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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#851

Post by ipnon »

random5634 wrote: post #470

Separately, another area where upside / downside risk of providing feedback is no longer good is in feedback to rejected candidates for positions. Folks have said this can still be done, but our office was burnt by giving feedback, and the person in general likes to argue with it which is already a drain. So anyways, no more feedback to folks not hired - period! Luckily this applies to all hires, you don't know at th…

In math books they only give solutions to half the problems because you learn more when you solve them yourself. :)

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#852

Post by mpweiher »

godelski wrote: post #526
Thorentis wrote: post #298

Earlier 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…

> Most people would consider crossing the street because there is a black man walking towards you as a racist action.

Yeah, and that is weird, isn't it?

Because most people nowadays would not consider it a sexist action for a woman to cross the street because there is a man walking.

In fact, these days it seems to be demanded of men to notice the situation and cross the street if they are walking near a woman, so to self-discriminate. And the man would be considered sexist/misogynist if they didn't self-discriminate this way.

It's all so wonderfully self-contradictory.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#853

Post by saiya-jin »

kylebenzle wrote: post #827
lgleason wrote: post #737

My wife, who is a second wave feminist that believes that women should be given the same opportunities, but are not victims, ran across some of the craziness a few years ago. She was in a tech forum where a woman was complaining about her experience at a company. It amounted to this woman having a perception that she was not being valued as much as a male colleague and was immediately jumping to the conclusion that i…

If nothing else this will be an interesting time for historians to look back on. At some point sanity must set in and after that I wonder how they will reflect on this period.

Well, its a pendulum that was swung for very long time into one extreme, and now it swung into the opposite similarly extreme one. We can hope that over time things will get to some sort of balanced state, but that might be a wishful thinking for very long time.

It's also quite geographic - in this case I mean US-centric (and spreads to rest of the western countries). Ie in eastern europe/former eastern bloc, there wasn't so much sexism, all women had to work and generally things were way more balanced. Not saying it was perfect, almost nothing there was, but to see current trends from that perspective looks like a bit as western world going slightly cuckoo.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#854

Post by ipnon »

soueuls wrote: post #595

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…

All I would like to add is to say what a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in when good natured advice is best avoided out of fear.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#855

Post by tehbeard »

easton wrote: post #597
akudha wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmm, reading into it it does seem to have been co-opted by corporate.

I've only heard it mentioned within gaming, and it typically means more than just bathroom (Encompassing instead a bunch of different biological necessities like bathroom, hydration, eating)

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#856

Post by ipnon »

igorkraw wrote: post #223

I'm a bit sad about how eager everyone is jumping on the idea that "candid advice" will always be construed as possibly sexist. I'm from Germany and we are famously blunt, so maybe there is a cultural aspect to this, but to me candor != risk of sexism. If your advice is candid, it also shouldn't leave any ambiguity..."I'm unsure about you doing the pitch because the last N times you froze up and you seem nervous agai…

In American logic the listener need only question your motivations to demonize you. Eg. "would you have said this if I wasn't {Black,female,Olympic badminton athlete}?" If you find this incredulous I assure you that although it is rare, a minority will accuse you and their accusations will be taken seriously by many.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#857

Post by raducu »

neycoda wrote: post #814
raducu wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a previous workplace. An otherwise cool female coleague kept making claims people were misogynistic, at first I thought she was joking or that she did have some claim, because someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke. Then I left the company, and I talked with an ez coleague who was promoted as a team lead. The guy was into some new age stuff, about helping everyone, and she was slaking/not…

> someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke "mysoginistic" in the sense of "I literally hate women" or in the sense of "I think women are less capable than men" or "I liked a physical feature of her"? There's more to choose from, the list of things that are called "misogyny" nowadays has gotten incredibly expansive.

You are right, I should have said sexist joke.

I witnessed such a joke, from a brogrammer -- he thought it was funny, but noone else did, especially knowing how sensitive the female coleague was -- someone broke a pot of plants and he said "Why should we clean it, we have plenty of women around here" -- I just know the guy, the tone of his voice, and so forth, and I know he just tried to be funny, but at the end of the day, that was a sexist remark, we knew it, he knew it after he said it, he should have apologized, but he didn't.

But that was the only instance that struk me as sexist, and the guy always helped female coleagues, in no way did see any other "bad behavior" from him, it was just that guys generally have thicker skins when it comes to jokes and jabs, and he was usually very friendly, I've worked in male teams that were outright toxic, he was nothing like that.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#858

Post by imtringued »

godelski wrote: post #526
Thorentis wrote: post #298

Earlier 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…

Let's say I agree with you, why create a world in which everything is sexist? Isn't the entire point that we want less of it?

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#859

Post by mpweiher »

staunch wrote: post #576
godelski wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> accuse someone of racism or sexism at any sign of prejudice

At anything that the most hostile interpretation possible could somehow construe as racism/sexism.

And basically, anything can be construed as racism/sexism given some of the current definitions.

Sitting peacefully on your couch minding your own business is racism, according to Kendi/diAngelo.

Treating women equally and not achieving perfect equality of outcome is sexism. Treating men and women differently in order the achieve equality of outcome: also sexism.

Leaving women to make their own choices, which may not exactly match men's, is sexism.

Giving women candid feedback is so sexism. Not giving women candid feedback: also sexism.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#860

Post by raducu »

temporalparts wrote: post #831
neycoda wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke "mysoginistic" in the sense of "I literally hate women" or in the sense of "I think women are less capable than men" or "I liked a physical feature of her"? There's more to choose from, the list of things that are called "misogyny" nowadays has gotten incredibly expansive.

I think the concept is pretty straightforward? It's if you believe women The last one, "I liked a feature of her" is not misogynistic absent of context. The context here is really important. It's like saying "I like your haircut". Did I pass up promotion for another person in a non-modeling job because they had a shitty haircut?

You are right that context is everything, but it works both ways.

You can make a sexist joke without being sexist, but it can still be inapropriate/unprofessional, and it can still cost you dearly.

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