
Too Few Women In Tech? Stop Blaming The Men. - MediaSquirrel
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/28/women-in-tech-stop-blaming-me/
======
philk
I'm always slightly puzzled as to why this is an issue. Surely the goal is to
have lots of innovative and successful startups, and the gender of who is
founding them is irrelevant.

There aren't, as far as I can tell, any real barriers to women starting a tech
company; being able to code, having a lot of mental resilience and having some
starting capital is not something that's only possible if you're male.

~~~
philwelch
It's a touchy political issue. Some people, for ideological reasons, would
prefer gender equality everywhere possible. Some people suspect that women are
different from men in how they use software, and that women are better
equipped to serve female customers.[1] And some people think the low numbers
of women in startups, or in the tech industry, indicates some fundamental
discrimination or injustice against women.

[1] Think about the 50's and 60's--there were tons of companies almost
entirely run by men who produced lots of products used almost exclusively by
women. You have to wonder how well they really understood their customers.

~~~
patio11
_women are better equipped to serve female customers_

While it would be difficult to A/B test, I rather suspect that the Y
chromosome is not depressing my conversion rates.

~~~
techbio
We are going to need more identical-twins-separated-at-birth for this study,
too.

------
btmorex
I don't know the answer, but I have to agree that it has nothing to do with
silicon valley, venture capitalists, or really the tech industry at all.

My introductory freshmen computer science course had about 100 people of which
maybe 10 were female (this is at a school that has more women overall than
men). You simply can't recover from a gender disparity like that. Also,
remember, this is a course that you decide on taking essentially before even
getting to college. The kids enrolling in this course hadn't even been exposed
to all the things that people usually blame the gender disparity on.

~~~
timr
_"I don't know the answer, but I have to agree that it has nothing to do with
silicon valley, venture capitalists,"_

Yes. The "system" really does seem to try.

 _"or really the tech industry at all."_

....aaaaand, No. You've just grossly over-generalized.

The tech industry is clearly unappealing to women. Maybe that's because women
like to have a sense of the humanity of their work. Maybe it's because it's a
terrible choice of long-term career. Maybe it's Barbie's fault. But just
because you can't identify the reason, doesn't mean that the phenomenon
doesn't exist.

Instead of observing that your freshman courses were hideously gender-
unbalanced and then stopping the intellectual pursuit, you _have_ to dig
deeper. It's a hard problem, but even hard problems have an explanation. I can
come up with one consistent pattern without even trying: most women don't like
working with anti-social losers. And like it or not, our industry is filled
with 'em.

Personally, I had about the same number of women in my CS101 course (back in
the mid-90s) as you did, but the difference is, I saw them _treated like shit_
\-- usually by guys who didn't have a clue that the way they behaved was
boorish and offensive. Those guys also liked to believe that the gender
inequality in CS was "just the way things are". Nonsense.

More recently (just a couple of years ago), I had a female friend who became
really interested in CS, and enrolled in the 101 courses at a top program.
Because of the way the courses were structured, she was a brand-new
programmer, competing with guys who had been writing code since they were
knee-high. Doesn't matter -- she still kicked their asses; she was one of the
top students in the class. But she ultimately _dropped out_ of the program
because she felt unwelcome, and felt that the barriers she had to overcome
were too high. Every day, I was treated to a new story of how some dude
ignored her opinions, stared at her chest, or belittled her in front of her
peers. It was infuriating.

To this day -- from classroom to coffeehouse -- I see programmers who treat
women like another species. Just today, I watched a guy write code, while
taking a break every two minutes to check out a nearby girl's "attributes". It
isn't cute, it isn't endearing, and you can damn well bet that this kind of
stuff plays a role in why women decide that they don't want to work with us --
even before they get to school. And it's our fault.

~~~
neilk
> I saw them treated like shit -- usually by guys who didn't have a clue that
> the way they behaved was boorish and offensive.

I agree that this problem does exist, but I don't think this is the only
factor. In my experience, the programming profession does have its basement-
dwelling neckbeards, but there's an even larger number of progressive,
enlightened males who are egalitarian by default.

I know that some women believe that the instant they leave the room, we break
out the pork rinds and start watching porn videos, but really, most male
programmers I know are pretty mild-mannered.

Compare our profession with the legal profession. This is a group where older
lawyers have vast power over younger colleagues, that's traditionally had a
very macho and elitist attitude. And right now law school admissions are
almost at parity. 52.7% male. [1]

So either the behaviour of male programmers is really, really bad compared
even to lawyers, or, there's something else intrinsic about the job that is
differentially unappealing to women.

[1]
[http://www.abanet.org/abanet/media/release/news_release.cfm?...](http://www.abanet.org/abanet/media/release/news_release.cfm?releaseid=268)

~~~
todayiamme
What I don't understand is why was ahoyhere's comment killed?

