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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

(femfosec.com)
1005 points femfosec | 9 comments | 28 Mar 21 18:37 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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DoreenMichele ◴[28 Mar 21 18:55 UTC] No.26613077[source]▶
I'm really glad to see this here. I don't have a better word readily available than sexism for trying to talk about patterns like this but when I use the word sexism, I think people think I mean "Men are intentionally exclusionary assholes just to be assholes because they simply hate women." and that's never what I'm trying to say.

I find my gender is a barrier to getting traction and my experience is that it's due to patterns of this sort and not because most men intentionally want me to fail. But the cumulative effect of most men erring on the side of protecting themselves and not wanting to take risks to engage with me meaningfully really adds up over time and I think that tremendously holds women back generally.

I think gendered patterns of social engagement also contributed to the Theranos debacle. I've said that before and I feel like it tends to get misunderstood as well. (Though in the case of Theranos it runs a lot deeper in that she was actually sleeping with an investor.)

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dageshi ◴[28 Mar 21 19:05 UTC] No.26613164[source]▶
Genuine question, if you were a man in that situation, what would you do?
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awb ◴[28 Mar 21 23:09 UTC] No.26615709[source]▶
You give the honest feedback.

We won’t progress as a society by being afraid.

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oblio ◴[28 Mar 21 23:44 UTC] No.26616003[source]▶
What's good for society might not be good for the individual.
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awb ◴[28 Mar 21 23:50 UTC] No.26616056[source]▶
True, but a broken society isn’t good for the individual either.
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1. dkarras ◴[28 Mar 21 23:57 UTC] No.26616102[source]▶
But a broken society might maybe affect you somewhat vaguely in decades, but putting your neck out now can demolish your career today.
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2. awb ◴[29 Mar 21 00:01 UTC] No.26616150[source]▶
Yes, it’s a question we all need to ask ourselves. If you have kids though or plan to live more than a decade or more, the choice is hopefully one of bending towards the greater good for society rather than the individual.
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3. refenestrator ◴[29 Mar 21 00:07 UTC] No.26616204[source]▶
I have kids. Providing for them is number one, becoming a meaningless casualty of culture wars doesn't help their future at all.
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4. TeMPOraL ◴[29 Mar 21 00:17 UTC] No.26616292{3}[source]▶
Also, in the spirit of guilt by association, kids may become collateral damage too.
5. awb ◴[29 Mar 21 00:24 UTC] No.26616354{3}[source]▶
It’s not meaningless at all. It’s a great example for your kids to show them how to do the right thing even when it’s hard.
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6. lr4444lr ◴[29 Mar 21 00:55 UTC] No.26616553{4}[source]▶
"Son, you may not understand why you're getting taunted, bullied online, and threatened by anonymous people with violence now, but in 15 years you'll come to appreciate what I stood up for and that'll erase all of this traumatic social ostracism I brought on you inadvertently and without consulting you by sticking to my guns."

Yeah, that's some great parenting... </Sarcasm>

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7. elzbardico ◴[29 Mar 21 06:40 UTC] No.26618338{5}[source]▶
Or. We are living in a car and I don't know if we will have dinner today, but let's keep our chin up while we dumpster dive for food because we stood for what is right
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8. jonfromsf ◴[01 Apr 21 00:39 UTC] No.26655289{6}[source]▶
I remember my dad telling me that if he had been accused of being a Communist during the McCarthy red scare, he would have said or done whatever was asked of him (named names, etc) so that he could keep working and supporting his family. I thought it was a cowardly perspective but now I'm a father myself I totally get it.
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9. awb ◴[06 Apr 21 18:39 UTC] No.26715627{7}[source]▶
Funny enough, my great-grandfather was Joe Welch who famously stood up to McCarthy. It's hard for me to imagine him not standing up to those baseless accusations and waiting/hoping for someone else to do it.