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Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

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Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#31

Post by brandnewlow »

bokonist wrote: post #26
brandnewlow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear ya. I spent some time as an admission officer at an Ivy and the conversations we'd have over and over again just got to me. We were building a class and had just a dizzying array of pieces to work with each year. This, coupled with our need to have every group, region and interest under the sun represented inevitably led to exchanges like this one: "This student seems smart relative to other ( insert minority…

I'm curious. What happens if someone lies on their application about their race? Do you verify in any way? Would you disqualify them if/when you saw them in person? I've wondered why, with so many people trying to get an edge in admissions, more applicants don't claim "one drop".

As far as I know, there's not organized, institutional way to verify an applicant's race. Schools pretty much take them on their word, with the understanding that they can rescind an offer at any time before the day of enrollment.

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#32

Post by netcan »

SapphireSun wrote: post #5
halo wrote: post #4

I apologise in advance as this is probably quite a controversial rant, but this sort of thing has always really frustrated me. I guess it comes down to this: I don't see how sex matters when you're a business person, when you're programming, when you're building things. The sex of the person rightfully shouldn't come into it - it's their skills that matter. The interpreter, afterall, doesn't spit out a different resu…

While I agree with you for the last two paragraphs, I've started to think that it might be very useful to have a female in the founders or first employees circle. The reason isn't because they are necessarily better, but they are aware of facets of culture that we are not aware of because they grew up in that tribe and we didn't. They would have the same problem vica versa. If you're selling to a broad multisexual au…

please watch the

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It stretches the page.

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#33

Post by gabrielroth »

halo wrote: post #29
sanj wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might I suggest that you consider taking part in a class dominated by women? Perhaps something discussing the proto-feminist leanings of Woolf? I'm not kidding. I think you'll find that you're lonely. That you gravitate towards talking to other men in the group. That you feel like your voice isn't heard. That you sense resentment towards you. That your opinion isn't valid. Now imagine going through that every day in…

I'll admit that I haven't personally taken such a class - sadly it's very unlikely I'll be able to do so. I would find it very sad if that you described happened, though. I think a male point of view would be valuable on a discussion of an issue like proto-feminism, for example. The idea that someone would get shouted down from a discussion for having a dissenting point of view to me seems bizarre assuming they facil…

I doubt you'd get 'shouted down.' The poster you're responding to never said anything like that. He (I'm assuming) suggested that you'd feel isolated, and have difficulty communicating your ideas in a way that makes you feel you're being understood.

This could happen (to a man in such a class, or to a woman in a male-dominated workplace) with no one shouting at anyone, or expressing any kind of hostility, or even really doing anything wrong. These are difficult problems.

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#34

Post by asdflkj »

nostrademons wrote: post #19
sanj wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might I suggest that you consider taking part in a class dominated by women? Perhaps something discussing the proto-feminist leanings of Woolf? I'm not kidding. I think you'll find that you're lonely. That you gravitate towards talking to other men in the group. That you feel like your voice isn't heard. That you sense resentment towards you. That your opinion isn't valid. Now imagine going through that every day in…

I took a course at Mt. Holyoke in college (I'm male, Mt. Holyoke is an all-women's college). I also spent quite a while in the Harry Potter fandom, which is literally 99% female. In neither situation did I ever feel marginalized, or excluded, or ignored. Occasionally I felt like I was an object of curiosity, but I can deal with that. It is a bit of a culture shock, and in both situations I was careful to observe firs…

PG's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of intelligence and ability. Here we probably all agree. This woman's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of gender. If you don't have a problem with it, then would you also not have a problem with a society that excludes women?

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#35

Post by nostrademons »

asdflkj wrote: post #34
nostrademons wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a course at Mt. Holyoke in college (I'm male, Mt. Holyoke is an all-women's college). I also spent quite a while in the Harry Potter fandom, which is literally 99% female. In neither situation did I ever feel marginalized, or excluded, or ignored. Occasionally I felt like I was an object of curiosity, but I can deal with that. It is a bit of a culture shock, and in both situations I was careful to observe firs…

PG's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of intelligence and ability. Here we probably all agree. This woman's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of gender. If you don't have a problem with it, then would you also not have a problem with a society that excludes women?

It's not society that's excluding anyone, it's one particular mentoring group.

I have no problem with all-male groups like the Freemasons, Boy Scouts, or fraternities.