She made a pretty important point about "progressive, enlightened males who
are egalitarian by default"; people are not always who they appear to be.
Anyone will tell you to look at what they do vs. what they say. What you need
to understand is that there is a fine line between genuine behavior and "fake"
behavior. It is only when you are at the receiving end do you notice. This is
a very important point to make. True, no one wants the sexist tag, but are
they actually creating a level playing field?

I don't know the answer to the question, but someday I hope that I will figure
it out.

Anyway, here is her comment;

>>>I can tell you from experience that lots of those "progressive, enlightened
males" are a different type of boor. Being treated "special" - in a "nice" way
- is almost as unbearable as being mistreated.

I recall a certain world-famous engineer who actually argued with me about the
experience of "women in tech." Fact: I'm a woman, he was a man, and there
weren't even any female devs at his very famous employer and neither were his
close family or friends female devs.

He was "progressive, enlightened" -- on the surface. I've heard lots of people
call him "nice." But he was actually insulting and condescending to me, trying
to play a More Feminist Than Thou game in order to shore up his ego. I'm sure
that people like that are everywhere, and that certainly didn't turn me off
tech. But it's irritating to think that you'd probably consider him a poster
boy for "the good guys."<<<

~~~
neilk
Hm, I'm sorry that the comment was killed. Perhaps she didn't want to get
sucked into a debate that she feels is perennially useless.

It's hard to answer the charge of being told what I would probably think.

------
lotharbot
The editorialized title here ("Dear Women in Tech: Put Up or Shut Up") fails
to convey the sentiment in the article (titled "Too Few Women In Tech? Stop
Blaming The Men. Or At Least Stop Blaming Me.")

The article isn't really aimed at _women in tech_ so much as _people who
complain about women in tech_ , and especially women who are not in tech but
complain that there aren't enough women doing what they themselves aren't
doing either.

~~~
greenlblue
The problem is that women in general do not feel comfortable in the male
dominated ecosystem of tech startups. Could men be doing more to change that
perception, I think so. So whenever somebody complains about the problem men
like Mike Arrigton should not lash out but instead they should just list all
the things they do to encourage more female participation. Then the people
that complain about the problem can actually point at the proactive steps
people are taking to address the problem and tell them these things are
working and those things are not. It's silly to tell women to put up or shut
up because it's a lot like telling somebody if you don't like the country then
leave.

~~~
philwelch
_The problem is that women in general do not feel comfortable in the male
dominated ecosystem of tech startups._

You can replace "tech startups" with "med schools" or "law firms" or "MBA
programs" or "factories" or "the military" or "science fiction fandom", but
women have entered all of those male dominated ecosystems and are still there
in far greater numbers than the tech industry. There has to be another factor.

~~~
mkramlich
Yep I just got back from a 7-hour or so long wargaming session. Historically
I'd say the participation has been about 99% male. There was actually 1 female
there today, but the other 10+ people were males. This is extremely common.
And I've never heard any participant in this hobby complain about it or point
out oppression/repression/supression/conspiracy. The simple fact is that if
more females wanted to play wargames, and got out there and played them, there
_would_ be _more_ females playing, and thus they would not be able to say they
feel dissuaded by the gender ratio.

Arrington's point was: maybe this is the _natural_ gender ratio (or very close
to it, plus/minus some small percentage, however you could possibly deduce
that), and the women in these cases just have to suck it up and deal. Just
like a man would have to suck it up and deal if he wanted to work at a Great
Clips or as a cosmetics salesman in a department store.

Life is not evenly homogenous in every aspect, and there isn't anything
inherently insidious about that. It just is. Heck I wish there was 1 Earth-
like planet in every star system we've probed so far -- there isn't --
therefore perhaps we're discriminating against them. :)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
There was a very eye opening post on metafilter recently when Blizzard
suggested all World of Warcraft players should be forced to use their real
name.

A woman pointed out this was bad for the women (and girls) who play and listed
off a shocking litany of the BS that any obviously female player needed to
deal with.

