Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up • Hacker News Board

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#881

Post by raducu » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #864

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…

If you take a step back, you could actually look at this as a sign of progress in society. Things are moving enough for sexism to be a concern to a company - even if it's for cynical reasons and it has been weaponised by a dishonest person. Progress is bumpy and people can end up suffering during a transition.

The problem is what is good for society can hinder progress in certain individuals, as in this case.

It's not just a regular weapon, being acused of sexism or sexual harassment or God forbid rape is a nuclear weapon, it can do such tremendous damage to an innocent man with zero damage to the one making false allegations that there's no wonder men a really careful.

We have reached a local peak for sexual equality, but I don't think it is possible to move forward as long as mens lives can be completely destroyed by false allegations.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#882

Post by b112 » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

vmception wrote: post #554

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…

I just want to say that all the light greyed out comments match my upbringing and worldview as well Without an explanation about which parts people find disagreeable, assuming thats how people are even using the voting system here, I have no idea what the real world consensus is or what they wish for it to be

This comment is an incredible thing to use as an example.

You made this comment hours and hours ago. Yet in that time, 'what is grey' has changed. Things have been voted up and down. And who's to say that 5 years from now, 10 years, the 'web theme' of this site won't change.

And then grey means something else.

Now what you've said has changed, due to how the 'culture' on this site has changed.

Meanwhile, there have been people examining comments, and actions, people made even decades ago. Comments and actions taken out of context, single sentences quoted out of paragraphs from emails/etc, and then social media destroys them without care.

Not only must people now 'clam up' against current threat, but all potential future threat. A comment well received by a friend, can 20 years later be taken out of context, that context being historical, cultural, and personal.

And on top of all of that, a friend can become an enemy 20 years later, for entirely non-sexist, just normal person-to-person reasons. People can and do change over time, sometimes not for the better.

So:

* fear what you say now

* fear the future, for people will misquote 20 years later

* fear even female friends, for some may change over decades, and destroy you later

I don't think this is here now. But if the perception of what is happening continues much longer, it may.

Heck, I recall reading an article which coached men to "never be alone with a woman", for "she could claim anything later". This thought process makes it highly difficult to even give advice in private!

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#883

Post by rowanG077 » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 9:42 AM UTC

bastawhiz wrote: post #513

random5634 wrote: post #460

Female founder friend (non tech space) was in a female focused incubator / competition. She got only one set of somewhat critical feedback - ie, lacks experience in X and Y which are key in product space Z. She posted a comment on her social media focusing on this feedback as "criticism" that came from a sexist guy "of course". It was pretty easy to draw the line to the three panelists, one of whom was a guy. Ouch. I…

> 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…

It might be demeaning. But it's still not sexist.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#884

Post by AussieWog93 » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 9:56 AM UTC

foobiekr wrote: post #842

paperwasp42 wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a woman, I adopted this solution about a year ago. I will literally tell new teammates, "Look, I'm new to this career, I have a TON to learn, and I would love to be critiqued and given advice on how I can improve. I operate under a good-faith policy, so I will always assume you're being helpful and not condescending, unless you're overwhelmingly insulting (ie: telling me women aren't made for leadership roles.)" I…

The problem is you can retroactively change this policy at any time and re-interpret past comments.

There's not a chance that she could do that without every professional relationship she holds exploding in her face.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#885

Post by kstenerud » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 9:56 AM UTC

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…

The problem is that a number of good movements have been infected by the "right to not be offended" crowd. Once that happens, you're no longer allowed to disagree or ctiticize lest the mob tear you to pieces.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#886

Post by luckylion » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 10:05 AM UTC

daamsie wrote: post #778

noisy_boy wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an argument for wrong reasons. Should female co-advisors get designated to talk to female founders? What if they themselves accuse the male colleague of sexist behaviour by asking them to speak to female founders? What is next, we need brown people to talk to brown people and black people to talk to black people and so on?

That is not what I am suggesting. Co-advisors should be on an equal footing in terms of the power dynamics. They can discuss amongst themselves any advice that they feel might be obstructed by biases and should be able to do so frankly. If others in the advisor group agree on the advice, then they can then present their advice as a group rather than as an individual to the person they are advising. At that point it d…

That sounds like you'll need a committee on every piece of advice you might give out and that would be extremely inefficient.

> The advice comes from a group of diverse people and is then far more defensible against accusations of sexism, racism, etc..

You'd by insurance against accusations, but you'll either just have people in that advice-committee for insurance reasons, or you need to have 10-15 people to do one person's job, because you need to represent all the larger groups, and their intersections.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#887

Post by visarga » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 10:09 AM UTC

curiousmindz wrote: post #868

insert_coin wrote: post #822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem. America was supposed to be the land of the free, where anyone from anywhere could have an opportunity didn't matter who they where. Instead we created African-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Gay-Americans, Straight-Americans, Native-Americans, etc, and everyone is out for themselves. And everyone is against one another. Female-led, Black-led, Latino-majority, who gives a fuck. Do…

Sadly, it is not as simple as that: Imagine a society of squirrels and hamsters where squirrels have been oppressing hamsters for centuries. Then, one day, they decide to stop doing that and treat everyone the same. On average, a young squirrel will come from a family that is vastly richer and better educated than a young hamster. So, if they have to compete "fairly", the hamsters will remain much poorer for centurie…

That would be like believing in original sin for squirrels, instituting the bad end of 'affirmative action' on them, all in the name of fairness of course.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#888

Post by runawaybottle » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

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…

There is a form of entitlement that is becoming pervasive where people believe they will walk the world and face none of its ills. If you are a woman you will 100% deal with sexism. If you are a minority you will 100% deal with racism. If you’re not in the ‘in group’, you will deal with isolation. This is part of life.

We as a society only step in collectively when these things happen at an egregious level (what was going on in Hollywood), but if you think you won’t face some degree of it in your daily life then you are just not covering your bases. One must have the resiliency to deal with some of it, and that is fair and reasonable to expect because the contract is we are tolerant of imperfect humans as a society (that those who are sexist and racist have a flaw but are not evil, and we tolerate this imperfection through patience). It’s never going anywhere.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#889

Post by mcv » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

random5634 wrote: post #753

pm90 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won’t even pretend to know enough to be able to solve this problem. But does your social circle not include other female friends that you could discuss the optics of this situation with? Or better yet, be honest with the female friend that you wanted to advice, pointing out what she had done before and expressing your apprehension in providing critical feedback?

This is a fair question - not sure why you are getting down votes. Background - I'm actually on the left a fair bit. So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them. I'm not looking for that either. In terms of my colleague who I'd mentored in past (before things had gotten more extreme). I think others h…

> "So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them."

Well, yes and no. I can see how it's a burden, but they're also the people with the most hands-on experience. If they won't explain, how can anyone else learn?

Because it is a serious problem, and not solving it is not acceptable. Of course men, or whichever the privileged group in any particular case is, have a responsibility to listen and learn, but that only works if someone is willing to explain.

Although I'd love to agree that it's the responsibility of the oppressor or privileged group to fix the problem, it has got to be a collective responsibility. You can't help people without the involvement of the people you're trying to help.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#890

Post by globular-toast » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 10:24 AM UTC

throwitaway12 wrote: post #118

I am so thankful to work in an environment where everyone is just... normal. We don't have to walk on egg shells when speaking. Men and women can still interact like it was before I started reading about such insanity.

Just wait. I thought that was true too until a male colleague was dragged across the coals after a female colleague overheard something and took it out of context. It only takes one time.