
How to Break Out of the 'Female Entrepreneur' Trap - itsybaev
http://www.inc.com/shelley-prevost/break-out-of-the-female-entrepreneur-trap.html
======
tptacek
Shelley Prevost has never been a startup operator. Her background is in
psychological counseling, and she serves that role (in what looks like a team-
coach or leadership-coach kind of role) at an incubator.

That doesn't disqualify her from having opinions about how women should handle
gender-based bias, team dynamic, and motivational challenges in startups. But
it doesn't automatically qualify her, either.

Meanwhile, I read this piece twice and it seems like it's full of platitudes.
Maybe women leading startups face problems that are not best addressed by
"Find other ways to get support, then keep moving" and "not living in the
sting" and "amplifying your problems".

~~~
chacham15
"Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant
of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come
from outsiders. The question is whether the author is correct or not. If his
lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those out. And if it
didn't, it's not a problem."[1]

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

~~~
tptacek
First: That is not what I asserted. What I said was subtly but importantly
different: that her piece was full of platitudes and thus her prescriptions
rely on her authority, which is worth examining. My point was substantive.

Second: There is no less compelling argument to make on HN than a citation to
that post, particularly when the argument involves the word "ad hominem",
which for some reason seems to be a particularly difficult concept for message
board nerds like us to grok.

~~~
chacham15
>Shelley Prevost has never been a startup operator. Her background is in
psychological counseling, and she serves that role (in what looks like a team-
coach or leadership-coach kind of role) at an incubator.

> That doesn't disqualify her from having opinions about how women should
> handle gender-based bias, team dynamic, and motivational challenges in
> startups. But it doesn't automatically qualify her, either.

These two paragraphs do exactly that. The third paragraph could have stood on
its own. I was not arguing against you, I was simply pointing out that most of
what you wrote was to dismiss what the author wrote without reason. If your
point was indeed not so, then why not leave out the first two paragraphs? What
do they add?

~~~
tptacek
I feel like I'm repeating myself. My point was that she wrote a piece that
effectively relies on the authority of the author, and that authority was
dubious.

Think of it this way: if she was a reporter or science writer writing a
sourced, reported piece --- or even if she was an essayist constructing a
series of arguments for why women shouldn't be talking about their challenges
publicly or attending symposia --- her authority would in fact probably be out
of bounds. But this piece is neither of those two things.

~~~
chacham15
>her authority would in fact probably be out of bounds.

This is exactly the question, why does her authority matter at all?

~~~
nollidge
The point is that, in tptacek's estimation, she provides no _evidence_ for her
assertions, relying on us, the audience, to trust in her purported experience
and authority.

Another way to look at it is that she's committing an appeal to (her own)
authority fallacy. Pointing out fallacies is not ad hominem.

------
hkmurakami
This sounds alarmingly close to the dangerous "women can only succeed in
_business_ by acting like men" attitude that is prevalent in much of more
traditional businesses and particularly in more conservative cultures around
the world.

There are real biases and subconscious prejudices against female
entrepreneurs, female engineers, and female professionals in many industries
in general that will most likely perpetuate if ignored (which imo is what this
article suggests). While ignoring the possibility of potential pitfalls
_might_ work, it definitely doesn't seem like an elixir that will cure all
ills.

~~~
dspeyer
Your post seems to imply that solving problems and focusing on goals are male-
specific patterns of action. That's a rather more dangerous meme.

------
adsenseclient
Let me be frank: I received a 1 page resume of a female computer scientist,
where the word "women" was mentioned 8 times (organizations, etc). We did not
interview that person, since frankly we were _scared_.

