Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

femfosec.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 1001 posts

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#591

Post by threwawasy1228 »

whatshisface wrote: post #528
bastawhiz wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lacks experience in X and Y which are key in product space Z. Obviously you didn't post the feedback, but I wonder how this was phrased. If the feedback was "improve X and Y", I think I sympathize with the panelist. The feedback was solicited! If it was framed as "unlikely to succeed because inexperienced in X and Y" then I think that crossed a line from critical feedback to a somewhat demeaning comment, even if it…

What the people in this thread are saying is that when there's nothing to gain by speaking, the most foolproof way to be mindful of how your communication is understood is to not communicate. That's a great life principle that goes a whole lot farther than this particular subject.

Completely agree, in the face of a person who is possibly hostile, or just in general a person that generates a lot of uncertainty what incentive could you give me not to stay silent?

People need to think about it in terms of incentives, what incentive do I have to try communicating with an incredible mindfulness and scrutiny that I might then fail at. The failure to do so properly could have potentially endless downsides? The default incentive is always going to be avoidance as much as possible. Not because of any desire to be sexist, but because is the instinctive path of least resistance.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#592

Post by 0_____0 »

scarmig wrote: post #548

A female founder acquaintance of mine (who's quite smart and capable) went on a Twitter screed a couple weeks ago. As it turns out, someone else had copied her idea, and her startup now had a competitor. The competitor was also able to raise a solid amount of money despite her being first to market and her having more relevant knowledge of the problem space (by her own estimation). So, this scenario isn't exactly unc…

I remember some comedian pointing out, racism (sexism in this case) drives people crazy. Because it's subtle. Very rarely are people nowadays blatantly racist/sexist, because they get called out for it. But imagine that every time you have an 'off' experience with someone, you end up wondering whether your race or sex had something to do with it. It only takes a couple instances of finding out that that 'off' feeling did in fact mean racism or sexism for you to suspect that you just experienced discrimination every time it's possible. This understandably drives people f*** crazy.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#593

Post by Google234 »

maxerickson wrote: post #475
flumpcakes wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (it's not at all a given that the situation would blow up in his face…) The article was talking about risk. Risk isn't binary, if it was then there wouldn't be a risk... > minor risk to reputation I think the article, and at least from some candid comments in this thread, indicate that people perceive this risk as much more than minor. Almost as if not being labeled a racist or sexist or homophobic (founded or not)…

Right, they are cowards that put their perception of some risk ahead of doing the right thing, and they only act like that when they deal with women. Like what do they do if a man falsely accuses them of some trespass?

No one will care if a guy calls some investors an asshole on Twitter...

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#594

Post by vmception »

gerash wrote: post #529

I'm not a woman but I'm a minority in other dimensions. I've always felt labels such as "female-led", "female-owned", " " do the opposite of what they intend to do. That is, they paint a picture that this minority group is not capable enough and need a lot of hand holding so everyone please bias your decisions towards their success to the detriment of other groups. If that's not enough, currently there are few reperc…

> I'm not a woman but I'm a minority in other dimensions. I've always felt labels such as "female-led", "female-owned", ""

We didn't do those things for one venture and a lot of people that would have liked to support or be inspired by us had no idea we existed, never being included on lists

When we did do those things, we got the highest engagement on the articles because half the people would be supportive and mostly members of the same group, and the other half which typically were not of a minority group would argue about why it was mentioned at all

and I have no opinion on that, the outcome reminds me of gullibility? something about how easy it is to play the population like a fiddle, its kind of like setting a glass bottle on the edge of a table and watching what happens

my actual opinion is always remember who is shaking the bottle

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#595

Post by soueuls »

I mostly agree with the article, I have been in a position of giving business/career advices a few times in my life, and I also remain silent (or plainly refuse to interact with women/poc) for this exact reason.

Whenever I am asked for advices or feedback I am often in a position where I have nothing to win, I would gladly help and genuinely share my knowledge so that other people don't make the same mistakes or gain a different perspective, but there is a small probability I will lose something (reputation, being labeled a sexist or whatever)

Therefore, pure logical reasoning push me toward "not helping".

I am more lenient with people I have known for some time (even if they are just acquaintances). But for strangers/employees who seek advice, I stay far away from women and only interact with them if another person is in a room, or I am being recorded.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#596

Post by [deleted] »

sneak wrote: post #491
kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj wrote: post #259

I 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 point here is you can't talk to minority groups about anything these days, if you are white. I don't think that these universal sort of statements are anywhere near universally accurate. There has certainly been a shift about what is an acceptable public topic lately, but "anything" is certainly false.

[deleted]

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#597

Post by easton »

akudha wrote: post #403
ta-ffsmcu wrote: post #51

I can see this happening with myself (male, for the record). I'm usually someone who gives feedback quite frankly, am more critical of others' (and my own) work than average, etc. Over recent years I've read so much about women being passed over, cut off, terms like "microaggressions", women getting less talking time in meetings, etc., that's it's made me extremely self conscious. It's not even that I'm afraid of get…

I feel the same way. A lot of the emphasis is placed on the words and not enough on the context, intent behind those words (by everyone, not specific to male or female or any other group here). People have learned to keep quiet. And when they do speak, they use highly polished, politically correct language (silly example - first time my manager said he is taking a "bio break", I was confused. Took me a second to unde…

What’s the thinking behind the term “bio break” instead of “I’m going to run to the bathroom”? Sounds like something out of Futurama to me.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#598

Post by uyt »

kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj wrote: post #259

I 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…

I was discussing programming puzzles with a new group of colleagues. The way these discussions typically go is that after most of us solve it, they will start giving hints/spoilers to others to keep the conversation flowing.

So I did this as usual and offered a hint to the last person (who was a woman) to not see the trick this time. It surprised me when she looked visibly upset and asked me why I was explaining it to her. I'm guessing this is because of her own insecurities that she was worried that I thought she was too dumb to solve it on her own otherwise. Up until this point her gender was irrelevant to me. I only explain stuff because the value of discussing interview problems is to get practice solving and explaining stuff to each other. But now I have to question whether I was "mansplaining" or not.

This minor event bothered me so much I never talked to her about programming puzzles ever again.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#599

Post by [deleted] »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #82

> I’m not going to suggest a solution to the problem of men clamming up. I find this a little frustrating, they’ve noticed a pattern of behaviour that concerns them in an area they are clearly invested in - yet they have no thoughts or suggestions on how to address this? Is it possible they are not offering such thoughts because of the same issue they have highlighted in the article?

[deleted]

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#600

Post by rubatuga »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #430

The other day, I was in a Zoom meeting with another man and a woman. The call had too much latency, and the conversation was a tad heated, so we were all interrupting each other to some extent—but I noticed halfway through that I was interrupting the woman more, and she was speaking the least. Just like in all the research. While I certainly didn't go silent for the rest of the meeting, I made a concerted effort to l…

You guys could implement a RTS-CTS protocol
Post reply on HN