

What would the male-only version of the Female Founders Conference be? - tomasien
http://istommydrunk.svbtle.com/the-maleonly-version-of-the-female-founders-conference

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SimianLogic2
I don't agree with the mirroring proposed by this post. A true mirror would be
a Male Founders Conference focused on the problems that male founders
specifically face (maybe dating / work-life balance / fatherhood / fitness /
???). Closing the gender gap is the wrong takeaway (I think).

Having nitpicked the author's take on the FFC, I'll throw out my own: it seems
like a mistake to make it a female only event (or am I misreading that?). I
could see a lot of value (for women) being generated by having high profile
(male) VCs and tech advisors attend the conference as well. Right or wrong,
the vast majority of advisors and VCs are men at the moment, and educating
them on how to help female founders seems just as valuable as educating the
founders themselves.

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detcader
As I understand it, the conference isn't female-only, it's female-
prioritizing.

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lingben
this whole tempest in a teapot reminds me of Morgan Freeman's sage comments on
"Black History Month":

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh8mUia75k8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh8mUia75k8)

To paraphrase:

"I'm going to stop calling you a 'female founder' and I'm going to ask that
you stop calling me a 'male founder'. I know you as Jane Doe and you know me
as John Smith."

If your goal is to create unity and harmony, it is a funny tactic to focus on
and amplify that which separates and differentiates rather than that which is
shared and common across any of the perceived 'differences'.

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orthecreedence
From what I understand, it's not so much about unity as it is preparing women
who wish to be founders for the challenges they will meet _specifically as a
female_ in the tech industry.

Also, on a long enough timeline, ignoring differences between groups of people
may equalize them if participation is high enough, but it can often help
things along a lot if more energy is put into the side of the misrepresented.
That's not to say this can't be overdone, there's a balance, but equality
doesn't come from just sitting around _not_ being sexist/racist/whatever. You
often have to convince others that you are deserving of having a place at the
table. Source: civil rights movement.

I happen to think women in tech are pretty under-represented, and having a
conference that prepares them better for a male-dominated industry (as well as
networking with other men and women alike) is a good thing.

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smsm42
I like this part:

This could take many forms, but my suggestion would be helping men, especially
men who believe they are in no way sexist, identify some of the biases they
have and some of the things they do that make women uncomfortable. We could
talk pretty openly, get some of the horrible things we believe off our chest
because we’d be explicitly there to identify and combat them,

So there's no possibility men who think they are not sexist actually aren't
sexist. They just haven't been properly shown _how exactly_ they are sexist.
They haven't been shown how uncomfortable they make the women around them (and
this is a topic so deep even a specialized conference can cover only "some" of
it). They haven't been exposed to the fact that the things they believe are
actually horrible and need to be combated.

~~~
tomasien
There's some possibility men who believe they're not sexist aren't sexist, it
seems unlikely that it's a common thing though. It would take an incredible
force of will for anyone to be totally devoid of the influences of patriarchy.

~~~
smsm42
Postulating existence of the "patriarchy", whose grip is unescapable, makes
the argument perfectly circular. Of course (nearly) all men are sexist, what
do you expect if they are influenced by the patriarchy? And of course
patriarchy exists - what else you expect from the sexist men?

~~~
tomasien
It's not a circular argument, it's a circular reality. That's exactly how
things actually work - we're raised in patriarchy, so we all carry some of
that with us. The goal is to carry less and less over by becoming conscious of
it. Then the circle becomes an inward spiral, continuing to perpetuate itself,
but getting smaller all the time.

~~~
smsm42
Is it? We're talking about it for four generations at least now, and all men
are still irredeemably sexist. When we know that it got small enough so a man
has a workable chance of not being sexist? 25 years? 50 years? 100 years? Who
would determine that and how?

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SEJeff
One word... sexist. It would be called sexist. While I'm totally pro female,
exclusivity is still bigotry no matter how you look at it.

~~~
rfnslyr
Not at all. Why must there be a label associated with everything?

I supposed girls nights out are now sexist as well, or just chilling with the
guys and no girls.

How far will it go?

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SheepSlapper
Any time you distinguish a group based on gender by definition it's sexist,
plain and simple. Is that _bad_? Arguably not (then again, some people would
say it's an issue).

Once you start to give one group preferential treatment based on their gender,
that's sex _ism_. There's a difference between the _-ist_ and the _-ism_ , but
it's an important one :)

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tomasien
Jessica and PG if you see this - there are some assumptions I made about you
guys and the conference in this piece that I will correct if they're wrong
(namely - the timing of the conference is somewhat in response to the
Information incident and the goals of the conference). Just let me know. It's
not the core point, so I'd love a fact check there.

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cperciva
I think the male equivalent of the Female Founders Conference would be a Male
Elementary School Teachers Conference -- or possibly a Male Daycare Workers
Conference.

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detcader
Except in most fields where women dominate demographically, men face few
issues (men are actually, in my experience, _praised_ for doing carework) and
are actually paid more than women on average. FFC is obviously more than just
"women are sparse in tech"

~~~
cperciva
_men face few issues_

This is certainly not the case for the male elementary school teachers I've
heard speak about their experience. Unless you don't consider being accused of
being a pedophile to be an issue...

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detcader
That's not an "issue" with being a male elementary school teacher, that's just
too many men being pedophiles.

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barry-cotter
I regret I have but one downvote to give. This guy really thinks that all male
primary school teachers should be presumed paedophiles unless proven
otherwise. Or maybe a more charitable interpretation would be that paedophilia
is a normal male thing. Either way this person makes Mary Rosh look like a
decent human being.

~~~
detcader
Not sure how you got any of that from what I said. The public image of the
pedophile is male for a reason. "Most sexual offenders against children are
male" (Lisa J. Cohen, PhD and Igor Galynker, MD, PhD (2009-06-08).
"Psychopathology and Personality Traits of Pedophiles". Psychiatric Times.)

If pedophilia was as common in men as it is in women, no one would be
stigmatized. On the other hand, women in programming face problems,
marginalization, violence, from men, _just for being women_. But if you didn't
understand that initially I doubt you will 15 minutes later.

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smsm42
I wonder if statistical approach is ok to apply to only men or everybody? E.g.
if group X statistically commits more crimes, proportionally, than its share
in population, is it ok to presume every X is a criminal unless proven
otherwise? If group Y statistically produces more false statements on topic T,
is it ok to assume, unless very strong evidence to contrary is given, that any
statement of a member of group Y about topic T is false by default?

>>> just for being women.

And this is different from you justifying stigmatizing every male as potential
pedophile by statistics - how exactly?

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detcader
"is it ok to presume every X is a criminal unless proven otherwise"

I never said this? I don't think that men should be assumed to be criminals.

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smsm42
You supported the idea that men are stigmatized as criminals by providing
statistics that criminals are encountered among men. I am just asking if that
applies to any criteria and any group.

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tomasien
Admins: what happened to this post? It's been bumped from the front page
twice, is there something wrong with it? If it's my account, I'd love for
someone else to re-post it - you can even take the text and put it on your own
blog I don't care. I feel this is worth discussing.

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cperciva
People are flagging it, probably because they don't want to see yet another
thread on this topic.

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tomasien
Oh. That's too bad!

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1dundundun
Or you could try reading the post before responding...

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7beersonthewall
Male Founders Conference???

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tomasien
I'd love for you to actually read the post if you have a second - even if you
stand by that opinion, I think you'd have more to say if you read it.

