
XX Combinator - ciscoriordan
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/07/xx-combinator.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AVc+%28A+VC%29
======
mindcrime
I'm all for more women founders and women hackers, and for making sure
opportunities are available and doors are open, regardless of gender. But I'm
not convinced that this would be doing a lot to address the underlying issue.

    
    
      She says that number represents the applicant pool. That  
      is extremely troubling to me, and suggests that while Y 
      Combinator has done great things for technology, 
      something structurally, while unintended, is keeping 
      women out.
    

If women are being "kept out" that _is_ a problem and should be addressed. But
at they really being "kept out" or are they just not interested (at least not
in the same proportions as men)?

Disclaimer: I'm a 37 year old male, and I could be totally offbase on this
observation, but from where I'm sitting, it seems that women simply don't grow
up wanting to be hackers, or startup founders, in the same numbers that men
do. I think stats on enrollment in computer science / software engineering
programs bear out at least the first part of that, at least in part. Certainly
when I was in high-school I never knew even one girl who had any interest in
programming computers, and even in college I don't remember any of my female
friends being interested in that. So, is there something genetic going on, or
is it just a cultural indoctrination thing, or what? If it's the former, maybe
there isn't a problem at all. If it's the latter, then we certainly want to
make sure that doors are open for the women who _do_ want to get involved in
this space... I believe ardently that opportunities should be gender neutral,
personally. But I also don't accept that there's any _particular_ reason why
the numbers of men and women in any particular domain must be equal (or even
near equal).

I haven't looked up the stats, but I'm near 100% sure that there are far more
male underwater welders, oil-rig roughnecks, and auto mechanics... but you
don't see blog posts and articles complaining "where are the women in
welding?"

Now before the downvoting starts, let me reiterate.. I'm 100% FOR equality and
being gender-blind in terms of giving people opportunities. I just think that
we should focus on that, and not the raw numbers in the end. If women are
being excluded from things, then that needs to be fixed, yes. But if they're
not here simply because they're not interested, then we should question if
that's an actual problem (I'm not saying it isn't, I just allowing that it's
an open question).

