Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

Third choice: you invest in creating a better relationship with the female founders so that you’re capable of expressing your concern without appearing sexist.

I’m not sure why female founders are being portrayed as a different species? They’re humans. They know about sexism. They know when what they’re seeing is sexism vs critical feedback. And they will understand if you express your concerns with that.

The path of least resistance requires less work? I don't disagree with your view on this but it seems like the incentives simply aren't aligned to learn how to dodge an ever evolving anti-sexist culture that is interpreted as having different communication rules by different people. If it was as easy as like "don't misgender people" or something sure, fine everyone can learn the rules of the protocol in under 15 minutes. There is no reason why anyone can't do that. The rules for interacting aren't this simple though, and they are often differently interpreted by different people. Learning how to communicate in a way that makes every person feel comfortable often just isn't worth the time investment. If we want people to take this other option it has to have significant and demonstrable positive incentives that make people want to invest the time.

I do not believe we can have an open, honest discussion of sexism (or racism) in this country when one side of the discussion is effectively shut out.

I would only deal with women founders by Zoom recorded or in-person with several other people present. No closed doors and no alone time because it's a liability waiting to happen.

Regardless of gender, the other issue is if they're crazy or unable to accept feedback, then they may try to make you look bad. It's probably a good idea to socially screen all founders carefully so you know who you're dealing with.

This is it.

It's only sexism if it happens to a woman, therefore the word "feminism" itself isn't inherently sexist.

It's only racist if it happens to someone of color. White people can't be discriminated against by definition. Anyone who believes in "reverse discrimination" is a "racist" who has "too much entitled privilege."

Be quiet and accept the prevailing, correct opinions and beliefs, or be labeled and canceled. There is no debate and there is no discussion because the ideological mafia has already decided what beliefs are proper today. Oh and anyone who doesn't renounce yesterday's micro aggressions should be forced to resign if they don't apologize hard enough four times.

The left is a circular firing squad that doesn't have any loyalty.

PS: It sucks that we're here because we all need decency, awareness, and fair treatment. What's unhelpful is retribution masquerading as movements for fairness.

That's not quite what I meant. I simply don't think the prevailing narrative--"men can't/don't understand/recognize sexism and (all) women do" and "whites can't/don't understand/recognize racism and (all) black/other minority do"--is either true or useful for moving forward together.

I do believe that in the US sexism is generally one directional due to the intrinsic imbalance in power. There are stereotypes about males, and they are harmful in some cases, but generally because more men have power the harm to women is more pervasive and severe.

Same thing with respect to race and white people, actually.

Well, that's circular logic that implies an -ism is correct because one side can never understand it and is therefore always guilty of it.

I don't understand what you're trying to say about sexism or racism because your sentences don't make grammatical sense.

> They know when what they’re seeing is sexism vs critical feedback.

One can't possibly guarantee that every founder (female or not) knows that, and in fact, TFA implies that many don't. So the possibility that at least one of them will think the investor sexist for giving feedback is unfortunately not zero. And, of course, this option doesn't seem to consider the possibility that even if the founder takes the criticism at face value, someone else might not.

In light of that, the third choice you present seems to be GP's second choice after all.

I'll break them down into smaller chunks for you:

Sexism exists and affects both genders. Imbalances in power mean the effects of sexism are generally felt more by women than by men. The narrative that men cannot understand or recognize sexism, or have an inferior ability to do so, is not supported by the facts. It is also harmful to overcoming the problems of sexism by men toward women.

I hold a similar view with respect to the relationship between racism and white people.

> So the possibility that at least one of them will think the investor sexist for giving feedback is unfortunately not zero.

There is a nonzero risk in any social interaction that involves giving critical feedback. The way you manage that risk is by investing in healthy relationships, not by perceiving literally half of humanity as being too risky to be worthy of critical feedback.

I’m not quite sure what to say to you. Living life involves risks. It sure seems like one of those risks is being deliberately amplified to be used as an excuse to “not even bother” with female founders.

