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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

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Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#931

Post by benlivengood »

insert_coin wrote: post #822
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…

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…

> 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.

What actually happened is that most Black people were owned as slaves and contributed 3/5ths of a person toward state representation, Native Americans were murdered, defrauded, and forcibly resettled, and women couldn't vote for the majority of the history of the U.S.

> 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.

We created each of these subgroups by treating certain people so badly because of their traits that they banded together for protection.

> If we could forgo with the labels we would relieve so much pressure from society it's not even funny any more.

We tried; it didn't work. The Constitution was worded very generically without labels, except for laws specific to native Americans, and using "he" as a pronoun. Most following laws followed the pattern. The result? Slavery, genocide, disenfranchising women.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#932

Post by jenkstom »

nullsense wrote: post #128
DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

I'm really glad to see this here. I don't have a better word readily available than sexism for trying to talk about patterns like this but when I use the word sexism , I think people think I mean "Men are intentionally exclusionary assholes just to be assholes because they simply hate women." and that's never what I'm trying to say. I find my gender is a barrier to getting traction and my experience is that it's due…

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…

We already have a term for it: victim blaming. Just because someone is using a valid issue (sexism) doesn't mean they aren't using it as a weapon. When the victim acts in a more cautious manner that's perfectly reasonable. To call them out on that (non-imaginary) fear is victim blaming. The abuser in this case is someone with a personality disorder or some other mental health problem that means they will use any tools at their disposal to manipulate or control another person. It's not sexism, it's prudence. One would use the same prudence against men who used something to manipulate or control them. It would look different, but it would be the same thing.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#933

Post by deepsun »

SilverRed wrote: post #431
gweinberg wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why post from a throwaway account?

Because their workplace might be normal but the wider web is not so a comment like this could hurt future job opportunities. Especially on HN where you are not able to delete your account or comments.

You should be able due to GDPR, no?

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#934

Post by insert_coin »

benlivengood wrote: post #931
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…

> 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. What actually happened is that most Black people were owned as slaves and contributed 3/5ths of a person toward state representation, Native Americans were murdered, defrauded, and forcibly resettled, and women couldn't vote for the majority of the history of the U…

> We tried; it didn't work. The Constitution was worded very generically without labels, except for laws specific to native Americans, and using "he" as a pronoun. Most following laws followed the pattern. The result? Slavery, genocide, disenfranchising women.

If you are gonna fight for historical reparations at least get your history right.

The US didn’t invent slavery, didn’t perform the first genocide, nor the last, and didn’t treat women any different than any other modern society did at the same point point in time. The constitution is not responsible for any of that, despite all the “he”s you might find in it.

These problems have been with us for centuries. There is no society that has ever existed that hasn’t encounter them.

Progress only comes from realizing we are more equal than we are different. We should not go back to segregation, we should not keep creating labels-americans.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#935

Post by h0l0cube »

mbar84 wrote: post #917
h0l0cube wrote: post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> made some passing comment about the CSS quality not being "ideal" or something of the sort Not saying you weren't the subject of over-reaction, or not, but I think this is an example of sub-par feedback. It would be better to point out the issues in concrete terms, and say this is something that should be addressed, and why. And if you can't do that, you should ruminate on it until you can reify whether it is wrong…

It has only been in recent years that I have even been able to articulate what the issues are with the code of some junior developers. I was fortunate to find "Semantic Compression" by Casey Muratori and now I have something I can point to and language to use. Before that, junior devs may have perceived the feedback as either an undue imposition of my taste, intimidation or (if any of them had ever been a woman) toxi…

> Should we refrain from giving feedback before we have fully articulated the principles by which we would like our code to be written? What about the abundance of tacit knowledge that we can only hope others to learn by osmosis?

I think these are fair questions. Reflecting back on a younger and more arrogant self, I can see that I was quite more pushy with my opinions. And they were that, opinions. Having them challenged when I was no longer the best coder in the room was how I grew, but that required speaking in clear language, and having clear arguments. I think the sooner you learn to do this, the better, and it might challenge some bad ideas that you've held dear.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#936

Post by megablast »

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…

We don’t know what your wife said. This is such a useless story. My wife says something on a forum and was attacked. Ok??

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#937

Post by grammarnazzzi »

ntr-- wrote: post #603
danielvaughn wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are better and worse ways to communicate, sure. But fundamentally, you cannot control how people interpret the words that you say.

I disagree. Effective communication requires effort, but many people speak impulsively and fail to convey what they actually mean. If someone is unable to clearly express themselves without being misunderstood then either their thoughts need to be distilled further or the statement needs to be carefully worded. If I am not responsible for how people interpret my words, who is?

>If I am not responsible for how people interpret my words, who is?

This is backwards.

You have no control over how other people think, behave or react, let alone how they interpret your words.

Your words can be effective or ineffective conveyors of your thoughts. You are responsible for your words.

Your listeners can be effective or ineffective listeners. They are responsible for their interpretation.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#938

Post by simmerup »

Niksko wrote: post #922

If I were in the situation presented in this article, I'd simply speak my mind. I'm fairly sure that I've been a good ally to the women and non-binary folks in my life, and that people who know me would be quick to defend accusations of misogyny or bias. And if that proved to be incorrect, I'd re-evaluate whether I was doing enough to further women and non-binary people in the tech industry. If, as most in this comme…

This seems naive. When you see Twitter threads cancelling people, your colleagues aren't going to make a dent in that mob even if they are brave enough to stand up for you on public platforms.

Honestly, if it's so risky to give candid advice to anyone, why take the risk? There's no reason to. They can make it on their own afterall.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#939

Post by viro »

protomyth wrote: post #803
quicklime wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that particular situation, I'd stay silent. I agree there's a risk, and that this is a problem. Longer term though, I'd make sure we hire female investors into my VC fund. I'd take them along the journey of investing with this startup, and if I felt a female CEO needed to be replaced with a man, I'd discuss this with my investment partners. Any harsh feedback, if given, would be coming from all of us, and a mixed…

Any harsh feedback, if given, would be coming from all of us, and a mixed panel would be harder to accuse of sexism. Nope, a hostile founder/CEO will pick the men out of the panel and sick the mob on them. The women on the panel are either oppressed or anti-feminism. The mob doesn't care and won't hear the whole story.

> The women on the panel are either oppressed or anti-feminism.

"internalized misogyny" is the term you are looking for.

Re: Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

#940

Post by tyrex2017 »

darkerside wrote: post #179

It's not just about giving feedback, it's also about how you give it. "You should switch roles" is a terrible piece of feedback. "You are failing to do X, Y, and Z; and Fred is doing those things very well" is much better. It allows for autonomy in determining how the team wants to handle said feedback, whether it's swapping roles, improving at current roles, or going out and finding more aligned investors. Maybe doi…

I guess the feedback to switch roles is accompanied with reasons. Would be very weird to say the former and then hang up
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