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#36

Post by netcan »

aston wrote: post #17
fallentimes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't really call them insights, but sure. HHI 60k, Black, 2.1 GPA, similar EC, no record, ACT Score 16 - Accepted. HHI 50k, White, 3.2 GPA, similar EC, no record, ACT Score 22 - Rejected. Most were variations of that. That is, less qualified applicants in similar economic situations were admitted solely because of race. Obviously I knew these practices existed (oh hai Division 1 athletics), I was just surprised h…

Oh. Not that surprising, really. Affirmative action exists. Even (especially?) in the best schools in the nation. It's not just for race, though. Women get it at tech schools, men get it at some state schools, and poor people get it anywhere where most students are wealthy. For the record, I'm an adamant supporter of AA. And not entirely because it helped me out personally. edit: I go through all this work to say som…

I'm fine with affirmative action. But I like to keep the debate on topic. You need to remember that aa is not a goal in itself (I think so, anyway). On the contrary, it is damaging in itself. It may justify the ends, but in itself it's bad.

Just like having a 99% white male University is not bad in itself, it's a consequence of bad - Inequality in society. The goal of aa (should be) is to deal with that.

There is an inherent problem. We tend to gauge gender equality by things like the male/female exec ratio. That's fine. But then we try to improve equality by artificially equalising that. Ok..but we are getting into murky waters? How do we know if the underlying problem is solved now. The goal of such a program is not to be needed at some point in the future. When you're talking about minorities in schools etc. that can take a long time, but aa is not acceptable (to me) indefinitely.

There's also another type of aa*. EG the organisation believes certain staff ratios are good for corporate culture, good for morale, good to give an impression of equability etc. etc. That's a different kettle of fish. Completely different. The company/school may have rational economic reasons for this decision, but that is discrimination for utilitarian reasons. How would you feel if for the same reasons, the decision was made to hire all white males?

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#37

Post by asdflkj »

nostrademons wrote: post #35
asdflkj wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of intelligence and ability. Here we probably all agree. This woman's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of gender. If you don't have a problem with it, then would you also not have a problem with a society that excludes women?

It's not society that's excluding anyone, it's one particular mentoring group . I have no problem with all-male groups like the Freemasons, Boy Scouts, or fraternities.

I meant a society, not the society. I should have used a different word.

The things you've listed are all-male for traditional reasons. If someone were to start an all-male group now (like, say, an all-male mentoring group), it would generally be frowned upon. I was just wondering if you'd frown upon it also.

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#38

Post by ALee »

aston wrote: post #17
fallentimes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't really call them insights, but sure. HHI 60k, Black, 2.1 GPA, similar EC, no record, ACT Score 16 - Accepted. HHI 50k, White, 3.2 GPA, similar EC, no record, ACT Score 22 - Rejected. Most were variations of that. That is, less qualified applicants in similar economic situations were admitted solely because of race. Obviously I knew these practices existed (oh hai Division 1 athletics), I was just surprised h…

Oh. Not that surprising, really. Affirmative action exists. Even (especially?) in the best schools in the nation. It's not just for race, though. Women get it at tech schools, men get it at some state schools, and poor people get it anywhere where most students are wealthy. For the record, I'm an adamant supporter of AA. And not entirely because it helped me out personally. edit: I go through all this work to say som…

Don't worry aston, the News.YC audience is primarily white male libertarian (both right and left) leaning. Although it's a philosophically consistent position, I think it fails to recognize that there are deep inequities in society that the market/competition just cannot fix (and sometime the market sometimes exacerbates).

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#39

Post by ALee »

For all the gents out there, please stop griping. We need more women in startups (seriously, have you been to the meat market parties after tech events?!).

Moreover, it'll give lonely male hackers more choice beyond the no talent Julia whatsherface-cant-get-back-my-15minoflife-after-reading-her-lameness-in-Wired, the designer and "community" chicks, the high-powered VC women, and the one or two technical female founders (re Leah Culver).

I've met some really talented technical women out there (see the women of Meebo) and I've learned a lot from just talking to them and giving them the leg up of YC, LB, or TS would be a good move.

Re: Y Combinator Mentoring for Women

#40

Post by fallentimes »

ALee wrote: post #38
aston wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. Not that surprising, really. Affirmative action exists. Even (especially?) in the best schools in the nation. It's not just for race, though. Women get it at tech schools, men get it at some state schools, and poor people get it anywhere where most students are wealthy. For the record, I'm an adamant supporter of AA. And not entirely because it helped me out personally. edit: I go through all this work to say som…

Don't worry aston, the News.YC audience is primarily white male libertarian (both right and left) leaning. Although it's a philosophically consistent position, I think it fails to recognize that there are deep inequities in society that the market/competition just cannot fix (and sometime the market sometimes exacerbates).

I understand there are inequalities. The fact that most of us were born in the United States or certain parts of Europe puts us in the top 5% (higher? 1%?) of the world.

The inequalities between Americans is almost trivial compared to the inequalities found between rich and poor countries. And even though I still do it, that's why I feel so foolish complaining about anything

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