Reminds me of the controversy with ArenaNet and Jessica Price moreso than Elizabeth Holmes tbh
Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
571–580 of 1001 posts
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#572There's a dark irony to the idea that the defenses against sexism (standing up and calling people out) are also causing an unintended secondary sexism by discouraging equal treatment out of fear of accusations. I've held the belief that if a someone can't recognize and clearly identify the differences between criticism based on merits and criticism based on bias, then there is no point attempting to do "what they wan…
I think trust is the issue, a person coming to you for answers is coming from a place of vulnerability. I've solved this in the past by asking the person if they want a comforting lie or an honest truth. I still provide feedback in both ways but the honest truth path is what is taken by most people who are able to take negative feedback correctly.
Everyone thinks they want the honest truth. Has anyone ever told you they want you to lie to them?
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#573While I have no doubt that the author's examples are true, and of course sometimes feedback is misinterpreted. However, I've never found this line of argument compelling. Yes, as a man, sometimes you do have to be careful about how you give feedback to female founders, coworkers, or employees. It's a skill to be developed just like 1,000 other little skills you need to develop be reasonably successful in life. This s…
If that were the case, HR wouldn't require oftentimes to have more than one person in an interview or a different sex involved when there is a male HM with a female interviewee.
The vocal minority of these twitter feminists have in essence, made most womens lives move difficult because they have actively sought doxing methods of firing people for honest mistakes. They think everybody needs to be perfect and it's impossible for anyone to make mistakes.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#574Anyone who is pragmatic and willing to take open and honest advice/criticism from people they respect needs to advertise themselves that way in today’s environment. It is on the entrepreneur to convince the person from whom they are seeking advice that they will not regret giving it. As an alternative, perhaps investors should offer an optional “advice NDA” that would allow them to speak more freely, with less fear o…
For the (at least) 2 people that downvoted this: what part of this comment is controversial or offends you? I don’t see it, and I would love to understand. Downvoting without comment does no good for anyone.
I upvoted. But I think you got downvoted because people don't want to have to advertise themselves as "willing to take criticism". That should be norm. Perhaps we agree and you should clarify your message.
Sometimes I get harsh criticism, I can get momentaneously defensive and it hurts a ton but you won't see me lashing back at the person and chances are you'll see me thanking them.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the (at least) 2 people that downvoted this: what part of this comment is controversial or offends you? I don’t see it, and I would love to understand. Downvoting without comment does no good for anyone.
I didn't do this in this situation, but I sometimes downvote by accident in an attempt to collapse. There are a lot of people on this thread so it could have happened.
the "undown" is such a quick and onbious fix if you fat-finger a tiny tappable here
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is described in the article isn't sexism - it's fear. Fear of being labeled as a sexist.
Fear based actions can still be sexist though. We're talking about treating people different based on their sex. Let's draw a parallel. Most people would consider crossing the street because there is a black man walking towards you as a racist action. Sure, not burning a cross in their lawn racist, but racist nonetheless (it's a spectrum). I would argue that people that do this do so because they are afraid of said b…
> ...but racist nonetheless (it's a spectrum)
It didn't used to be a spectrum and it's a terrible innovation that it's viewed that way today by so many. Racist used to refer to people that believed in the inferiority and superiority of certain races. Only recently has it become socially acceptable to accuse someone of racism or sexism at any sign of prejudice. This is a major cause of the divisiveness in the culture today and if you're doing it, you're part of the problem.
When we talk about people's prejudices it causes us to examine potential solutions in a productive way. When we accuse someone of being racist or sexist, we imply that they're beyond redemption, and we can skip right to hating them and feeling superior about ourselves.
Anyone interested in having good faith conversations should actively avoid labeling anyone or any action as a racist or sexist. The genuine racists and sexists are usually more than happy to self-identify as such. Everyone else, and I mean everyone else, is just a mixed bag of good and bad prejudices that can, with work, be improved over time.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#577I had an experience at work where a coworker (who is black) shared his experience of being told to "stay in his lane" early on in his career. The insinuation was of course racism, he didn't mention it but it was obvious. Then I and someone else (who are white) shared our exact same experiences. He told me he felt cut off, etc, even though we were sharing the same experience. If we had something similar happen, how ca…
The question is whether it’s really the same experience. One could try to give the benefit of doubt and assume the situation isn’t the same. Figure out the difference. Subtle and not so subtle structural racism means situations aren’t the same for people different colors, even if at first sight look the same.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#578I had an experience at work where a coworker (who is black) shared his experience of being told to "stay in his lane" early on in his career. The insinuation was of course racism, he didn't mention it but it was obvious. Then I and someone else (who are white) shared our exact same experiences. He told me he felt cut off, etc, even though we were sharing the same experience. If we had something similar happen, how ca…
Lost me at that last sentence.
Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#579If you are a woman you can easily counter this behavior by labelling it and saying that you don't have a porcelain skin. Bonuspoints if you laugh about a guy giving you super bad feedback and how this did not bother you. Putting people at ease around you (especially customers) is a critical entrepreneurial skill. You can't blame people for being cautious when a lot of people are buying into victim-narratives and conv…
Or maybe these fragile adult millionaire men could just... try harder? have more tact? Maybe we should have higher expectations of these men to have a little more awareness? All that's assuming this phenomenon is even real, and not just an excuse for the author to grind her PeE cEe cUlTuRe axe; the whole thing is conveniently framed with "oh, but of course none of these people I'm not naming could ever admit that wha…
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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like reverse sexism here. I totally get the behaviour here. You simply don't want to be on the receiving end of potential backlash when you're just trying to help someone. The calculus being you feel as if you might make a genuine remark only to receive a response interpreting said remark as the product of sexism e.g "out of persons A and B, I think B should run the company" where A is a woman and B is a ma…
One example I overheard was a female engineer talking to another female non-engineer outside their workplace just about their experiences in their jobs. I heard the female engineer remark something along the lines of "the Architect often shoots down my ideas because I'm female". I sat thinking to myself... That's interesting because the architect shoots down my ideas too (different workplace, so I don't _know_ her si…
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