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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#581

Post by axiolite »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #214
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #17

This is kind of the end result we're heading for, where you can only talk candidly with people who are equal or lower than you on the oppression hierarchy. The shitty part is that I'm pretty sure 99% of people are reasonable human beings but the media has to make it seem like that isn't the case so the risk equation changes. Similar to how kids used to roam around the neighborhood but now it's deemed too risky becaus…

I believe this phenomenon is more like overshoot in an underdamped system than being the end result. Rapid changes always lead to overshoot. I also think the amount of overshoot is proportional to the amount of sexism that was present in a society thirty years ago. I believe Northern Europe has been trending slowly towards gender equality since the 90s, and thus the amount of overshoot here is much less from the rece…

> the rate of women who experience sexualized violence per capita, are around 5x higher in the US than in Northern Europe.

That statement does not seem to be accurate: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/nordic-count...

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#582

Post by timwaagh »

Not surprised. A guy like me will say anything, because I'm just a small guy and I do not care what women or their sjw friends think. But these are serious people who play the game. And they have serious money and a serious reputation to protect. So it's much smarter for them to keep their mouths shut or even to avoid putting serious money into female-led firms they can't steer in the right direction.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#584

Post by julianmarq »

jberryman wrote: post #565
cynusx wrote: post #408

If 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…

> try harder? have more tact? [...] have a little more awareness?

But isn't the cautious behavior mentioned already an example of this?

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#585

Post by downandout »

hu3 wrote: post #574
downandout wrote: post #544

Earlier 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 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.

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.

Agreed, it sucks. But unfortunately in today’s environment, there are enough people creating social media backlash over well-intended advice that it is necessary. Successful people are taking career and social risks by merely speaking openly to people they do not know. The best way to lower that perceived risk for them, and to improve your odds of getting useful advice from a wider array of successful people, is to present yourself as someone who will not crucify them for trying to help.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#586

Post by Nextgrid »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #559
awb wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s probably both. The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Regardless of how rational this fear is, they are stereotyping new female founders they’re meeting for the first time based on what an X% of other female founder’s have done in the past. For the men, it’s probably a risk/reward calculation. Keep your head down and be polite and have ~0% chance of…

The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Not necessarily. In a social situation, you may be more afraid of what other people will think than of what that one person will think. If that one person misreads you and hates you, it's not some big career-ending problem. It only becomes a big career-ending problem when a whole lot of other people agree that you d…

> If that one person misreads you and hates you, it's not some big career-ending problem.

The problem is that the story will usually be told by the person who misunderstood the argument, and the other side's defense wouldn't have as much reach. "X is a sexist jerk" will gain way more clicks, attention and support than "I thought X was a sexist jerk but actually I misunderstood and we're all good - nothing to see here".

Furthermore nowadays there are plenty of people out there who love the drama and will be more than happy to keep pouring fuel into the fire, either for entertainment or in an attempt to virtue-signal how "better" they are by (appearing to) care about the issue. Worse, entire industries (social media) happily profit off this and encourage it by promoting the divisive content.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#587

Post by dolni »

herval wrote: post #539
dkersten wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-minority person, I often see people just being assholes. For example, some dominating dude who talks over everyone, who ignores others input, who takes credit for everything, etc. As a white male, when I encounter that behavior, I think to myself, wow, that guy is a fucking asshole. However, and I have experienced this, people who are in a minority often take it personally, that they're an asshole to them ,…

Why would you say something to defend the asshole? In your example, you interpreted the same - the guy was an asshole. Why give them a pass? In most cases I hear of people that claim they’re afraid of giving “candid feedback” to a minority, it’s almost always the case that the person is an asshole when giving feedback IN GENERAL as well. Maybe evaluating your general behavior first, before going all scared of this or…

> Why would you say something to defend the asshole? In your example, you interpreted the same - the guy was an asshole. Why give them a pass?

It's exactly this line of thinking that is so problematic. You assumed that the asshole guy was "getting a pass".

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#588

Post by thaumasiotes »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #188
nullsense wrote: post #128

Earlier 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…

> One of the really good things for me about hanging on HN is hearing "X happens to me too as a man because (reasons) and has nothing to do with gender."

I was interested to note something in the hiring page for the company wiki where I worked once.

It said the biggest red flag, an automatic no-hire, was a candidate confidently "explaining" things he didn't actually know. This was a big enough problem to be called out in the hiring policy. Interviewers were on notice to watch out for candidates who claimed to know something, but whose explanations were pure bluffing. Happens all the time.

The feminist literature, of course, refers to this as "mansplaining", except that mansplaining by definition refers to an explanation delivered to a woman. How is it different from the ordinary behavior? Well, it isn't.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#589

Post by Google234 »

insensible wrote: post #100
Der_Einzige wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This situation is extremely sad because the whole "have the confidence of a medicine white man" thing is a common slogan used by feminists to try to combat the general lower levels of self-confidence among women. I guess you yourself repeating the same woke quite took away the uniqueness of the idea as it would be articulated by a non privledged individual. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-15/carry-yourself-with-t…

I made a successful complaint to my HR department when someone used that very phrase. I very much agreed with the part of the person's intent to support and embolden the woman. But it's not OK to attack other people in the effort to support someone. Why not say something positive like "other people can do it, so can you"?

I’m also curious what a successful complaint means? Did the other person have to go through mandatory education?
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