I can't even understand american sexism. Why do you divide coders, founders etc by gender? Why do you count gender statistics and want to change it? It's like Soviet Union in late 1920s but even more strange.
Female Founders
501–510 of 634 posts
Re: Female Founders
#502Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel. I'm not sure what people expect, exactly. Is pg supposed to give up all his worldly goals and possessions and live as some sort of equality monk? Should he know of and contribute to every one of the many groups and organizations involved in gender equality? And what exactly is wrong wi…
> Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel. That's because it's easy. The "sexism-accusers" don't have to do anything themselves to fight sexism. Anything concrete I mean. It's enough that they voice their anger and point their finger to this or that scapegoat (and ocassional real offender), and they can feel good, nay, champi…
Or maybe they had something happen to them or someone they know? Maybe they had someone's head on their shoulder crying their heart out? Maybe they tried standing up for them and were fired? Maybe for whatever reason they really understand what it feels like in a world where most people don't.
I'm one of those rage-queens you so happily deride here. I know it myself. I became one after I complained about a manager openly discriminating against gay employees and having everyone involved in the complaint, except for the manager in question, mysteriously being let go in the three months that followed.
Plenty of those "sexism-accusers" probably have similar stories so, pardon my language, but go fuck yourself for pretending we're all just some spoiled middle class rage warriors.
Re: Female Founders
#503Judging by the comments on this article, it would appear that once you've been labeled a sexist it is downright impossible to dispel. I'm not sure what people expect, exactly. Is pg supposed to give up all his worldly goals and possessions and live as some sort of equality monk? Should he know of and contribute to every one of the many groups and organizations involved in gender equality? And what exactly is wrong wi…
The thing that sticks out most is this: Of the very angry people who were repeatedly tweeting attacks at him after the Valleywag article, I haven't seen even one apologize. It's just sad. Edit: @antics, I just reread the stream of angry @paulg tweets from Dec. 28th and have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe I missed tptacek's tweet both times. Please don't attack me over it.
Maybe I missed tptacek's tweet both times
Re: Female Founders
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any statistics for your claim about female programmers in India? I have yet to meet a single Indian programmer who was female in the decade and a half I have been programming. In fact, the only females in tech of Indian heritage that I know have been US-born.
I don't have statistics, but Apple sent me to India/Infosys in 2009 to train their programmers, and it seemed about 50/50 to me (I worked with a few hundred people). I have no idea if that's representative, but I have no reason to think it isn't.
For a girl in India, studying computer science is one of the best options. Jobs are abound, pay relatively well and work environment is thousand times better and safer when compared to other industries. This I guess, explains what you observed on your trip.
Re: Female Founders
#505Despite how politically charged this topic is, as a female founder myself, I'm glad PG wrote this.
"[...]YC has slightly over 3x the venture industry average." Yes, 3 out of 12 female partners may be great compared to the industry average, but I'm disappointed that this is the first argument he makes for why he's not sexist. I'm not saying that PG is sexist, but all this argument proves is that gender discrepancies are still a problem (even if YC is above industry averages). 28% of US businesses are women-owned.
Everyone has biases (including myself)...it's a fact of human nature. It's no wonder VCs are somewhat biased considering in the past, the "successful" founders were almost always white males. I think PG so defensively saying that he and YC are NOT biased is problematic in itself. I wish he would have accepted that he (like every other human) is likely biased. It would have been nice to come away from reading this feeling that PG, personally, has a growth mindset.
It's great that PG and YC are trying to do more for female founders, but I'm a bit disappointed in the way his arguments were conveyed.
Re: Female Founders
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's such a shame then that they promote themselves as only caring for the part of their community that has a particular colour of skin. I honestly can't tell if you're trolling here. In case you aren't: that is not what they are doing, and it also isn't a shame. Helping out people who are historically disadvantaged and face current discrimination is nothing to be ashamed about. The goal is to level the playing field…
Haha, I see that you are still posting links to that scalzi crap.
And as long as guys are still acting in ignorance of their privilege, I'll keep posting that and similar resources.
