
Please stop saying it’s hard to find female founders - ohjeez
https://medium.com/@mitacarriman/please-stop-saying-its-hard-to-find-female-founders-please-just-stop-7b3b5a0c62ae#.bxmb5v7fp
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liquidise
An pitch event organizer recognizes the gender imbalance of the application
submissions and makes an announcement to the attendees urging the female
founders they know to apply. He is publicly chastised for his troubles.

Honestly, does the author here not see any possible benefit to what the
organizer has done here? Maybe they only go strictly by incoming applications
and don't have time for a steady founder outreach efforts beyond basic
marketing. Is there a theme that keeps these events running with a certain
culture? If so, prompting attendees for people they know to apply is almost
certainly a better way to maintain that culture moving forward.

No good deed goes unpunished.

~~~
matt4077
I think the (implied) accusation is that organizer basically lied, or is at
least misrepresenting how much he cares. Maybe he was asked about the lack of
female speakers or maybe he noticed how lopsided it was once he saw them on
stage.

The event was certainly publicized somehow, and if you actually care about
diversity it should be possible to post the announcement in a few focused
groups.

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staticelf
It's a bit like all these female-only groups that exist and special programs
for women. If I were a women I would be a bit offended by those things as I
would if I would work in another field and the spotlight was constantly on my
gender rather than my competence.

It's just so... ironic.

~~~
DelaneyM
I'm a female founder. I go to a handful of woman-only events.

I don't go because I need or want any special accommodation for gender, nor do
most other women I know.

We prefer woman-only events because attending mixed events is made
uncomfortable and annoying by a small minority of unpoliced men. I mean, what
are we going to do about that, make a scene because some poor guys are
unusually awkward and persistent (as pop culture instructs them to be)? Easier
to just skip them and find our community elsewhere

~~~
jbmorgado
Very well, but since you clearly like the female only events, what is the
problem with having male only events then?

~~~
scott_s
The status-quo is already effectively a "male only" event.

~~~
williamgb
No, that isn't accurate. Predominance does not necessarily equate to
exclusivity, as you seem to be hinting.

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chinese_dan
It sounds like you want the venture capitalist/investor to go to the female
founders. This isn't how it works.

VC have so many people pitching ideas and companies to them every day. they
don't need to go looking for more.

It's extremely competitive for everyone and I think what they are saying is
that they don't have many female founders coming to them and pitching.

This actually makes sense because the number of Female founders is much lower
than male founders and only a small percentage of each will take the time and
effort to pitch their idea to the VC.

You may think you were being funny with your eye-rolling pictures randomly
selected from TV/movies, but it does nothing to actually help your cause and
your

~~~
new299
But if you read the article, in this specific case, the event organizer was
going looking for female founders... but seemed to totally ignore the ones
that were standing right in front of him and ignored the easily accessible
resources at his disposal.

~~~
chinese_dan
They ignored the one from the article, which I think is the main point of
contention.

Now, the other part of this is the companies the female founders were
pitching. Venture capitalists will only want to go that extra step if they
think the idea is worth the investment and can make a quick ROI.

Since there aren't as many women there in the first place (we don't have exact
numbers, but the article), and the ones that are there have to have an idea
worthy of a pitch, my point still stands. Getting a pitch is mostly about
having a good business idea and not about race or gender.

I keep reading that women are paid 70 cents to the dollar to men. If this were
actually true, why wouldn't the venture capitalists be fighting each other to
get cheap labor?

After reading the article again, I'm also a little shocked that the author is
trying to make a point about being excluded while at the same time pointing to
an entire list of groups that are exclusive to a specific gender or sexual
preference.

Shouldn't we be fighting for equality instead of creating more exclusive
groups? Why do you expect this behavior of others if you can't behave that way
yourself?

~~~
matt4077
Oh wow, this reads like the index of a book on sexism in the 90ies...

> I keep reading that women are paid 70 cents to the dollar to men. If this
> were actually true, why wouldn't the venture capitalists be fighting each
> other to get cheap labor?

This doesn't even make sense, since founders are not employed by VCs. But
regarding the talking point you're repackaging, the idea is that people
actually value women less then men so they wouldn't recognize the bargain
they're getting. But the topic is much broader including, for example, jobs
traditionally reserved for women to have lower wages across the board, even
when the requirements are the same. An example I seem to remember is nurses
vs. <some technical job I forgot>: both require comparable education, but
nurses are paid 30% less per hour.