~~~
rdouble
Women are scary to computer nerds.

~~~
unconed
More precisely, it's the way women can wind other computer nerds around their
finger. The sword of attention cuts both ways.

------
startuup
Being a woman entrepreneur, and having been part of an incubator for startups
(ImagineK12), I have to agree with what she is saying in this article. Even
though we were the ONLY women founder team in an incubator with more then 30
men, I never saw myself as different from my male co-founder peers.

Its important to focus on results. Driving product, customers, team, company
requires similar skills whether you are a woman, man, white, black, gay,
straight. Using your contraint as an excuse will not let you see your full
potential.

I personally dont have anything against women organizations, but I try to not
partake in them often because I dont feel the need to. I am happy to help
other women succeed, but I am happy to help other men succeed too. If you stop
looking at the world as 'us against them', there is a whole lot of new
opportunity you will open up for yourself.

------
helipad
Title of article: "How to Break Out of the 'Female Entrepreneur' Trap"

First line of article: "As the lone female founder of a bustling incubator..."
- or is that whooshing sound the joke going over my head?

------
tgrass
Ignoring reality does not make it go away.

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/05/171196714/the-
jobs...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/05/171196714/the-jobs-with-
the-biggest-and-smallest-pay-gaps-between-men-and-women)

~~~
omonra
It has been mostly debunked - and is attributed to choices people make:

Here is Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, explaining that the portion of
the gender wage gap due to bias and prejudice is about 25% of the total gap.
That is 75% of the gap is due to various career choices and career preferences
that differ between men and women, and the remaining 25% is due to bias and
prejudice. So if the wage gap is 24 cents on the dollar, the wage gap due to
bias and prejudice is 6 cents. Still something to think about and work on, but
a whole lot less inflammatory than 24 cents.

[http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/05/01/robert-reich-
answers-...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/05/01/robert-reich-answers-your-
labor-questions/)

“Q: I’d be interested to know your thoughts on the feminisation of poverty and
the male-female wage differential. How much of that is due to career choice?

A: Rough estimate: About 50 percent of the differential has to do with
different career choices made by women and men. Twenty-five percent involves
greater time women spend on care-taking of children and elderly relatives. The
other 25 percent is due to bias and prejudice in the labor market.”

(citation - this comment:
[http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/12/17/profit-
opportu...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/12/17/profit-opportunity-
if-women-earn-less-than-men/#comment-194717))

~~~
AlexandrB
> Here is Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, explaining that the portion of
> the gender wage gap due to bias and prejudice is about 25% of the total gap.
> That is 75% of the gap is due to various career choices and career
> preferences that differ between men and women, and the remaining 25% is due
> to bias and prejudice. So if the wage gap is 24 cents on the dollar, the
> wage gap due to bias and prejudice is 6 cents. Still something to think
> about and work on, but a whole lot less inflammatory than 24 cents.

This analysis is incomplete and doesn't really debunk anything.

First of all, career choices and preferences don't exist in a vacuum. They are
partially the result of familial and cultural influence. Women are expected to
behave a certain way and like certain things - this undoubtedly has an
influence on which career they chose. Second, the way wages are set for a
particular career is not always a rational process. Certainly the market
influences how much someone is paid to some extent, but cultural and
historical factors play a role here too.

All this quote basically says is 25% of the wage gap is due to overt
discrimination, 25% is due to child rearing, and 50% is due to unknown factors
- including traditional gender roles and other more "covert" forms of
discrimination as well as personal choices.

Maybe studies that cover that last 50% exist, I don't know I'm not a
sociologist, but saying that you can just throw 50% of the disparity away
because it's "personal choice" is completely neglecting parts of the issue.

~~~
omonra
You realize that to claim a gender gap, you have to compare apples to apples -
same job, education level, hours worked between genders? And when all of this
is tabulated, there is no gender gap.

[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28246928/the-
gender-p...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28246928/the-gender-pay-
gap-is-a-complete-myth/)

"Why the Gender Pay Gap is a Complete Myth

Men are far more likely to choose careers that are more dangerous, so they
naturally pay more. Top 10 most dangerous jobs (from the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics): Fishers, loggers, aircraft pilots, farmers and ranchers, roofers,
iron and steel workers, refuse and recyclable material collectors, industrial
machinery installation and repair, truck drivers, construction laborers.
They're all male-dominated jobs.

Men are far more likely to work in higher-paying fields and occupations (by
choice). According to the White House report, "In 2009, only 7 percent of
female professionals were employed in the relatively high paying computer and
engineering fields, compared with 38 percent of male professionals."
Professional women, on the other hand, are far more prevalent "in the
relatively low-paying education and health care occupations."

Men are far more likely to take work in uncomfortable, isolated, and
undesirable locations that pay more.Men work longer hours than women do. The
average fulltime working man works 6 hours per week or 15 percent longer than
the average fulltime working woman.

