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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#31

Post by oblio »

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"?

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#32

Post by cistercianic »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #29
cistercianic wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>men erring on the side of protecting themselves and not wanting to take risks to engage with me meaningfully Do you believe that people should take potentially career-ending risks to benefit you?

No. But I believe I shouldn't have to literally starve and be homeless for years for the crime of being born with girl bits between my legs, which is more or less part of my back story here.

edit: removing my comment as this probably isn't a fruitful avenue of conversation.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#33

Post by jimbob45 »

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.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#34

Post by steve_g »

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…

"Think about what a white man would do" seems completely ambiguous to me. It's not a clear way to communicate. It would be better to follow up "I see you're hesitating to take credit for your work" with specific examples of what she might be able to say. Or you could give examples of behavior that people she knows have exhibited.

Even if "what a white man would do" wasn't emotionally charged (and it is), it's not a good way to make the point.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#35

Post by mattlondon »

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…

Perhaps phrase it as an open-question, rather than something that can be open to interpretation.

"How do you feel it went when people were talking about the work done on the project?" Allow them to chat ..."Do you think the credit was equally shared out?"

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#37

Post by soneca »

My first take on the article is that the author overestimates the impact and even the causality of an investor giving founders advice to swipe roles. It makes it sound simple and so reduced that to turn a company around is just having founders swiping roles.

But that’s beside the point of the article. Ultimately I think it’s on men to learn how to handle giving candid advice in a non-sexist manner. This investor just considered his investment not enough to be worthy bothering to try to find a way to give the same advice in a non-sexist way.

My final take of the article is: founders, don’t listen to advice made by investors who invested a small enough portion of their portfolio to even care if your chances as a company to be successful improve or not.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#38

Post by wrnr »

Good looking women (and men) have an easier time making progress in their carrier at least up to the point when everybody starts assuming they just got where they are because of their looks.

Companies with an explicit diversity and inclusion statement on their job applications get more minority applicants but hire proportionally less minority candidates, speculation range from smug interviewers to interviewees being too concerned with being themselves.

Everyone playing the suppression olympics loses in the end.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#39

Post by marcinzm »

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"?

> What was wrong with a "be bolder"/"be more assertive"/"don't be afraid of taking credit for your work"?

I don't see those as useful since it doesn't provide the person any actual guidance or reference point. What does assertive mean? What should I exactly do? How do I do it? "Act like X" provides a well known reference point that they can use to adjust their behavior based on. They can remember all the times they've seen X do something in a similar situation and then just act like that.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#40

Post by c0d4h »

cistercianic wrote: post #27
DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

I'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…

>men erring on the side of protecting themselves and not wanting to take risks to engage with me meaningfully Do you believe that people should take potentially career-ending risks to benefit you?

I don't understand how you ended up with such an interpretation of what she said.

As I understand it, she's saying that the current "politically correct" environment is hurting women more than it helps.

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