Please stop saying it’s hard to find female founders
medium.com
medium.com
Honestly, does the author here not see any possible benefit to what the organizer has done here? Maybe they only go strictly by incoming applications and don't have time for a steady founder outreach efforts beyond basic marketing. Is there a theme that keeps these events running with a certain culture? If so, prompting attendees for people they know to apply is almost certainly a better way to maintain that culture moving forward.
No good deed goes unpunished.
The event was certainly publicized somehow, and if you actually care about diversity it should be possible to post the announcement in a few focused groups.
It's just so... ironic.
The irony is that being around other like individuals brings people together, and people naturally like that. The issue isn't that you're joining up with other similar people, but with keeping dissimilar people out.
The implicit presumption here is that if you were a woman, your life experiences would otherwise be identical and those experiences would result in you feeling that way. I highly doubt that to be true.
I suppose you could say that growing up as a female with the attendant experience (harassment, unwanted touching/comments, assumptions about your role, etc) wouldn't change your opinion, but without having actually lived those experiences I wouldn't put much stock in that comment.
Now there are women who do feel that way and I respect those opinions. But as those groups do exist (and btw, a group geared toward women is not the same as "female-only") there are clearly lots of women who don't feel the same. The conversations between those two groups of women are worth listening to.
Maybe harassment is an issue, not that I've experienced it in my country, but creating seperate groups and focusing on gender even more is just making the entire issue worse. It won't stop any harassment in public spaces either.
I don't go because I need or want any special accommodation for gender, nor do most other women I know.
We prefer woman-only events because attending mixed events is made uncomfortable and annoying by a small minority of unpoliced men. I mean, what are we going to do about that, make a scene because some poor guys are unusually awkward and persistent (as pop culture instructs them to be)? Easier to just skip them and find our community elsewhere
I don't think the world needs more segregation between genders and I find any attempt to do so ironic as it is the exact opposite of any gender equality from my view.
I'm sorry that people is harassing you or that you've had bad experiences but I think most people have had bad social experiences even if the details is different for the genders.
VC have so many people pitching ideas and companies to them every day. they don't need to go looking for more.
It's extremely competitive for everyone and I think what they are saying is that they don't have many female founders coming to them and pitching.
This actually makes sense because the number of Female founders is much lower than male founders and only a small percentage of each will take the time and effort to pitch their idea to the VC.
You may think you were being funny with your eye-rolling pictures randomly selected from TV/movies, but it does nothing to actually help your cause and your
Now, the other part of this is the companies the female founders were pitching. Venture capitalists will only want to go that extra step if they think the idea is worth the investment and can make a quick ROI.
Since there aren't as many women there in the first place (we don't have exact numbers, but the article), and the ones that are there have to have an idea worthy of a pitch, my point still stands. Getting a pitch is mostly about having a good business idea and not about race or gender.
I keep reading that women are paid 70 cents to the dollar to men. If this were actually true, why wouldn't the venture capitalists be fighting each other to get cheap labor?
After reading the article again, I'm also a little shocked that the author is trying to make a point about being excluded while at the same time pointing to an entire list of groups that are exclusive to a specific gender or sexual preference.
Shouldn't we be fighting for equality instead of creating more exclusive groups? Why do you expect this behavior of others if you can't behave that way yourself?
> I keep reading that women are paid 70 cents to the dollar to men. If this were actually true, why wouldn't the venture capitalists be fighting each other to get cheap labor?
This doesn't even make sense, since founders are not employed by VCs. But regarding the talking point you're repackaging, the idea is that people actually value women less then men so they wouldn't recognize the bargain they're getting. But the topic is much broader including, for example, jobs traditionally reserved for women to have lower wages across the board, even when the requirements are the same. An example I seem to remember is nurses vs. <some technical job I forgot>: both require comparable education, but nurses are paid 30% less per hour.
> After reading the article again, I'm also a little shocked that the author is trying to make a point about being excluded while at the same time pointing to an entire list of groups that are exclusive to a specific gender or sexual preference.
That's answered elsewhere in the thread, but basically the thinking is it's ok because (a) women may need these events so as to avoid being "grabbed by the pussy" and (b) it's a false equivalence because these groups don't create injustice but try to make up for existing injustice. See also every argument about affirmative action ever.
> Since there aren't as many women there in the first place [..] getting a pitch is mostly about having a good business idea and not about race or gender.
This seems to be making the point that it's not statistically significant if of four chosen founders, none are women because the number of women in the population of founders is equally low. Let's say only a quarter of founders are women that gives about a 30% of an all-men panel of four (0.75^4). That's not significant based on the standard p-value cutoff, but I'm almost sure this isn't the author's first event and she may have gone into it with a certain `prior`.
I want equality for all and you try to tell me it's Sexism. We live in a truly twisted world.
