

XX Combinator - jonpaul
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/07/xx-combinator.html

======
w00pla
Really?

There are always complaints about women in technology. Yet when I spent my
Saturday nights in an underground lab, there weren’t a lot of women in the
lab. The bar and social spots on the humanities side were full of them though.

Is it okay to have double standards? If we make women only organizations to
promote things, is it okay if we make men only organizations?

If there are complaints about too little women in engineering, why aren’t
there complaints about too few men in teaching or humanities?

~~~
sprout
I think organizations to get men into teaching and nursing would be valuable.
Teaching especially. When an industry is slanted towards a gender, it really
exacerbates groupthink.

I think you're mostly making a strawman argument. I don't know what your
opinion on the matter is, but I think that most self-described feminists would
agree that a dearth of men in teaching is just as much a problem as a dearth
of women in engineering.

~~~
hugh3
Teaching needs more men, because children (particularly boys) need more adult
male role models.

Nursing can stay 90% female for all I care, though. I think most men prefer
having female nurses (either of the hot variety or the motherly variety) and
I'm guessing most women do too.

------
petercooper
_Women who start businesses like to know what they’re doing, and be trained
and experienced in it._

What does this borderline-sexist generalization even _mean_?

 _First, there aren't enough women entrepreneurs. There aren't enough women
VCs. There aren't enough women developers._

Is there a quota? The beauty of our (Western) society (at this moment in
history) is that people have the freedom to shoot for whatever they want
_independent_ of their race/religion/age/gender. Using people's physical or
demographic characteristics to fill out some sort of social prescription is as
offensive as it is misguided.

~~~
dieterrams
There is no shortage of men demonstrating to younger males that they can make
it in technology. This is what we get to take for granted, and as a result,
aren't really aware of. Girls trying to figure out what they want, out of the
set of options that they think are viable/promising, don't have this benefit,
and needlessly self-select themselves out.

Really? Downvoted? I'd love to know what for. Is what I'm saying making people
angry?

~~~
anamax
> There is no shortage of men demonstrating to younger males that they can
> make it in technology.

What, exactly, are these older men doing such that younger men can benefit and
younger women can not?

If your response is "they're men", that's not something that they're doing.
That's something that the younger women are doing, or rather, not doing,
namely thinking that the gender of X matters in "X is doing Y, so I can do it
too" when it doesn't.

~~~
dieterrams
I said what they were doing in the part you quoted. By dominating a field,
they establish ample precedent that others like them can do so as well. This
is not an intentional thing that they're doing. It's a byproduct. This
phenomenon occurs all the time, for groups of all kinds.

To flip it around, think about nurses before male nurses became commonplace.
What would run through your head, thinking about being a nurse? There are
probably a lot of things that would stop you from taking the idea seriously,
just because the profession was dominated by women and had hardly any men.

~~~
anamax
> By dominating a field, they establish ample precedent that others like them
> can do so as well.

And you think that "like" is gender?

------
liedra
I'm a woman and these sorts of things bug me. OK, so there aren't enough women
in tech. Perhaps that's because they just don't want to be in tech! Sure I've
had my share of "oh, well, there's no way you'd be good/no way you know what
you're talking about because you're a woman" or similar sexist attitudes, but
I don't want to work for those sorts of people anyway.

IMO if you want to be in tech, you'll find a way to do what you want to do.
People (all people! not just women!) who are motivated to do something will do
what's necessary to achieve it. Sure it's nice to have another woman to chat
to occasionally when you run into sexist jerks, but otherwise I get on just
fine with people of any gender because I'm confident and know my stuff, work
hard, and am pretty laid back. Probably helps that I grew up with the net a
bit though (I'm almost 30) so am no longer horrified by gutter humour or swear
words, or other "unladylike" things.

~~~
hazzen
In my 3 years of TAing undergrad computer science intro classes, I am going to
say you are wrong. The number of incredibly smart, gifted women who believed
they were failing the course despite having some of the best scores was
staggering. Many of them simply believed they were not good enough to compete
with the loud-mouthed egotistical dicks in the class. They had no role models
and no belief that they were good enough to compete with the guys who had been
using computers since they were five.

I am not saying this is a problem for all women or that it only affects women,
but it is still a problem that needs to be solved. Role models help,
encouragement helps, and having someone around to convince these students they
aren't stupid helps. I would rather more women get into TAing intro classes
than this program, but take what you can get.