Maybe the gender ratio in your game would have been better if this thing was
more widely acknowledged and therefore dealt with.

edit for link: [http://www.metafilter.com/93492/But-my-name-really-is-
Deathb...](http://www.metafilter.com/93492/But-my-name-really-is-Deathblood-
Blackaxe#3171416)

The whole thread is eye-opening, regarding female experiences in such arenas.

------
JCThoughtscream
70% of the technical degree holders living under the Iranian patriarchal
theology... are women.

That's problematic to me. That suggests to /me/ that the gender disparity in
Silicon Valley has very little to do with genetics. In fact, the role of
genetics in intelligence is too heavily disputed to be considered anyhow - the
tech field being a supposed /meritocracy/, and genetics having little to do
with personal /merit/, it instead suggests to me that the problem is how our
culture is defining "ideal merit" to our women.

The reason why tech conferences can't find enough women speakers is because
there aren't enough girls encouraged /socially/ to enter the tech field. And
by "girls," I don't mean to use disparaging language, but indicate that the
problem is rooted all the way in how they're taught and influenced, be it in
schools or amongst friends and family.

When mathematics, science and computer programming are considered culturally
gender-neutral, that's when female representation in the tech industry will be
less of an issue. Until then, we remain unable to tap a good half of our
population's intellectual resources.

That's a bit of a problem.

~~~
mkramlich
My two little nieces had a birthday this week and for their birthday I gave
them each a cool LEGO set, and, some rubber balls, play masks, a game and some
windup toy robots. A few days later they came over to visit, and you know what
they brought out to play with? Again? Dolls. And they wanted to bake cupcakes.
No LEGO or robots or games in sight. Funny that!

~~~
JCThoughtscream
Yeah. Common saying amongst my friends, mostly techies.

"The plural of 'anecdote' isn't 'data.'"

To counter that, though, I would say that your presents to your nieces, while
a great idea and well-encouraged, palls in the face of parental and social
pressure. Their friends are playing with dolls. Playing with legos by yourself
can be fun, but not quite as fun as playing with their friends.

~~~
mkramlich
Tonight one niece was playing dolls by herself. The other was baking by
herself. _shrug_ Actually data _is_ comprised of anecdotes and anecdotes are
data, in my judgment. Life and actual experiences in the real world _are_
data. Reality is data.

If your point is, well, this is just two little girls, you're right, that
alone would not allow one to extrapolate to all little girls everywhere.
However, I know for a fact that large companies and institutions have already
done lots of experiments with kids (especially companies that have a vested
interest in figuring out exactly what kids want, in order to maximize their
profit) and my understanding is that the studies show that yes, girls mostly
prefer to play with girlish things and boys with boyish things. This was the
result of Science with a capital S. Now, do all boys hate dolls and all girls
hate robots and dump trucks and guns? Of course not. But in the majority of
cases that's how the cookie crumbled in the real world.

Also the whole "pink vs blue" thing you see in stores in the kid sections? Do
you think that's some conspiracy or cultural artifact? From what I've heard,
it's isn't. They've done experiments. Girls in general, world-wide, really do
tend to prefer pink and boys prefer blue. In the general case, when dealing
with large enough numbers, etc.

~~~
JCThoughtscream
/None/ of that is indicative of a genetic role. There is no indicator
/anywhere/ in there that there is some genetic factor that makes pink stand
out more vividly to girls than blue.

(edit: in fact, as anecdote - girls supposedly have more tastebuds, yet
professional cooking is heavily male dominated. Though women cooks can put up
with just as much if not more than men. Physical traits have no bearing on
this particular cultural quirk.)

Conversely, all of that /can/ be explained as cultural artifacts, amplified by
years of exposure, an encroaching western monoculture, and a feedback loop of
expectations. When you stick "pink" and "blue" in front of a kid and ask them
what seems more girly to them, you're already presenting a pre-existing
baggage of cultural conditions, be it through subconscious impulses, or
because the kid's been around long enough to know what his or her peers
prefer.

Let's not lose sight that scientific experiments have to be interpreted, yeah?
The process of science isn't nearly so clean that we can reliably say that any
one experiment isn't tainted by subjective bias. Half of the fights over any
one theory in any field at all is because of it.

~~~
varjag
I'm not sure how much of that is the result of "Western monoculture". Girls
throughout the world reliably prefer dolls to robots.

