
The“Women in Tech” movement is full of victim blaming bullshit - sarahnadav
https://medium.com/life-tips/the-women-in-tech-movement-is-victim-blaming-bullshit-1861e6fffedf#.7uy3g6q76
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kazinator
> _Conference and panel organizers who “can’t find” diverse panel members
> should be fired. Point blank._

Based on what, not meeting some percent quota? The statistics for
demonstrating a bias is rather delicate. The simple fact that 12 out of 13
panel members happen to be male doesn't confirm a selection bias.

PG proposed a way to detect it:
[http://paulgraham.com/bias.html](http://paulgraham.com/bias.html)

Prior discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10483751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10483751)

~~~
sarahnadav
Also, I think that it is important to note that diversity has it's own value.
It doesn't generally get factored into the equation of who is going to be a
good speaker, but it should.

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forgottenpass
Why limit your goals to the trappings of power? Speaking at conferences and
easier access to venture capital strikes me as setting your sights low.

Furthermore, if you don't aim to be taken as seriously as anyone else even
when you don't get speaking engagements and venture capital, you'll find that
obtaining access them is an hollow victory.

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sarahnadav
Access to capital and influence are not the "trappings of power", they are the
definition of power in the industry. Both capital and influence are drivers to
getting shit done.

~~~
forgottenpass
Now you're talking about capital and influence. But they're not
interchangeable with talking at conferences and better access to a VC's ear.

In tech, talking at a conference is meaningful in a way that it isn't in a lot
of other industries. I'm not saying tech conferences are set to turn bland and
contentless any time soon, but there is nothing inherently influential about
them. They're just a trapping of influence that _could_ change with the winds.

VC is fetish. Venture funding is nether necessary nor sufficient to having
capital. Taking VC means a founder limits the amount they can make off of a
successful company and also ties that company to an unrealistic trajectory
reducing their chances of profitability. Finally, the founder doesn't actually
control the capital. They have temporary authority over someone else's, to be
used only for a specific purpose.