Men are more likely to take jobs that require work on weekends and evenings
and therefore pay more.

Even within the same career category, men are more likely to pursue high-
stress and higher-paid areas of specialization. For example, within the
medical profession, men gravitate to relatively high-stress and high-paying
areas of specialization, like surgery, while women are more likely to pursue
relatively lower-paid areas of specialization like pediatrician or dentist.

Despite all of the above, unmarried women who've never had a child actually
earn more than unmarried men, according to Nemko and data compiled from the
Census Bureau.

Women business owners make less than half of what male business owners make,
which, since they have no boss, means it's independent of discrimination. The
reason for the disparity, according to a Rochester Institute of Technology
study, is that money is the primary motivator for 76% of men versus only 29%
of women. Women place a higher premium on shorter work weeks, proximity to
home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety, according to Nemko."

~~~
AlexandrB
I'm afraid none of this addresses my point and the question I implicitly raise
- namely _why_ do women choose the work they do?

I'm not saying that biology is not a factor - physically demanding jobs may
always be the domain of men - but there's little apparent reason for so few
women choosing computer and engineering fields besides socialization.

As for the business owner angle, I think another poster here had it right,
women tend to be bad at negotiating but even that has confounding factors,
e.g.: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/07...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072900827.html)

"Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for
more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".

"What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work
with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not,"
Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But
it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or
not.""

------
kategleason
holla!

------
ahoyhere
I very much agree with the premise but she's not a very clear writer. I think
she assumes the reader already knows what the problem is.

My take is that the more people focus on identity ("female" "founder" "hacker"
"HNer" whatever), the less they focus on results. Everything that happens in
their lives gets viewed through this lens of identity. Unfortunately, that
colors things in an unrealistic way:

"This guy trolled me because I am female" vs "this guy trolled me, and he
trolls a lot of other people with penises too, because he's a dick".

It leaves you ridiculously vulnerable to identity attacks:

"Top 10 Traits of Entrepreneurs" "Are you entrepreneur enough?" "Hacker News
is a wasteland" "Designers Suck At X"

Identity-involvement not only reduces your ability to see reality (you look
for the first fit explanation to any occurrence, and identity is always with
you), it also means you are really easy to troll and manipulate. Either by
insulting or questioning YOUR identity, or massaging it and propping it up ("I
have the traits of an entrepreneur! Yay!") ("Hackers will inherit the earth"),
or attacking your lack of support for their identities ("Why doesn't your
conference have 50% women?").

Finally, identity-involvement leads to a narrowing of experience -- "Do female
founders do this? Can they? Will I be fulfilling a stereotype? Will I be
letting people down?" "I'm a designer… designers don't x" "I'm a hacker, and
hackers care about the hottest technologies…"

It becomes about grooming, enforcing, and defending an image, rather than
results.

I see this a lot. It's a shame. I used to fall prey to it myself, wishing I
wasn't a woman because of people thought "woman" meant -- something I had no
interest in (hair, makeup, purses, women's magazines, women's meetups etc) --
and those other women "made me look bad".

But then I realized what an ego trip that was. "Woman," too, is just a label,
and by denying it, I was implicitly buying into its legitimacy.

Now I just do whatever the fuck "Amy" does, which is my stereotyped identity
sample size 1.

A friend of mine was concerned that her girly clothes and love of makeup make
_her_ less credible as a spokesperson for women's issues. One of these seems
like a concern about sexism… but both hers and my worries are actually about
the same issue (identity). Like me, my friend also has learned to simply
embrace _who she is_ and not worry that she's "letting other women down" by
simply doing what she loves.

It sounds to me that this is what the author is getting at, she just doesn't
lay it out that clearly. That's why she says things about women's symposiums,
talking about femaleness, etc., stressing about / regretting (instead of
using) the fact that you're the sole female in a thing[1], because those are
identity involvements. These points of hers, I agree with.

To those who will say that she is saying "act like a man" -- she doesn't.

To those who will say "this is glossing over very real sexism" -- please see
my example above about the troll. Often people assume that if something is (OR
APPEARS to be) sexually related, it's sexism. They look at the first possible
answer ("she's being trolled… she's a woman… it must be because she's a
woman!"). But 9 times out of 10, the guy who insults a speaker for being a
woman, insults another speaker for using JavaScript or being fat or wearing a
suit, or looking like a hipster. That's not sexism, that's an equal
opportunity dick, who simply seizes on the most vulnerable part of his
victim's identity. Yes, identity.

Is there real sexism? Absolutely. But is there any proof that women's
conferences and angry blog posts help?

Sure, it's annoying for some dude at a meetup to assume you're there with
somebody else. It's also annoying for some woman on Twitter to loop me into
"sexist technology" rants because I have breasts and therefore she expects I
agree with her. But that's just life. You can't control what people think, not
even of you. And the annoying people in both examples are just pattern
matching, which usually works, and not making a value judgment about your
person (aka sexism).

[1] (Aside: stressing about being "the only x" in an environment is often even
more about identity-confirmation -- _I need other people Who Look/Think/Act
Like Me to validate my choices are okay_ \-- as it is about exclusion. This is
the same reason some people _love_ being "the only x" -- it confirms their
identity as a renegade. Also, "the only x" is often not about physical facts
(sex) but also about viewpoints.)