~~~
thwarted
That's interesting because the difference between dolls and robots is one of
the skin/themes placed on humanoid shapes (albeit, robots can take on other
shapes and still be robots). In the common case, they both have the same,
painted on non-interactive expression. Robotic dolls and doll robots -- what
exactly is the choice here.

With my son, we have a lot of animal themed toys that come out of the box
without an associated gender. This hasn't kept us from adopting gender
specific names for them though (Mr. Monkey, Sophie, Boss Hog, Leeroy Jenkins,
Charlotte).

------
robryan
I think rather than looking at the overall numbers, what you really need to
identify is if there are any women out there that do want to get into the
industry but are being held back by something.

If in fact every woman that wants to run a startup or be employed as a
programmer ect doesn't have different barriers to males then I don't think
there is really an issue here.

I think many female dominated fields just genuinely don't interest the
majority of males so that fact that they are female dominated isn't a big
deal. The important thing is that both sexes get the opportunity to
participate, whether they choose to take up the option is another matter.

------
Towle_
The more excuses any given demographic has available to it, the worse it will
fare.

~~~
greenlblue
What excuse exactly are you talking about? That most tech startups are run by
men? That's not really an excuse but a fact and I think people are right to
demand more participation of women in the tech world in general.

~~~
Towle_
The general idea that there are a bunch of old men sitting around in smoke-
filled rooms saying to each other, "Hey, I have an idea! Let's intentionally
discriminate against women in our hiring and salary setting practices. Why?
Because fuck 'em, that's why!"

This is the United States of America in 2010. It's not ancient Egypt. It's not
feudal England. It's not even the U.S. in 1950. You can do whatever you want
to do and be whoever you want to be. Nobody is stopping you but yourself.
Might your climb to the top be steeper than mine? Sure. But realize that
nobody who's ever made it to the top of their mountain complained about how
steep it was. They just climbed. If you want to be the best, whatever that
means to you, you have to go Jackie Robinson that shit. _No matter what the
douchebags throw at you along the way, you have to just smile back and hit
home runs._

~~~
greenlblue
Now you are just knocking down a straw man argument of your own making. Nobody
said anything about conspiracy theories of the kind you are putting forth or
pretended that this was feudal England or ancient Egypt. Many women feel that
tech is male dominated and that it would be nice if there were more women in
tech. Seeing as how so much of our modern day living depends on technology I
think it is an excellent idea to have more participation from the female half
of the world population in the tech industry. Once again, what excuses of what
demographic are you talking about?

~~~
Towle_
If you're not hearing the Glass Ceiling/Patriarchy Excuse every time you see a
story involving gender and employment, you're living under a rock.

 _Many women feel that tech is male dominated and that it would be nice if
there were more women in tech._

Tell me WHY it's male-dominated. Tell me what barrier is keeping women out.
Give me a cause.

~~~
greenlblue
I am not living under a rock I just prefer to keep the discussion away from
conspiracy theories and petty overused arguments about how "the man" is
keeping everyone down because there is no merit in such arguments and it
doesn't address or advance anything.

------
dieterrams
This is just Michael Arrington defending TechCrunch against one person's
assumption that they're not aware of the issue. There's nothing really
relevant to the issue itself here, aside from the obvious point that the
reason why there are "too few" women in tech is because there aren't enough
women who want to be in tech.

~~~
dgreensp
Arrington disagrees that the criticism has any merit; at worst he's letting
himself be trolled. I guess he feels something needs to be said, and I respect
that.

~~~
dieterrams
Which is fine, of course. He's more than justified in defending himself. This
article just isn't interesting from a "too few women in tech" angle, and you
can't really generalize from what's going on here. It's fine that he wrote it,
I just don't see that it warrants much attention from HN.

------
patio11
I think the Valley greatly overestimates how much inside baseball like
conference speaking slots impacts startup formation or decade-prior turning
points like taking AP English instead of AP CS because English is the easy A
and your GPA gets you into a better college.

------
Eliezer
> _there are women... who complain about how there are too few women in tech,
> and then there are women who just go out and start companies_

Never heard it put quite that way before, but very well said.

------
punnned
How about the idea of role models? There simply isn't many female role models
that motivate young women to go into tech.

Being involved with young athletes in high school - I know 18 year old boys
who aspire to be the next Michael Jordan or next Michael Phelps. I know 18
year old girls who aspire to be the next Cathy Freeman.

Outside of sports there are also many industries where potential female AND
male role models are rife.

Film, dance, journalism just to name a few. Even the 'normal' fields which
have been thrown around - doctors, lawyers, business, teaching etc. Many young
people are may aspire to be like that 'aunty who is a lawyer' or that 'family
friend who is a doctor' etc.

But tech? .... Because the industry is so skewed towards males and because of
that there is no... female version of steve jobs, or bill gates, mark
zuckerberg to aspire to.

Just a thought.. what do you guys reckon?

