
The Human Rights of Women Entrepreneurs by Reid Hoffman - dankohn1
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/human-rights-women-entrepreneurs-reid-hoffman
======
Mz
This is what I wrote earlier in reaction to this piece, then decided to not
post for REASONS, but given how this is going, I am going to throw it out
there now:

 _Oh, give me a break.

This piece posits that we need to punish male VCs who sexually harass female
applicants.

First of all, this approach (of doing things like basically boycotting them)
is so ridiculous and impractical that it amounts to saying "I want you to
think I am a highly ethical person, but I don't actually want to do anything
about the problem. I just want to say things that sound good so I will look
good."

Second, it gives zero remedy to the women who were seeking funds from VCs.

A much, much better answer would be to find a solution that involves getting
money into the hands of the female entrepreneurs who not only had to put up
with this shit, but also (in most cases) did NOT get funding from these men
who see them as nothing but sex objects.

Failing to find a means to get more funding into the hands of female
entrepreneurs also de facto reinforces the current status quo. Advocating some
kind of punishment for the men who assaulted them while doing nothing to
remedy the material harm done to their career aspirations makes you part of
the problem, not part of the solution.

I don't really care if any men get hung high here. What I really care about is
how in the hell do women get more opportunities? And everyone is so focused on
being angry and outraged and also outraged at the presumed lack of outrage
that no one can be bothered to do anything about this critical piece of the
puzzle. Yet, it is the single most important thing here and it is the one
thing I never see anyone talk about at all.

Why is no one starting a fund to get monies into the hands of female
entrepreneurs in the face of this problem? I am not seeing that piece happen.

Am I wrong? If I am wrong, please link me to the fund that someone has started
to get money into the hands of women in the face of this._

~~~
fpig
Maybe I am biased because I am not in SV and my company funds itself, but you
don't have a right to anyone's money / funding. That is an extremely entitled
sentiment.

People aren't starting a fund to fund women entrepreneurs because it is simply
a less effective way to make money than funding whoever you feel will be the
most profitable regardless of gender or any other such consideration. When I
decide what to do with my money, I do whatever I think will be the most
profitable, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is not my responsibility
to pay to fix the bad things other people do. And you probably do the same
with your money.

Edit: I don't want people to misunderstand me, I do believe you have a right
to other people's money in the sense that I agree with the government taxing
us and helping those in need (like healthcare and education for everyone,
etc). But I don't believe you have a right to someone throwing a ton of money
at your startup. It just sounds ridiculously entitled.

~~~
Mz
I'm just going to leave this here and then step away from the insanity here on
HN:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-crux-
of-...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-crux-of-
problem.html)

~~~
fpig
You "backed" someone who has a large amount of karma on HN and you expected
this to result in some significant positive effect on your life? And you think
if you were male, this would have been the case? You also feel people on HN
are partly responsible for your financial problems? O_O

I am sorry that you are homeless, I think nobody deserves that and that the
government should fix this problem but I think you have an unrealistic view of
how the world works and an unhealthy relationship with this web site.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Your comment here is at least as harmful as edw's "man up and face your
problems" comment to aaronsw. You need to restrain yourself in this situation.

------
zdean
"I don't often write immediate reactions to recent news."

This is a peculiar statement to start with. Was this "news" because it only
now came to his attention via _this_ particular article. Was the head of the
largest social network dedicated to the "world's professionals to make them
more productive and successful" ignorant to the reality that half of them were
facing in HIS industry for so long or was it simply not an issue to him until
it was reported (for the umpteenth time) in this news article?

While I'm glad he's at least now publicly acknowledging the problem, I think
it'd be great for the men who want to solve this problem for women to be a bit
more humble, sit down, and listen to how women would like their human rights
acknowledged and respected.

------
rdiddly
Takes me to a LinkedIn sign-in page.

"I guess I'll never know."

------
rectang
> YES, MANY OF US DO CARE

But this story will still be flagged off the HN front page in 5, 4, 3...

The amount that we care is greater than it appears.

EDIT: Called it.

------
jacquesm
Human -> all sexes. Women -> one sex. If you're going to talk about Human
Rights then by definition you can't be talking about a single gender.

~~~
eigenstuff
So... a bunch of school girls in Africa being kidnapped and raped and forced
into marriages can't be considered a violation of their human rights because
those responsible didn't do the same to little school boys, too?

~~~
jacquesm
No, obviously not. All cows are animals not all animals are cows kind of
difference.

Really, is it that hard? There are no specific Human Rights of Women
Entrepreneurs, there are _only_ Human rights of _all_ Humans including Women
Entrepreneurs.

That women entrepreneurs have human rights need not be stated because they are
humans too.

Which by the way the article uses as a hook but then totally fails to expand
on.

~~~
zdean
Focus doesn't mean exclusion. (borrowed)

~~~
jacquesm
Neither does it mean extrapolation beyond intended use.

If we're going to try to re-frame the whole tech issue with being hostile to
women as a human rights issue then we have bigger problems. It's assholes
being assholes, they're not going to be impressed by any appeal to higher
morality such as the human rights. Besides that plenty of corporations make
large amounts of money _because_ they trample those very human rights. If you
want to go down that road then what we are looking at right now is a 'first
world problem' and can be safely ignored until we've brought the rest of the
world up to the level where they can complain about how the women in their
tech sector are being dealt with.

The way I see it is simple: shine as much light as possible on those that are
_actually_ committing these acts so that it can be made perfectly clear that
such behavior is absolutely unacceptable.

No violation of human rights needs to be implied, this is simply a case of
inter-human error and frankly a lack of education.

If you're a guy in tech treat women (and in general others) the way you'd want
your mom or dad or brother or sister to be treated. That single rule should
make things a lot better.

~~~
zdean
"... then we have bigger problems."

Yes, I think this is precisely the point of this issue...that the problem IS
bigger than just some outlier assholes and extends to a systemic bias/-ism
towards women in tech and probably many (most?) other industries. Which, if
true, necessitates that we frame the problem as an attack on the human rights
of 1/2 the population.

