If anyone wants career advice that makes sense from a human perspective, her blog is a must-read. You just can't dish out career advice without considering human happiness and human nature as a whole.
If anyone wants career advice that makes sense from a human perspective, her blog is a must-read. You just can't dish out career advice without considering human happiness and human nature as a whole.
This is the 21st century. Are we really still talking about "natural imperatives"? If nothing else, note that women are having fewer and fewer children, later and later - clearly, they are feeling this "natural imperative" less and less.
Traditional gender roles are unfair to women wanting to have a career, unfair to men who want to stay home with the kids, and far more rigid than needed. Having some "standard patterns" makes sense, but there should be more than one, and the freedom to deviate from those.
I am puzzled by this sort of comment. There are certainly things that I do as a male that I consider to be built in behavior. I do not see any reason to think that women would not have similar.
The reason people object to the naturalistic fallacy in arguments on this topic is that it is typically used to argue for the status quo by people who benefit from the status quo.
If you would like to see an example of it in action, read the Texas Declaration of Causes of Secession and the Cornerstone speech. There you can see rich white people explaining how black people are natural slaves, unfit to any higher role in society. Which was certainly a convenient argument for them to make.
All I'm saying is that "everybody is the same" type positions ignore reality.
The root comment in this chain claims that women's natural imperative is to raise children, with the implication that encouraging women to do startups is therefore wrong. That's also an ethical stance, one justified by the naturalistic fallacy.
All animals, people included, have built-in behaviors. But that tells us nothing about what the right behaviors are.
I don't believe anybody is seriously opposing that position. I certainly am not.
It seems to me that you are seeing an argument where none exists.
I do think that "imperative" is a little strong. But males are biologically different from females in all species, and in all species this translates into behavioral differences. There's no such thing as a species where males and females don't show behavioral differences, and in particular in regards to mating behavior and reproduction.
Certainly humans, as a whole, in first world countries are failing to mate effectively. Children are being had later or not at all. But women still show a comparatively greater interest, despite this overall trend. It would be foolish to claim that the 21st century has made natural behavioral differences irrelevant.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39699 http://www.ted.com/talks/arianna_huffington_how_to_succeed_g...
Besides your counterpoint being blatantly wrong, I don't understand why something being an "affront" to what you feel is the entrepreneurial "spirit" is a valid argument at all.
It's like Christians saying evolutionary theory is an "affront" to Christianity. It very may well be, but that doesn't mean that evolutionary theory isn't correct or have merit.
I don't support any dogmatic approach into shaming people doing anything. People should have accurate information without distortion and lies. They should have different options presented them in a pro/con fashion. They should be able to be themselves without feeling bad about it. Only shaped by harsh reality and their own interests, not by the opinions and preconceived notions of other people.
Whoa there. I can't think of any position in this debate that can be strengthened by such a contemptuous statement.
Not to mention oxymoronic. "Raising a family" isn't "difficult and challenging"? Egad.
Agreed that raising a family is difficult and challenging.
I actually agree with the point about feminism being to some extent a prejudice of its own that makes some women feel bad about wanting what they want. But they're figuring it out. We're, what, 50 years into this? That's lightning-fast change. It's fine to let the pendulum swing back and forth a few times.
The more pressing question in the long run might be how we got into a situation where both men and women have to work full-time in order to have things (like a house) that a single-salary family used to be able to afford.
If by D/s you mean domination and submission - I'll take love between equals, thanks.
People (and in particular their brains) have not evolved significantly for a very very long time.
A lot of modern unhappiness is caused by people doing things which they are socially expected to do but which go against their primal urges.
The feminist movement is perhaps the classic demonstration of this. Many women feel that they should go and get that high-powered job etc. due to social pressure, but I think many of them would be happier if they didn't.
This problem isn't limited to women, of course. Men also feel social pressures to behave in more cooperative and less ambitious/aggressive ways and this causes issues for them too.
We have incredibly complex apparatus in our brain with a dedicated purpose of socialization. Empathy, language, and cooperation are things which humans would not be capable of if we didn't evolve to do them.
>If nothing else, note that women are having fewer and fewer children, later and later - clearly, they are feeling this "natural imperative" less and less.
On the other hand, maybe they are being misinformed and thus unwittingly making choices they later come to regret:
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/01/142725547/many-women-underesti...
I really thought that this kind of overly-simplistic "men do X, women do Y" was in the past now, but of course such things never die.
There was a time where it was generally believed women should stay at home and worry about the children rather than go to school, or vote. I am sure we will look back on this kind of advice in the same way.