"the idea is that people actually value women less then men so they wouldn't recognize the bargain they're getting."
What proof do you have of this? This isn't the 1950s anymore. Times have changed. In every company I have ever worked, both small and large, there were women at every level..and paid accordingly.
Women have their equality and it's not good enough. They need to now dominate. In my experience in the workplace, women were way more sexist than men. Towards hiring both men and women.
Men can't really do anything about it, because they aren't taken seriously.
"This doesn't even make sense, since founders are not employed by VCs. But regarding the talking point you're repackaging, the idea is that people actually value women less then men so they wouldn't recognize the bargain they're getting."
The wage-gap has been debunked multiple times. When you account for experience, education, position, and factor in that many women leave the workforce for different periods of time to have children, the pay is actually about 1-5% different.
"An example I seem to remember is nurses vs. <some technical job I forgot>: both require comparable education, but nurses are paid 30% less per hour."
It has nothing to do with sexism and more to do with the free market. Nurses are not really in that much demand and the supply is much greater, so you will get lower pay. Male nurses get paid 30% less as well, so I don't think you really have a point.
If women want the same pay, they need to get the same experience and education as men and compete for the same positions.
There are many high-paying fields dominated by women like veterinarians, biologists, and pharmacists. Nobody seems to care about diversity here.
It's also interesting that women only fight for the cushy, office jobs. What about the extremely dangerous or messy jobs that men dominate? Garbage workers get paid over $100K in many big cities and I don't see any women fighting to get these jobs.
"women may need these events so as to avoid being "grabbed by the pussy""
I suppose when people get 'grabbed by the pussies', they better hope the assaulter's wife won't use their political clout to humiliate them in public and deny them their day in court.
"t's a false equivalence because these groups don't create injustice but try to make up for existing injustice. See also every argument about affirmative action ever."
How doesn't it create injustice? You are excluding men from these organizations and painting all men with the same brush. This doesn't even meet the textbook definition of 'diversity'.
The civil rights leaders of the 60s fought for inclusion. The leaders of today? They fight for more segregation through small, authoritarian groups.
Affirmative action is a funny one because it actually makes me second-guess anyone that got their education as a result of it because it means they weren't good enough to get it on their own.
This is a form of racism and is exactly why minority groups will continue to struggle in the US. You automatically assume that minorities are so stupid, they need to be given extra points to get into a university.
"Let's say only a quarter of founders are women that gives about a 30% of an all-men panel of four (0.75^4). That's not significant based on the standard p-value cutoff, but I'm almost sure "
Founders and VC aren't based on pure statistics and percentages of the population. It's very difficult to be successful enough to have VC money and there are many other factors at play here. It's also difficult for a founder to have an idea/company good enough to get VC money.
I still never heard the business ideas from the woman in the article nor the other founders she claims were rejected. They could be terrible ideas. We shouldn't be so quick to assume it's sexism.
People that are rejected in business or in life always want to blame other people for their own shortcomings.
The point of contention, as clearly stated in the article, was that he appeared to be actively looking for female founders... but making no actual effort.
Your other points are largely irrelevant to the situation but...
VCs are not the 100% rational actors you seem to think they are. They don't do DD the way you think they do DD. It's just not a 100% efficient, unbiased system. They're also in many cases not really looking for a "quick ROI". More often than not they're actively avoiding a "quick ROI"...
Implicitly, I think it's likely that VCs /do/ care about race and gender. I think it's likely that many VCs have a subconscious picture of what a "good" founder looks like, and that incorporates gender/race biases.
Every VC I've ever met is looking for an ROI within 1-2 years. Compared to the regular pace of a company where you could make a profit in 5 years, it's quick.
"Implicitly, I think it's likely that VCs /do/ care about race and gender."
Being called a 'sexist' or a 'racist' can mean the end of your company/career these days, so I seriously doubt a VC is going to have any bias towards women.
I also don't really like when people use the term 'implicit racism' because it means you will never be able to prove it one way or another. You are trying to read the mind of a person and finding them guilty in the court of public opinion.
No, no. He ignored the woman writing this article specifically. And now she is writing telling us that being a woman should give her special access to be a founder at the event disregarding the fact that she is or isn't qualified for the task.
You want that from dozens of people, he singles out 2 of those people specifically for a job that envolves some kind of expertise, not because they are good at it, but just because they are woman.
I guess this is the "equality" thing I keep hearing about...
In this specific case, the event organizer wanted to include women, specifically because they were women. According to the article. He said he couldn't find any, and was actively seeking them. But seems not to have explored the resources available.
Honestly this happens a lot. Because event organizers are embarrassed that their panels/events appear to be men only events.
But they don't actually care that much, just want to pay lip service to the idea. You can argue that he shouldn't care if they happen to be men only events, but pretending to care makes him disingenuous.