> After reading the article again, I'm also a little shocked that the author
> is trying to make a point about being excluded while at the same time
> pointing to an entire list of groups that are exclusive to a specific gender
> or sexual preference.

That's answered elsewhere in the thread, but basically the thinking is it's ok
because (a) women may need these events so as to avoid being "grabbed by the
pussy" and (b) it's a false equivalence because these groups don't create
injustice but try to make up for existing injustice. See also every argument
about affirmative action ever.

> Since there aren't as many women there in the first place [..] getting a
> pitch is mostly about having a good business idea and not about race or
> gender.

This seems to be making the point that it's not statistically significant if
of four chosen founders, none are women because the number of women in the
population of founders is equally low. Let's say only a quarter of founders
are women that gives about a 30% of an all-men panel of four (0.75^4). That's
not significant based on the standard p-value cutoff, but I'm almost sure this
isn't the author's first event and she may have gone into it with a certain
`prior`.

~~~
chinese_dan
"Oh wow, this reads like the index of a book on sexism in the 90ies..."

I want equality for all and you try to tell me it's Sexism. We live in a truly
twisted world.

"the idea is that people actually value women less then men so they wouldn't
recognize the bargain they're getting."

What proof do you have of this? This isn't the 1950s anymore. Times have
changed. In every company I have ever worked, both small and large, there were
women at every level..and paid accordingly.

Women have their equality and it's not good enough. They need to now dominate.
In my experience in the workplace, women were way more sexist than men.
Towards hiring both men and women.

Men can't really do anything about it, because they aren't taken seriously.

"This doesn't even make sense, since founders are not employed by VCs. But
regarding the talking point you're repackaging, the idea is that people
actually value women less then men so they wouldn't recognize the bargain
they're getting."

The wage-gap has been debunked multiple times. When you account for
experience, education, position, and factor in that many women leave the
workforce for different periods of time to have children, the pay is actually
about 1-5% different.

"An example I seem to remember is nurses vs. <some technical job I forgot>:
both require comparable education, but nurses are paid 30% less per hour."

It has nothing to do with sexism and more to do with the free market. Nurses
are not really in that much demand and the supply is much greater, so you will
get lower pay. Male nurses get paid 30% less as well, so I don't think you
really have a point.

If women want the same pay, they need to get the same experience and education
as men and compete for the same positions.

There are many high-paying fields dominated by women like veterinarians,
biologists, and pharmacists. Nobody seems to care about diversity here.

It's also interesting that women only fight for the cushy, office jobs. What
about the extremely dangerous or messy jobs that men dominate? Garbage workers
get paid over $100K in many big cities and I don't see any women fighting to
get these jobs.

"women may need these events so as to avoid being "grabbed by the pussy""

I suppose when people get 'grabbed by the pussies', they better hope the
assaulter's wife won't use their political clout to humiliate them in public
and deny them their day in court.

"t's a false equivalence because these groups don't create injustice but try
to make up for existing injustice. See also every argument about affirmative
action ever."

How doesn't it create injustice? You are excluding men from these
organizations and painting all men with the same brush. This doesn't even meet
the textbook definition of 'diversity'.

The civil rights leaders of the 60s fought for inclusion. The leaders of
today? They fight for more segregation through small, authoritarian groups.

Affirmative action is a funny one because it actually makes me second-guess
anyone that got their education as a result of it because it means they
weren't good enough to get it on their own.

This is a form of racism and is exactly why minority groups will continue to
struggle in the US. You automatically assume that minorities are so stupid,
they need to be given extra points to get into a university.

"Let's say only a quarter of founders are women that gives about a 30% of an
all-men panel of four (0.75^4). That's not significant based on the standard
p-value cutoff, but I'm almost sure "

Founders and VC aren't based on pure statistics and percentages of the
population. It's very difficult to be successful enough to have VC money and
there are many other factors at play here. It's also difficult for a founder
to have an idea/company good enough to get VC money.

I still never heard the business ideas from the woman in the article nor the
other founders she claims were rejected. They could be terrible ideas. We
shouldn't be so quick to assume it's sexism.

People that are rejected in business or in life always want to blame other
people for their own shortcomings.