But as long as we're talking about it, you might benefit by reading his FAQ in response to the post: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/17/lowest-difficulty-sett...
He's mainly addressing the straight white males of the Internet who thought the piece was crap, so it's basically for you.
Re: Female Founders
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
pg is neither a racist nor a sexist, but because he does not jump to support every pet cause of every self-described "social justice jihadi", he is lambasted as such. Well, guess what? pg is his own person. He's just a guy who invests in startups, not some sort of idol upon whom you can project all your transformational, social-justice dreams for the tech industry. Is there racism and sexism in tech? Sure. Is that pg…
Everybody is a little racist and sexist. It's quite normal for you to react differently depending on the visible characteristics of a person you are talking to, it's ingrained through millions of years of evolution. What's important is that you're not a dick about it, and you give people a fair shot in situations where those characteristics shouldn't matter. The cashier at the local taco shop speaks to people in Span…
Sure, but for most people "racist" or "sexist" aren't the first words that come to mind when they think of pg - that would be "investor" or "writer", for example. Bssed on his writing he seems like a reasonable, fair, and unbiased person. Misquoted out of context, you can make someone say whatever you want to further your agenda, of course.
Re: Female Founders
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell, it's a big deal because a lot of people hold as a normative axiom that the proportional representation of people groups (genders, nationalities, ethnicities, etc.) in organizations (businesses, governments, YC classes, etc.) ought to match their proportions in the general population. I suspect this is either an axiom, or a close conclusion from a broader axiom like egalitarianism. As an axiom, t…
I think this axiom only applies to inclusion in desirable groups or roles. It's hard to imagine even the most egalitarian thinker working to improve the male:female ratio among death row inmates, for example.
Personally I think a great way to improve the ratio would be to get everybody off death row.
Re: Female Founders
#509My main takeaway from reading this article and the comments here is: The awareness of this problem is still very nascent and more & more solutions are emerging, as are criticisms of people who are beginning to acknowledge this problem. To hopefully steer this in another direction, and because I have a little girl, what are some resources you all have seen that can help girls become interested and go into technical di…
Aside: I've looked at that BlackGirlsCode link a bit more and I'm quite shocked that such segregation is encouraged, lauded even. Now there's some argument to support educating the sexes separately but if you're an asian girl living in Brooklyn (say) you can't go? Just because you're Asian ... ??? Really? What if you're half-Asian+half-African, how about your skins black but you're South American. Damn. Do people rea…
I'm registering these domains as quickly as I can.
WhiteMenFromReallyPoorBackgroundsCode HalfDominicanHalfHaitianOrphansCode TransgenderThaisCode DarkSkinnedBraziliansWhoArentOfAfricanDescentCode
Re: Female Founders
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, if only MLK and the civil rights marchers had been quieter and more obedient, I'm sure racism would be less of a problem today.
Actually MLK acted perfectly (if a little too quiet at times, though he was portrayed much more obedient that how dynamic he was). The problem is with priviliged upper middle class white PC police, that are nothing like MLK -- and their "rage" is all show off and conforming to the social norms of their peer group.
>Actually MLK acted perfectly
Q: How many times was Dr. King arrested?
A: He was arrested 30 times.
Or go read Letter From a Birmingham Jail: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...
It was a letter rooted in anger: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/16/us/king-birmingham-jail-letter...
In it, he writes: "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word 'tension.' I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth."
And of course part of what helped MLK's public standing was that there were much more radical people than him. Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam shifted the Overton Window enough that MLK could look reasonable.
My point here is that social change is never comfortable, never easy, and certainly never welcomed by the bulk of the privileged group. Asking activists to be quieter and nicer is pointless; they already know what that gets them, which is being ignored. Which they've already had a bellyful of, or they wouldn't be activists.
People forced Paul Graham to confront the issue. And as he's a visible leader of the startup community, they're forcing everybody to confront it. Will that alienate some number of people? Sure. Would they have been advocates for change anyhow? Nope.
Ask yourself: what did those "more and more resentful" people look like in the civil rights era? Now ask yourself: is that the group you'd like to be remembered as being a part of?