> There is a nonzero risk in any social interaction that involves giving critical feedback.

Which leads me back to GP's point: there are only two choices. I take it that you're saying that the risk of the second choice can be ignored if taking some steps, but the consequences remain the same, and GP didn't speak about the thresholds or ways to improve the odds. He only mentioned that the risk exists and isn't worth it for him, and you disagree, but that's not much to go on.

> I’m not quite sure what to say to you. Living life involves risks. It sure seems like one of those risks is being deliberately amplified to be used as an excuse to “not even bother” with female founders.

Conversely, I'm not sure what's being implied here so I don't know how to reply.

For what it's worth, TFA isn't saying that investors aren't bothering with female founders. They are, but are being careful with the feedback they give.

ETA: Forgot to mention, the way you're suggesting investors to "manage" the risk not only doesn't remove the risk for investors, but it also leaves female founders at a disadvantage anyway: male founders can get critical feedback right away, female founders have to wait until a rapport is built.

I know multiple white men who, when passed up for an opportunity, will say it's bullshit, they deserved that opportunity, and there must be {politics|nepotism|treachery} for this to happen. The difference is that they can't claim sexism, and there's no word they can throw at the person in charge of the decision to strike back on social media the way labeling someone sexist / racist can.

> I know multiple white men who, when passed up for an opportunity, will say it's bullshit, they deserved that opportunity, and there must be {politics|nepotism|treachery} for this to happen. The difference is that they can't claim sexism,

White men can and do blame sexism and racism for their failure to advance all the time, and have been doing so since the day when overt discrimination in their favor stopped being a near-universal norm.

EDIT: of course, the audience that is favorably predisposed to such complaints is very different to the ones predisposed the same way toward claims from other groups, but it is very large and socially influential.

> Which leads me back to GP's point: there are only two choices. I take it that you're saying that the risk of the second choice should be ignored, but the consequences remain the same, and GP didn't speak about the thresholds or ways to improve the odds. He only mentioned that the risk exists and isn't worth it for him, and you disagree, but that's not much to go on.

What I'm trying to demonstrate is that the framing of the choices involved as just the two is misleading and not at very useful. Not sure what you're trying to imply by going through the pedantry of demonstrating that what I said is "actually covered by the second choice". If that makes you happy, let it be so, its a false dichotomy.

> Conversely, I'm not sure what to reply to this. It seems to me like you're implying that the people who are discussing this are "sexists looking for an excuse", but that sounds like an uncharitable interpretation, so I might as well ask if you could clarify what you meant by this.

I stated a possibility for why the people are behaving in the way it has been described. The reasoning given seems to be "some women founders may interpret it as sexism", which to me seems like an uncharitable interpretation.

I am trying to point out that this only makes sense to an audience of males. The reason could be equally viewed as "some men investors do not want to deal with women founders", which is another uncharitable interpretation.

> For what it's worth, TFA isn't saying that investors aren't bothering with female founders. They are, but are being careful with the feedback they give.

The article is very clearly stating that investors are withholding from giving the kind of advice that could decide between whether the company succeeds or fails. I would actually say that's worse than outright rejection to work with female founders, as investors play an important role in filtering out bad ideas and convincing founders of good ideas.

> There is a nonzero risk in any social interaction that involves giving critical feedback. The way you manage that risk is by investing in healthy relationships, not by perceiving literally half of humanity as being too risky to be worthy of critical feedback.

Depends on the quantum of risk.

I'll make someone unhappy at most but the truth will help them? Sure.

I can be labelled as sexist and it might end my career? Hard nope.

>White men can and do blame sexism and racism for their failure to advance all the time, and have been doing so since the day when overt discrimination in their favor stopped being a near-universal norm.

Yes, everyone is guilty of this. When you mess up, blame someone else. That's how you get stuck regardless of your race or gender. You'll be on a crusade against the wrong thing and never achieve anything.