~~~
tptacek
I think the angry blog posts help. I think most of HN is not aware of how
pervasive sexism and gender privilege assumptions are in Startuplandia. We're
commenting on Hacker News, a site run by someone who's most famous essay says
outright that he wouldn't want to work at an early-stage startup with a woman
with small children. In other words, I think even the people pushing gender
privilege aren't fully aware that they're doing it. The angry posts keep the
conversation alive, and that's the only way the culture is going to change.

Women's conferences, no idea. I think the idea sounds silly, but then, I'm a
guy.

My wife, also a developer, also a startup person, is probably more on your
side than on my side. Ironically, we started out with the opposite conflict: I
didn't buy that male privilege was a real issue, and trusted on meritocracy to
sort all this shit out. Now that's become her spiel, and mine the opposite.

(Look, here's her disagreeing with me on this very thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5287829>)

~~~
ahoyhere
What we think and what there's evidence for are diff things. Obviously
everybody's entitled to their opinions.

There is research that suggests, however…

* priming people to remind them that they belong to a stereotyped group actually causes people to perform worse (stereotypically) -- this is called stereotype threat, lots available if you googles

* guilting people about their culture's bad behavior / their personal bad behavior actually causes them to dig in their heels, not to feel bad and then change (because feeling bad is an identity threat (irony)) -- the study I'm thinking of for this one took young Germans and primed them to think about the abuses perpetrated by nazis (before they were ever born) and then polled them on attitudes towards Jews and found that the people who were exposed to the priming were less sympathetic, not more; the researchers had reason to believe this was due to the emotional knee-jerk reaction to guilt

And on and on. The _research_ suggests that the furor is probably
paradoxically counter-productive.

Furthermore, people who speak about "women in x" presume to speak for
everyone, but they sure don't speak for me or most of my female friends. But
they are painting us with the same brush because we've got the same genitals.
Bothersome.

As for pg's opinions about startup-women-with-young-kids, it fits well with
his other writing (programmers aren't just programmers, they're hackers;
hackers are artists; nerds are unpopular in high school because they're way
too awesome, etc) which is all about reinforcing identity. And of course he
runs a business which depends on extraordinary (I would say over-)involvement
with, and (over-)commitment to work. He also says he won't work with people
who won't or can't move, too -- a non-gendered but identical outcome based on
"devotion," not body parts or reproductive status.

~~~
tptacek
The people who consciously choose to believe that women are inferior to men in
software development, either due to misguided beliefs about genetics or
intractable upbringing issues, aren't going to be persuaded by angry blog
posts or anything else. They're already dug in to their positions.

The people who benefit from alertness to privilege, culture, and bias issues
are the ones running or helping influence the operation of development shop
who don't understand the problem. They're the ones who think "avoid hiring
women with small children in early startups" is an innocent enough statement
--- after all, they won't have enough time to put in. They're the ones who ask
women at interviews how they're going to handle picking up their children
after school. They're the ones who think if you spend 8-10 of your 14-16
working hours a day at work, it's only natural that you'd try to find dating
partners at work.

