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The gender gap in startups (founderresearch.blogspot.com)
4 points by fnazeeri on March 27, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



I found it quite interesting to click through to the previous post referenced in that article, as well: http://founderresearch.blogspot.com/2008/12/gender-gap-in-st...

He talks about the proportions of women in tech startups there. Funnily, the 12.7% women-in-IT percentage is more or less equivalent to the proportion of women on my undergrad and graduate computer science courses, and also nowhere near the percentage of female tech entrepreneurs I meet. (I've met two others, I think.)

However, I'm just doing what I want to do because it's cool and fun. Not because I want to fly a flag or be a statistic. I almost get annoyed when people draw attention to the gender gap, as it makes me even more of a three-headed monkey, and heaven knows I get enough strange looks as it is.


Me too, but at a certain point when you are established in a way, you want to fly a small flag just to say "hey look, it's possible!" to other women.

When I was wee (oh god, I'm getting old?! but I'm only 20!) I was put off by how many men there were and how weird it was to be the only girl in my entire CS classes, and now I think I'm over most of it (except for the really hurtful/disgusting discrimination, not limited to tech or gender). However, I occasionally meet another woman or some girl barely a few years younger who was put off by gender discrimination in tech (in general, not just startups) permanently or was on the verge of doing so, and I try to get them interested again in one way or another by mentoring in a way. I think in that aspect it's worthwhile to attempt that at least. All the women I talk to about this have found it helpful to know that there are other women in the industry that have been successful and that not everyone is so rude.


I wonder if there'll ever really be a way to mentor/help out women in tech without drawing attention to the gender statistics. I totally agree that helping others get interested when they are on the verge of being put off is a positive thing. But I still have this whole aversion to making us "special" and thus exacerbating the attitudes. Ho hum.




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