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Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

You're misunderstanding those figures, he meant that they're proportionate.

85.2% Male and 14.8% Female founders are rejected. If anything, I'd say a lot more male founders are rejected vs female. 5.75675675675676x more male founders are rejected compared to female founders. But still there is sexism involved towards the females. Why can't we accept that a lot less women are interested in entrepreneurship and technology than men? I do not intend sexism, but a majority of female entrepreneurs I've come across sell nail polish/stickers and necklaces. Not exactly sure why that kind of business requires going through an accelerator. Now I know I will get downvoted to hell for pointing out the truth, but we can't force women to do something they don't want to do just so that we can have everything 50-50.

> Why can't we accept that a lot less women are interested in entrepreneurship and technology than men?

Because "accepting" it means conceding that it's an unalterable and permanent condition - often times expressed as a biotruth about women being one way and men being another.

Most people feel that isn't the case though. That the disparity is a social problem that we can change and fix.

> Most people feel that isn't the case though. That the disparity is a social problem that we can change and fix.

Recently saw a really interesting well-researched Norwegian documentary that explores this topic and kinda throws that whole view into question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE

I think you might be having trouble with the math.

it's not 14% of female founders rejected, its 14% of rejected founders were female (while about 13% of accepted founders were female). There's no male persecution going on here.

I meant that from the total 100% of rejected founders, 85.2% were male and 14.8% were female. I'm not saying its male persecution, I'm only saying that what the article is trying to say(that females are being oppressed and discriminated against on the basis of gender) is untrue, and there is more than one way of looking at the data. I can very well say that from the group of rejected founders, almost 6X more male founders were rejected than female founders, so male founders are being discriminated against. I am only trying to say that the journalists are implying what they want to imply from the data, its their perception, which is, in this case, far off from reality. There are a lot more females in education, healthcare, etc., compared to males, I don't see journalists saying that men are being discriminated against in those fields. Its because while a vast majority of women are interested in education and healthcare, a vast majority of men are interested in technology and entrepreneurship. There is no discrimination on the basis of gender.

> Why can't we accept that a lot less women are interested in entrepreneurship and technology than men?

For the same reason that 50 years ago nobody should have believed that women were less interested in going to college, becoming a doctor, or becoming a lawyer.

All of those are at parity now, but 50 years ago people were spouting opinions just like yours. They were wrong.

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