~~~
sorbus
Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer. Of the first six programmers
for the ENAIC, all were women.

Of course, that isn't quite as well known as it could be, and recent role
models are more important than historical ones, but still.

Another problem is that, by and large, the only tech people who the average
person can name are those who have hit it big, generally by starting and
running a famous company (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg are not
well known because of their programming, but because of their companies).

------
lhnz
I understand that sexism might cause companies to not employ women in
management/technical positions. But how can this affect whether they create
their own successful startups?

------
todayiamme
This is a really complex question, and I doubt that anyone will ever have the
answer to this. As, there are so many variables at play over here that most of
the times we can't see them let alone comprehend them. Most people over here
have a pretty unary point of view i.e. they don't even realize the subtle
signals they get everyday about socially acceptable behavior. Even though, I
don't want to be unique in this regard, but unfortunately I am and there are a
few things that I would like to share.

First of all, the 5 year old me knew that I couldn't act "feminine" (what was
feminine for the 5 year old me is laughable at best). Why? I just knew at that
age that I couldn't do that. The adults around me simply wouldn't approve. In
fact, they would be disgusted if I did. I knew that I couldn't play with my
cousins' dolls because it was wrong for me to do that. I knew that I couldn't
talk about the fact that I liked making stuff in the kitchen to other kids
because it was wrong for me to do that. In fact, I stopped doing it after a
while and I constantly had to suppress behavior to fit into that mold.

Take a look at any kid at an early age and see what happens if that child
picks up a "masculine" or "feminine" toy. Most adults simply don't engage, or
they engage too aggressively. For a child these subtle things matter a lot and
they start dictating the pattern which still exists till later life.

You won't believe how suffocating it is to be an outlier in this regard, a
freak for all intents and purposes. I have to constantly pretend to be someone
else and it is amazing how subtle those cues which operate are. I can't talk
the way I want to. I can't gesture in the same way. I can't walk "that way". I
can't eat "that way". I can't move "that way". I can't relate to others "that
way". I can't pick up topics "that way". This list goes on and on and on.

The truth is that who we are is hammered into shape by our experiences to a
large extent. Unless, we consciously embark on exploring ourselves and
examining our motives for everything.

So, yes it's true that on _average_ male and female brains are different (it's
a bell curve), but to what extent do those "differences" shape future
behavior? To what extent is a person's behavior determined by what's between
their legs? Or in their blood?

These are questions that we simply don't have an answer too. It's not like we
will never have it, but it's just that right now we don't.

So, in the mean time maybe we shouldn't write articles going either way and,
perhaps, focus on creating things instead. An even bigger perhaps is that we
might want to try respecting people for who they are. _Not_ who we want them
to be. Just saying.

------
mobile
If you want to know how predisposition can affect the outcome, please read
this article and you will understand what we are discussing here:

"Princeton Economist Finds that Auditioning Behind Screens Helps Women Win
Orchestra Positions"

<http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/97/q2/0425orch.html>

Quoted directly from the article: "The switch to blind auditions can explain
between 30 percent and 55 percent of the increase in the proportion female
among new hires and between 25 percent and 46 percent of the increase in the
percentage female in the orchestras from 1970 to 1996," the economists write.
The study notes that the surge of women in symphony orchestras has occurred
despite the fact that the number of positions is highly fixed and turnover is
slow.

------
didip
Not really contributing to the arguments...

But rumor has it, Etsy have female (Python) programmers and they make boring
online shopping experience fun with their creative UI.

See: <http://www.etsy.com/color.php> or <http://www.etsy.com/time_machine.php>
or <http://www.etsy.com/geolocator.php>

Imho, female input is valuable when it comes to software design especially UX.

------
nochiel
In absolute terms, women constitute the largest segment of the market. That
alone should be sufficient reason to have more women participating in or
founding start-ups. It stands to reason that their intuitive insights,
understanding and vision, due to their affinity with women at large, will lead
to products and services which serve that market segment --and perhaps
humanity in general-- better.

