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Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

femfosec.com

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#211

Post by dcow »

astan wrote: post #67

Your whole blog resonates deeply with me. All this corporate grifting and women's empowerment months will do jack shit until we figure out how to make workplaces and lives more equitable for mothers and allowing for gaps, breaks and destigmatizing time off for parents of both genders. Instead, we talk about how sexism is the biggest problem. Sure, sexism might be annoying, but in the west, it is hardly something that…

> When I mention it to someone that I want to take time off for a couple years to have children in silicon valley, they look at me as if I'm an alien. As if wanting to be pregnant and not working at the same time as being sleep deprived and wanting to spend time with my own baby when they are at their youngest is some strange outlandish fantasy.

And this happens way more than people lead on and for the exact BS reasons you call out. As someone who dated in SF not for the hookup but to try and find a life partner who wanted to prioritize and raise a family, it was bleak. We almost seem intent on reinforcing “career is king”, not tearing it down.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#212

Post by munk-a »

yomly wrote: post #126
sokoloff wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We" didn't decide as a society. Rather individual people (and couples) in society decided that they'd prefer to have additional income [and stimulation] by choosing to work outside the home. Collectively, that dramatically increased the labor supply as compared to 100 years ago as well as increased the demand for goods and services. I don't want to have us go back to the old way where it was looked down upon or judg…

But now I have to be twice as financially successful to provide the equivalent level of support my parents did while my wife opts to be a full time parent. We both made free choices, but the environment has now made that considerably more expensive. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a value judgment but, sadly, being a stay at home parent isn't economically "valuable" and so the incentives have shifted over the years.

The fact that you need to provide so much more value as a worker isn't due to the fact that both parents tend to work (at least not directly) it's due to the fact that modern society has much more rent seeking than previous generations had to deal with. Because most families have more wealthy individuals can squeeze families more before they reach the breaking point and have done so to the point where the average family doesn't have as much spare as it should given everyone's productivity.

The inability to have one working parent support a family comes down to wealth inequality like a lot of modern ills.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#213

Post by vbtemp »

dcow wrote: post #116

I think women have largely been presented a false promise by progressives: value and purpose is derived from work, go do what men do to be their equal. It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault, we live in a society where money is valued. But I wish we could structure society in a way such that the value of raising children, homemaking, is clearly communicated and understood. Being a mother without a snazzy career is frow…

> I think women have largely been presented a false promise by progressives

There's a lot of sneering and judgment by women, toward women who choose to be a stay at home mom and not have a career.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#214

Post by ThisIsTheWay »

mywittyname wrote: post #118
ThisIsTheWay wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like part of the problem is the obsession in media and social circles with young success. I see lists like Forbes 30 under 30, 40 under 40, and the celebration of young billionaires who are worshipped and held up as the example of what high performers should strive to be, and its quite unhealthy. I wish there were more stories about people who found success in their 40's, 50's and beyond, especially the ones w…

Yeah, but those people are the one-in-100-million types. Most people have lack-luster careers in their 20s, which pick up in their 30s and peak in their 40s-50s. It makes a lot of sense for the average person to prioritize family building in their early 20s so that the kids are more self-sufficient right at the time where your career is taking off. Plus, if your blessed enough to have parents who can help out, having…

> It makes a lot of sense for the average person to prioritize family building in their early 20s so that the kids are more self-sufficient right at the time where your career is taking off.

It does make a lot of sense, but my point is that's not what people are doing. The ages that women have their first babies have been increasing [0], and a large part of that is that women are more focused on their careers in their 20's than they have been in the past [1].

[0] : https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-bir...

[1] : https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2020/05/01/new-stud...

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#215

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

lainga wrote: post #120
dheera wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> specific to male cofounders I guess what I was trying to say is, male founders have a few biological choices that female founders don't, and I'm suggesting that it should be considered unethical to set industry work-hour standards to a level that only males can achieve because males are able to de-prioritize biology. An article about one of the most widely acclaimed male founders today: "As an Apple employee in the…

What aspects of male biology are they de-prioritizing? The need to participate in child-rearing?

Men can have (with more difficulty, it's true) children for much later in their lives relative to a woman of the same age.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#216

Post by lotsofpulp »

u678u wrote: post #178

Its interesting I had a friend who got pregnant at University. I thought it would be ruinous to their career but maybe its a better solution. When she was 40 her child was already an adult and she could fully concentrate on working.

It depends what type of business you want to go into. If you're aiming for high finance/law/management/acting, it's improbable to get into without following the normal formula.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#217

Post by giantg2 »

everdrive wrote: post #177
vmception wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being a mother without a snazzy career is frowned upon by plenty of people these days. I don't think that stigma is healthy. Why do women have to emulate men to be valuable? I used to think that, but then I found out that many people aren't trying to emulate men, they are trying to do a more encompassing thing, juggling an unprecedented number of roles and responsibilities surpassing what has been human in nature.…

>is not an optional checkbox of pride for men that want to exchange time for food and shelter and have a female partner This is something that crosses my mind often. Work has some perks, but I would NEVER have taken a career so seriously if I never wanted to get married.

I would have quit my current job years ago if I didn't have to support my family.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#218

Post by theptip »

powerslacker wrote: post #37

I'm not so sure freezing eggs is sound advice. Lord Winston, who is professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London, warned that it was "a very unsuccessful technology" and said: "The number of eggs that actually result in a pregnancy after freezing is about 1%." He later clarified he was referring to live births. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51463488#:~:text=Lord%20Wins... . “It’s not like I would disco…

I don't agree with this take. IVF live birth rates are something like 30% of implantations. e.g. see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7139227/.

The article you're linking even says that Winston is using the wrong number, and spends most of its time explaining why he's wrong;

> Lord Winston's 1% figure was referring to the proportion of all frozen eggs thawed for use in fertility treatment which result in a pregnancy and subsequent live birth.

You have plenty of eggs; it's not particularly relevant if a single egg has a 1% chance of resulting in a live birth. The extraction process will gather something like 10 eggs (plus or minus a lot) and then later you fertilize lots of those eggs and select the best candidates for implantation. Selectively quoting the single-egg success rate provides an inaccurate picture of the actual success rates of the overall process (one that's quite obscure and therefore susceptible to people misunderstanding when articles publish misleading advice like this).

Furthermore, research shows that the primary factor determining live birth rate is the age of the eggs. As you get above 37/38 the live-birth rate starts to decrease dramatically. If you freeze your eggs at 35 then implant at age 40 then you don't see the same increase in failure rate as if you just did IVF at age 40.

IF you want to postpone having kids until your 40s, but you know you really want to have kids at that age, then freezing your eggs is a good strategy for those that can afford it.

I'm all for giving women more choices/options around child-bearing; it's already difficult enough for women to balance career and children in modern society.

> Insurance policies usually guarantee a payoff. In this case, there is no guarantee.

If you're looking to buy an insurance policy that guarantees you will get pregnant, I'm sorry to say no such thing exists. All you can do is improve your probabilities. Freezing your eggs does this.

> Women should be doing it because it’s the best option they have

Again your quote is actually arguing for freezing eggs being a good option. What would you say "sound advice" is for women that want to defer having children until their 40s, if it's not freezing their eggs?

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Fertility

#219

Post by throw8932894 »

> Startups take much longer than you’d think before they become successful.

90% of startups fail, they NEVER become successful. Gambling on some theoretical future success is just bad advice.

Also egg freezing and late age pregnancy is VERY expensive and complicated. Author herself had three miscarriages.

I would suggest something else: have children between 18-25, and start self funded company while working at home. By early 30ies, kids will be at school and company should generate some income.

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