~~~
liedra
Wow, that's really sad. :( Maybe it was the lack of loud-mouthed dicks in my
courses, but all the women I met in my compsci degree who were doing well
actually really enjoyed it and, well, did well. (Or perhaps it's how our
courses were set up; there wasn't much opportunity for people to be dicks).

I will admit, it can be quite intimidating as a woman to, say, start going to
things like Linux Users Groups though; back when I first joined my local one
(late 90s, early 2000s?) there were a lot of... intimidating people there. But
there were also a number of women, and a few friends of mine also there, which
was good for that moral support. But then again, these people are loud mouthed
egotistical dicks to everyone that has an opposing view to them, usually, not
just women (e.g. if they use emacs and you use vim, be prepared!).

In these very charged environments it only really came up a couple of times:
one of these that happened to me was one of the main examples used in the
"women in linux howto" (which I'm not a fan of actually, because I think it
causes a bit of a negative feedback loop), and was dealt with very well by
both male and female members of the group. Curiously, due to that howto, I
_still_ get email from concerned guys hoping that I haven't been turned off
LUGs for the rest of my life!

I definitely think it's a great idea to have more women in tech, especially
education, but I think that they need to feel like they have a passion for it.
And all the incentives, etc. make for a bit of a bad taste in the mouth w.r.t.
that :)

~~~
tibbon
You touch on a good point. Being in this field is intimidating for everyone!
It is impossible to be the master of everything, and yet there are people who
will challenge you on every front.

Showing up to some groups, posting on some boards (like this one even) and
jumping into the conversation can be outright terrifying.

My XY-card doesn't make it instantly simple to show up to any event and feel
comfortable.

------
bdr
How about a women-only hacker space? That might create more female founders
(of any age) in the long-term.

Also, one thing Tereza mentioned, that "women who start businesses like to
know what they’re doing", could be seen more as a problem to be addressed than
a constraint to be worked around.

~~~
mctavjb9
I'm all for women hackers/entrepreneurs self-organizing on an informal level
and comparing notes, but I must confess that I have the same visceral reaction
to women-only hacker spaces that I did to girls-only math classes when I was
in 6th grade. Whatever floats your boat, but I've always believed that it
shouldn't be about lacking a Y chromosome, it should be about doing the
hacking/learning the math. I may be in the minority of the minority, but I
would much prefer to build my business surrounded by people with a diversity
of perspectives who could provide flashes of insight that would never occur to
me as a typical INTJ scientist (although not a typical 30-something female,
clearly). Narcissistic nutcases-- there are plenty of both genders-- are a
fact of life.

I believe that the status quo is not going to evolve much through anything
that can be construed by naysayers as affirmative action. Rather, women with
technical and/or entrepreneurial aspirations need to get over themselves, stop
being so concerned about peer pressure or what anybody else will think, do
what they love, and prove to others that it can be done. Laura Finton, founder
of oneforty and a Tech Stars grad is a great example. She started her company
as a single mom with young kids as a solo founder with no programming skills.
Even though I'm not a Twitter person at all, I take my hat off to her. She's
taking the time to tell her story to the Boston entrepreneurial community and
leading by example.

~~~
TimeForThis
> Rather, women with technical and/or entrepreneurial aspirations need to get
> over themselves, stop being so concerned about peer pressure or what anybody
> else will think, do what they love, and prove to others that it can be done.

I don't think it's that simple though. For a majority change, positive
feedback is required along the lifecyle from knowing nothing to loving it and
having entrepreneurial aspirations. I think the main problem is the mostly
invisible peer pressure _to do_ something else - not the peer pressure to
_not_ do something. This is why more female role models are needed and more
tech-oriented schooling from a young age and more gender neutral literature,
etc.

------
jergosh
Waiting for XXX combinator...