------
mkramlich
I'm totally with Arrington on this one.

The next time I see somebody complain about too few women in software I want
to see them complain about too few men working in hair salons, too few men
working in child day care centers, too few women working the trash pickup
trucks, too few men in corporate HR, too few women in Tactial Special Ops
teams. But I'll never see that because I think secretly deep down they know,
gee, people are different, genders are different, and there's something about
gender that just has this shaping force on our interests and talents. And that
_there's nothing wrong with that._ Really, it will be okay. Just relax. Carry
on.

Instead let us all please focus on _real_ problems and challenges like hunger,
disease, WMD proliferation, climate change, pollution, education cost &
disparity, etc.

~~~
philwelch
"too few women in Tactial Special Ops teams"

There's intermittent controversy over having women in combat. Countries that
have tried it, incidentally, find that it's a liability because men tend to go
apeshit protective when female soldiers get hurt.

"But I'll never see that because I think secretly deep down they know, gee,
people are different, genders are different, and there's something about
gender that just has this shaping force on our interests and talents."

If so, it may be helpful if more women _were_ involved in software, because if
women are different from men that probably extends to how they use software,
and it would be good if software was better for women.

~~~
dgreensp
To the latter point, I have a female physicist friend who hates the "diversity
of viewpoints" argument for women in the sciences, the idea that she has some
kind of "feminine" take on the equations that confers special treatment.

~~~
jerf
For sciences, I would agree. Science and mathematics are a foreign mindset for
everybody, man and woman alike; if any human wishes to pursue them they must
bend to it and not vice versa.

For software I'd be less certain. It is well-known that being your own
customer can be a powerful thing. It is not inconceivable that on average men
and women may approach computing tasks somewhat differently, different goals,
different metaphors, different preferred cognitive frameworks. And while I
wouldn't necessarily expect them to be _night and day_ different, as Apple
shows getting those last tiny details nailed down can make a huge difference
in how a product feels. If men even slightly prefer one thing and women
slightly prefer another, an interface tuned for one or another slight
difference could manifest as a huge impact on the pleasure of using the
software.

Unfortunately, we are reduced to hypothesizing here because I am not aware of
any amount of study on the topic. All I can say is that it is certainly
conceivable and not necessarily unfair.

I would also suspect that if such differences exist they are likely to be as I
said above more in the cognitive domain than in the more stereotypical
appearance domain. I don't know per se that women will necessarily respond to
a more rounded or pink or whatever stereotypical visual thing you might
initially come up with, I suspect it'll be something more like men prefer more
spatial organization, say for MP3s, whereas women may prefer more word-based
and tagging organization, just to give one example. (And as you can see from
that example there's going to be substantial overlap no matter what.) I'm not
claiming this difference would even hold true, I offer it merely as an example
of a cognitive preference.

------
mkramlich
The nice thing about computers is that they don't discriminate.

A male and a female have equal opportunity to sit down at a computer, and get
themselves to learning about it, write "Hello World", read books, study, learn
new techniques, grow their programming knowledge, etc. But you know what? I
bet the ratio between genders of the folks that actually sit down and do that,
at home, wherever, is skewed toward male by a large percentage. Exact amount?
Dunno. But I'm sure it skews male. All else is going to follow from that.

]> man vi

HAL: I'm sorry, Susan. I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that. You see, your
gender is wrong and I'm going to have to oppress you. It's for the sake of the
mission and I hope one day you understand.

------
Charuru
Especially interesting in light of:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955>

------
stackthat
Real reason is ridiculously simple as most of the men don't care about if the
color of their great hat matches with their nice boots, most of the women are
not geek.

------
blahedo
I certainly wouldn't blame Michael Arrington in particular, but this entire
argument is _precisely_ parallel in form to the one held up by casual racists
in the US where they say, well, _I_ haven't done anything to keep black people
down, and I have nothing against black people (see also: "I have lots of black
friends"), so don't look at _me_. The problem there is that white people (in
the US) operate from a position of implicit privilege---not that we asked for
it, but we are unable to reject it, either, not that it would serve any good
to try.

The situation wrt women in technology is not quite the same, but it's not
entirely different, either. As Arrington points out, techcrunch and YC and a
lot of other groups go out of their way to try to recruit women, which is
fantastic. But to then turn around and say, well, if you personally aren't out
there founding a business, you have no right to complain... that's a
pernicious idea and it certainly is not furthering any useful cause.

