of men taking time off work to raise their children. Giving birth is a very small part of being a parent.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#184

Post by natrius » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 5:00 AM UTC

DaniFong wrote: post #179

yummyfajitas wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...we haven't found a single demographic group immune to stereotype threat. This is a straw man. I never claimed any group was immune to stereotype threat. You claimed stereotype threat affects some groups more than others in some areas. Your specific example was women are affected by it in math. I pointed out that if this generalizes beyond the GRE, and if men and women's abilities are equal absent stereotype threat…

To be as explicit as possible: poor functioning as a result of discriminatory stereotypes is no evidence of innate inferiority, be it in women or men or whomever. It is evidence of discriminatory stereotypes, that is all.

For everyone's sake, allow me to try to rephrase yummyfajitas's argument.

Consider several groups of equal ability and equal vulnerability to stereotype threat. On average, the groups that have more negative stereotypes directed toward them will perform worse. Given two people of equal ability, a purely rational actor trying to choose a member of their team will choose the one to which fewer negative stereotypes apply.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#185

Post by burgerbrain » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 5:36 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #177

burgerbrain wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Are we really still talking about "natural imperatives"?" I am puzzled by this sort of comment. There are certainly things that I do as a male that I consider to be built in behavior. I do not see any reason to think that women would not have similar.

What's natural isn't necessarily right; what's right isn't necessarily natural. Respectively those are the naturalistic fallacy and the moralistic fallacy. The reason people object to the naturalistic fallacy in arguments on this topic is that it is typically used to argue for the status quo by people who benefit from the status quo. If you would like to see an example of it in action, read the Texas Declaration of C…

I have no interest in ethics, certainly not universal ethics.

All I'm saying is that "everybody is the same" type positions ignore reality.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#186

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 5:37 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #170

DaniFong wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure, a group performs worse under discrimination; must be something wrong with them...

According to you, the simple non-discriminatory act of putting "Select one: Male [ ] Female [ ]" on a math test is sufficient to reduce female performance. The value judgments ("something wrong with them") are something you fabricated, not something from my post.

[deleted]

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#187

Post by nknight » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 5:42 AM UTC

gyardley wrote: post #113

DuncanIdaho wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly the right thing to do. But completely honestly, why did you even develop this kind of culture in the first place? Don't you think you should have prevented the whole situation in the first place?

Heh, that's easy to answer - it's because I was an idiot! Of course I should've prevented the whole situation in the first place, but I wasn't on the ball enough to realize it was a problem. I wasn't consciously trying to shape company culture at all, which is why it developed on its own in a suboptimal way.

It happens all the time, and it can be essentially invisible to management at larger companies. People get close. Cliques with their own sub-cultures will develop, HR-unfriendly and perhaps legally-actionable things will go on behind closed doors when everybody in the room is friends with everybody else.

Nobody will really notice or care until someone with a different worldview starts having to work closely with them and stuff starts bleeding through.

When it goes on for too long, people may get angry and resentful when trouble starts, and then you have a much quieter but more insidious mess...

What? No, I've never seen this happening from the inside! Of course not! I'm a perfect angel!

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#188

Post by mjg59 » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 5:43 AM UTC

natrius wrote: post #184

DaniFong wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be as explicit as possible: poor functioning as a result of discriminatory stereotypes is no evidence of innate inferiority, be it in women or men or whomever. It is evidence of discriminatory stereotypes, that is all.

For everyone's sake, allow me to try to rephrase yummyfajitas's argument. Consider several groups of equal ability and equal vulnerability to stereotype threat. On average, the groups that have more negative stereotypes directed toward them will perform worse. Given two people of equal ability, a purely rational actor trying to choose a member of their team will choose the one to which fewer negative stereotypes appl…

A purely rational actor who is ignoring externalities. A purely rational actor taking a different set of factors into account may make a different decision. We generally call the first "a dick" and the second "a worthwhile human being".

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#189

Post by zasz » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 5:45 AM UTC

DaniFong wrote: post #51

apinstein wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the message you responded to a generic "startups are a viable path for you" or that message, but aimed at women? I am assuming the latter, and that you're making the case that for women to receive the argument, it has to be promoted from a women-centric perspective, is that right? If so, I can definitely believe that. I understand and agree with the author's point about women empirically being less interested in…

It was more direct -- it was targeted specifically to me by a friend. But I also was greatly encouraged by Paul Graham's essays and Founders at Work. I had only a few role models of people doing good science outside of academia (Craig Venter was one), but it would have made it easier for me if I knew other young women doing the same thing. There still aren't many, but the numbers are growing. I do know women who felt…

Yeah, I'm a female software engineer. It usually surprises people when I do anything remotely feminine. People have twice speculated that I would enjoy putting on a strap-on and taking on a, ah, masculine role.

Re: Stop Telling Women To Do Startups

#190

Post by einhverfr » Mon, Dec 12, 2011, 5:54 AM UTC

DaniFong wrote: post #54

yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of what you say is specific to women. As a former academic, I was told that a startup is a legitimate career path precisely once (in a grad student seminar, by Stephen Wolfram). Plenty of men are stuck in the same treadmills you describe, and there are many complaints that the grad school and finance treadmills also have too few women. I don't think Trunk is asserting that encouraging women to do startups "co-op…

I did acknowledge that this problem is a problem by degrees for most groups (with perhaps the exception of Stanford students.) But I think women, in part because of a certain stereotype of what womanhood or motherhood should be (I think the signal from the media that such a huge number of mothers are stay-at-home is hard to ignore), and in part because of the collective sum of the world's signals, make startup career…

But I think women, in part because of a certain stereotype of what womanhood or motherhood should be (I think the signal from the media that such a huge number of mothers are stay-at-home is hard to ignore), and in part because of the collective sum of the world's signals, make startup career paths or STEM career paths in general less plausible for women than they should be, and less plausible than for men.

As I have said we need more family-run micro-businesses where both parents spend most of their work time at home. In my ideal world a lot of businesses would be run out of the home (as is the case in most of the world, but zoning laws can make that hellishly difficult in the US).

Stability most probably influences women towards defined career paths. But the mental calculus they do in making this decision might not be well informed. Even if any particular startup fails, if you're good you can join another one, or enter a larger company if need be. An entrepreneurial skill set is much more resilient to outside forces than other career skills. I think this message isn't quite communicated as well as it should be.

And yet, how many stay-at-home moms have their own part-time businesses? I am betting a majority. The difficulty that they have re-entering the workplace later I think is tragic because:

1) These women have entrepreneurial skills that they don't value sufficiently and that the prospective employer doesn't value sufficiently and

2) This leads to devaluing the experience of having a household business.

We have amazing problems in this country due to our worship of the education system as the path to economic success, and the idea that you have to go back to school to switch careers. This is another thing we need to work on because it chains everyone, man and woman, to early decisions in life.

I choose not to play by these rules. I, as a man, work from home full time. I encourage others to do the same. I have my own business. More recently my wife is talking about joining a small startup business (good for her).

I'm much more interested in spreading the attitude that one can do what one wants and be who one chooses to be than achieving exact gender population parity in every given sub-field.

That's exactly right.