I believe you when you say that stereotype threat is a real problem with
"angry blog posts". Personally, I think the overt bias problem is so bad right
now that we can probably set stereotype threat aside until we cut back the
active prejudice a bit. But it's also worth pointing out that the mitigation
strategies for stereotype threat aren't "pretend the stereotype isn't a
problem".

~~~
ahoyhere
> Personally, I think the overt bias problem is so bad right now

See, that's where we disagree. I have watched many more men get torn down in
violent fashion, neglected, and excluded, than women. I think the overall tech
culture sucks period, I don't think it's got nearly so much to do with sexism
as you do. Like my example about the guy who mocks women speakers for being
women -- and turns around and mocks another speaker for writing Java. That's a
sex-related expression of general douchenuggetry.

Remember that time Yehuda Katz interrupted a speaker at a meetup, said
everything the speaker said was bullshit, and took over his talk? Yeah… nobody
else does either. Cuz it was a man who was done wrong.

My husband actually is on the receiving end of way more vitriol than me even
though I'm at least 300% as visible. And I _know_ I've sometimes received
extra consideration and protection because I'm a woman.

I'm not saying "Somebody pity the poor men." I'm also not saying women haven't
suffered. Please don't think I am saying that. I'm questioning the root of the
bad behavior, not how it feels to be on the receiving end.

Since bias is all in the interpretation of data, I'd love it if there was some
hard data we could compare. I don't believe there is, though.

> after all, they won't have enough time to put in

The best way to solve this problem isn't by writing blog posts about how women
with small kids can swim with the fishes, but by killing the culture of
overwork. By starving it, of men and women, by showing them that A) it's
harmful to them, and B) that it's unnecessary for their goals.

Laws would be nice, too.

I'd bet you any amount of money that this indirect approach is better, because
nobody gets their hackles up OR STEREOTYPED if you tell them, "You can achieve
what you want with 40 hours a week. Here's how." Instead of attacking bad
behavior, you support good behavior. Instead of attacking identity and trying
to change people, you show people who are already motivated (they want
something) how to achieve their dreams. Nobody likes being lectured, but
everybody wants to achieve something.

And, bonus, it's totally non-gendered… you help both men and women with the
same stroke.

(The downside is it's not as sensationalistic. But I consider that an upside.)

If you've ever read my blog, you know that I practice what I preach here. I
don't attack VCs or startups -- even though they richly "deserve" it -- I
don't ever address anything to them, hoping they'll change. I go for their
supply, the grist for their mill. Where I can actually hurt them… in the
economics.

This is deliberate, not accidental. I've been doing the same thing since I
started teaching marginalized visual thinkers how to code. Based on the emails
I've received over the years, I probably helped more women get into Rails than
any Rails For Women endeavor, not to mention non-neckbeard-types who were
male, simply by delivering information in a way that supported a different
learning style.

I don't think "shrink it and pink it" is a good way to sell products, and
equally I don't believe that making general issues a women's issue is an
effective way to create change.

EDIT: If you find the above approach interesting, consider reading Obliquity
by John Kay. Here's an essay that sums up the book (the book is still worth
reading): <http://www.johnkay.com/2004/01/17/obliquity>

~~~
rdouble
Is tearing people down at work an American thing?

I worked in Japan, and there was a culture of overwork, but it wasn't anything
like Glengarry Glen Ross.

~~~
ahoyhere
No, it's not an American thing, it's an ego thing, and America has lots of
great people and also a lot of huge egos and not a lot of cultural taboos to
reign them in. Some call this the "rockstar" or "brogrammer" problem, but
you'll find it in any industry where people think they're hot shit.

No doubt many people in Japan have large egos, but Japan also has
institutionalized politeness.

~~~
alinajaf
> but Japan also has institutionalized politeness.

Careful. They also have an institutionalized social hierarchy, baked into the
language and pretty much everywhere. It's expected that when you start at a
new school or a new company that you will be treated like dirt by your
'superiors' on an ongoing basis.

There's a _much_ higher tolerance for hazing and bullying in general. This
leaves me skeptical that Japanese culture fosters an environment where people
are nicer to each other than anywhere else.

Foreigners tend to get a free pass by being 'out of the system', unless their
Japanese(ness) passes a certain threshold of fluency.