I hope you see the irony in thinking that there is nothing stopping women from running startups, but they shouldn't want to, as women want to stay at home and look after the children.
While there certainly is help for women running startups, there is also still sexism at many levels.
There are lots of reasons why women still stay at home and look after the children other than genetics. One of the most obvious ones to me (from personal experience) is that men are looked down on if they are the primary carer for their children.
Institutial misogyny?
Unless something changed since October, she is living on a farm raising her kids.
http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/24/how-to-know-when-to-leave-...
1) She doesn't, as a comment below states.
2) I fail to see how your question makes any sense.
Tendency/Preference etc is not Absolute Law.
For example, a human's natural instinct is survival, yet there are still people willing to sacrifice their lives for others in danger, etc.
(I always hate it when someone takes some statistical observation and thinks it's very smart to point out that there are exceptions --or even worse, uses them to "prove" the statistical observation doesn't hold. Happens all the time in pedantic-land).
"""I really thought that this kind of overly-simplistic "men do X, women do Y" was in the past now, but of course such things never die."""
Overly simplistic? Just because there are counter-examples, and complex cases, doesn't mean that the generalization is overly simplistic.
To make sense of the world you have to generalize, that is not to give equal importance to a multitude of fringe cases.
"""I hope you see the irony in thinking that there is nothing stopping women from running startups, but they shouldn't want to, as women want to stay at home and look after the children."""
Nobody said "shouldn't", she said "wouldn't".
And, statistically speaking, most don't. Do you see equally as many women founders? Or do you think you can attribute that to some mysterious general sexist attitude that prevents them?
[citation needed]
There is no evidence that women naturally want to only raise children. And the implication that a woman who doesn't want spend all their life at home is a 'unnatural' woman, and there is something wrong with her, is a terribly, false, harmful meme to spread.
I find this comment offensive, since it spreads a meme that's completly against the Hacker ethic, which values meritocracy above pety ideas like gender, race etc. I'm flagging this comment.
>There is no evidence that women naturally want to only raise children.
Do you see what you did there? You (perhaps unconsciously) inserted "only" in the parent's statement, completely changing its meaning. Then you attack your modified statement as being sexist. Furthermore, nothing in OPs statement implied there was something wrong with a woman who chose differently.
Discussions on subjects like these would be much more productive if we could just take statements at face value without assuming all kinds of implied sexism.
You have part of a point about my "only" comment. However there is no evidence that women (and not men) want to naturally raise children. There is no evidence that there is anything "unnatural" about a woman (or man) who doesn't want children.
It doesn't mean the same thing doesn't apply to men, its just that this particular misconception applies to woman so that's where she's focusing her argument.
Natural vs unnatural is a complete red-herring. I agree that we all should stop using that word in discussions like this. It carries too many connotations and it implies beliefs that I don't think anyone has (that someone that deviates from "natural" behavior is wrong).
Certainly most women don't, but motherhood and founding startups are both such difficult jobs that it would be difficult to do both at the same time.
Trunk believes that more women are choosing not to do startups. That's not exactly the same thing as saying it's their "natural imperative". Because then those who choose otherwise are being "unnatural".
Also, the "natural imperative" thing implies that our current state of affairs is somehow the only possibility. Maybe the way investment works is currently broken somehow.
It's demeaning to suggest that women who choose not to do startups lack free will.
Treating individuals as mere instances of categories is a bit absurd, isn't it?
Hello, naturalistic fallacy! How surprising that you came to visit when a bunch of dudes are talking about what they think women should do!
> You just can't dish out career advice without considering human happiness and human nature as a whole.
This is an article that doesn't just say, "keep in mind not all women want to do a startup". It says, "stop encouraging women to do startups!" Parent post then links this advice to the fact that "human nature must be considered when we give advice". So it links the inaccurate assumption that "human nature" implies "all women want to have babies", which is about analogous to the assertion that all people are attracted to the opposite sex, to an endorsement of the article's premise - that nobody should ever be encouraged otherwise.
The downmod you gave me is actually because of my tone. Feel free in that regard. I've observed the Hacker News community to have an incredibly low tolerance for sarcasm as an argumentative device.
The title is "stop telling women to do startups". I think the distinction is critical. (Perhaps this is her own strawman, but I think its important to get correct where she's coming from). Telling someone what to do is saying you know better than them, that somehow they're choice is sub-par and they need to be corrected. That's what she is ranting against. The implied assertion that women who choose to downshift their career must be doing so because of hidden sexism, not because they simply choose to.