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Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

(femfosec.com)
1005 points femfosec | 6 comments | 28 Mar 21 18:37 UTC | HN request time: 1.342s | 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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DoreenMichele ◴[28 Mar 21 19:06 UTC] No.26613184[source]▶
In what situation?
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dageshi ◴[28 Mar 21 19:09 UTC] No.26613212[source]▶
Well the situation in the article seems like a good example, you think the female ceo should swap with the male co founder. You're invested but not massively and you've not really known either for years.
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cwhiz ◴[28 Mar 21 20:37 UTC] No.26614269[source]▶
It’s easy. Investment is a math game. What is the upside and downside of either action?

First choice, I remain silent. Best case, the female CEO kills it and I make some money. Worst case she flops and I lose my investment. Potentially great upside, relatively minor downside.

Second choice, I suggest a change. Best case the company does well and I make money. Worst case I’m labeled a sexist and I’m effectively ejected from the startup world. Potentially great upside, but unlimited losses.

Easy choice. I stay silent.

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pm90 ◴[28 Mar 21 23:11 UTC] No.26615719[source]▶
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.

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1. julianmarq ◴[29 Mar 21 01:13 UTC] No.26616656[source]▶
> 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.

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2. pm90 ◴[29 Mar 21 01:29 UTC] No.26616768[source]▶
> 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.

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3. julianmarq ◴[29 Mar 21 01:41 UTC] No.26616834[source]▶
> 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.

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4. pm90 ◴[29 Mar 21 02:34 UTC] No.26617123{3}[source]▶
> 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.

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5. noisy_boy ◴[29 Mar 21 02:40 UTC] No.26617157[source]▶
> 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.

6. ◴[29 Mar 21 03:00 UTC] No.26617259{4}[source]▶