~~~
jrnkntl
I had that idea some time ago but looking at the problems of regulation I let
it go.

I guess there isn't really a real platform for this that isn't bloated with
bots, spam and ads.

------
diN0bot
i think there's likely a minimal activation number where if there aren't
enough women in a particular hacker space then the women who do come by don't
stick.

as a woman myself, being a 40-yr-old entrepreneur makes sense in a dozen ways.
one less important but rather interesting way is that one is more likely to be
interacting with 40-yr-old males. i must say that most young men are rather
self-minded. male hackers traditionally develop group process and team-
supporting after a prolonged technical and super-independence+confidence
phase. women tend to develop differently. once everyone matures and self
actualizes interaction becomes awesome :-)

~~~
starkfist
This will sound supremely sexist, but... I currently work in an office with
tons of women. Whenever you read something about gender in the workplace,
there is a lot of talk about how women are team-oriented and cooperative.
However, in my experience this is not true at all. The women in my office are
shockingly mean to each other... not a day goes by without someone sobbing and
fleeing to the women's restroom. At companywide events, the talk is always
about who did what backstabbing maneuver to whomever else, why this woman
doesn't deserve this promotion, i can't believe she wore that to the office,
she's probably sleeping with the VP of Sales, etc etc.

~~~
nmftt
Too me it sound like a symptom of too many women at the same level and
inability of management to handle the situation. I've worked with both male
and female sports teams, and I would say that there's about the same amount of
friction. I do think that men generally are raised with more "teamwork" in
mind, i.e. more men do team sports. Just seem like a reason to get more female
managers.

------
psyklic
So ... encourage 40yo women to enter the space by lowering the barrier of
entry? Doesn't this seem sub-optimal for investors?

~~~
TimeForThis
Where does it say to lower the barrier of entry?

~~~
psyklic
The assumption is that these women are just as capable as Y Combinator
applicants, but that the program is biased against them. Even if you believe
this, any time you restrict the applicant pool arbitrarily (by gender/etc),
you will lose some of the best applicants. For example, you will likely at
least double the great applicants by allowing 40+ y/o males to enter as well.
Hence, it just doesn't make sense as an investor to participate in "XX
Combinator."

~~~
TimeForThis
I still don't get that this means 'lower the barrier' though. Doesn't it mean
raise one impenetrable barrier, i.e. XY? If the same number of XXs exist then
the number will still be the same but fewer people will apply. If more women
apply as a result of good PR about it being woman-friendly then they still may
not get accepted on the same grounds as any other.

------
samd
You'd probably encourage more women to start companies if you gave them free
day care and household services. If we had an adequate social support system
there wouldn't have to be such a trade off between work and family.

~~~
petercooper
_You'd probably encourage more women to start companies if you gave them free
day care and household services._

Less of the "women" and more of the "people," please. Many men are involved in
child care and housework in a significant way, and similarly have to make
trade offs between work and family.

------
jrnkntl
If so, we need to rename Y Combinator to XY Combinator.

~~~
nehan
Is that even necessary? It already is XY Combinator -- only 14 women out of
450 people in ycombinator total -- 3.1%. That's pathetic.

~~~
petercooper
How does that tie up with the application rates? If only 2-5% of _applicants_
were women, the end result merely reflects reality.

What percentage of people in YCombinator are black, gay, Muslim, or otherwise?
Would low percentages of people with these labels be "pathetic"?

~~~
nehan
What reality? Even if that were the case, I think it's worth questioning why
only 2-5% of applicants are women.

------
zitterbewegung
Its sort of ironic that Jessica Livingston is on the ycombinator team. Is she
not a hacker? I really don't think she isn't...

~~~
presidentender
Please stop stacking your negatives. I can't read that last sentence.

~~~
zitterbewegung
Sorry it should read "Isn't jessica livingston a hacker because she is part of
ycombinator?"

