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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.)




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)


Angry blog posts keep the conversation alive to a degree. Then they troll, polarize and reinforce stereotypes. Sadly, thoughtful blog posts don't get nearly as much attention. That is the distinction I'd like to make: creating a hostile political environment only fuels more hostility.

The only women's conference I've ever wanted to go to is RollerCon, anyway.


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.


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".


> 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


Strong agree that addressing the overwork issues will go a long way towards mitigating the gender privilege issues as well.

However: very unlikely that we are ever going to resolve the overwork issues. Overwork is a part of Startuplandia's identity. In fact, overwork is a part of the American economic identity. Entrepreneurship is ostensibly easier in the US than most other places in the world because we don't push back on overwork until power imbalances start making the market break down.

Also, overwork mitigates gender bias and privilege issues, but doesn't resolve them. Yes, getting everyone home for dinner cuts back on the "do you have small children" questions. But it doesn't resolve the "where else am I going to find a date" problems, or the "you need to be less emotional" problems.


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.


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.


> 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.


And here I was, thinking my girlfriend was the "odd one" just because she was (genuinely) laughing when a male coworker made a sexy(ist?) joke at her expense just ten minutes ago and never felt threatened of her own worth as a person in our male-dominated school (maybe 50 girls for about 5000 students).

Though I do resent you a bit now, I was really thinking I had found "the one" but you've taken a part of what made her unique and made it appear mundane :(


Nobody is unique. If you only love her because she's unique, that's a… wait for it… identity problem.




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