←back to thread

Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

(femfosec.com)
1005 points femfosec | 5 comments | 28 Mar 21 18:37 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
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.)

replies(13): >>26613164 #>>26613190 #>>26613291 #>>26613423 #>>26613710 #>>26614078 #>>26614401 #>>26614781 #>>26615738 #>>26616493 #>>26617059 #>>26619084 #>>26635090 #
dageshi ◴[28 Mar 21 19:05 UTC] No.26613164[source]▶
Genuine question, if you were a man in that situation, what would you do?
replies(4): >>26613184 #>>26615709 #>>26616092 #>>26618552 #
DoreenMichele ◴[28 Mar 21 19:06 UTC] No.26613184[source]▶
In what situation?
replies(1): >>26613212 #
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.
replies(3): >>26613228 #>>26614269 #>>26614453 #
Blikkentrekker ◴[28 Mar 21 20:54 UTC] No.26614453[source]▶
I am male, and I would say so.

I do not live in the Anglo Saxon world; know this well.

I would say so, and the thought that anyone would level some of these weird gender arguments I've primarily seen from Anglo-Saxon news sources wouldn't cross my mind, for it has never happened to me in my life. — and I am not entirely sure as to how much I should believe such stories I read on the internet that speak of how seemingly every single issue in Anglo-Saxon culture is phrased in terms of an imaginary gender war.

I have never in such professional disputes in my life felt as though gender were used as an excuse, or reason, I have never in my life been accused of sexism when I criticized female staffmembers, and I have never seen it happen to anyone else either, I have never seen anyone go that route as a matter of defence.

Perhaps, a difference is that Dutch professional analyses ten to be more numerical, and that the Anglo-Saxon more often wings it based on feeling rather than numbers. It is o course far harder to argue with numbers.

replies(1): >>26616110 #
sidlls ◴[28 Mar 21 23:58 UTC] No.26616110[source]▶
The Dutch aren't any more analytical or rational than any other nation or nationality.
replies(2): >>26616355 #>>26620243 #
Blikkentrekker ◴[29 Mar 21 00:24 UTC] No.26616355[source]▶
Of course there is a cultural difference between how much numbers speak in different cultures.

What you want the world to be isn't what the world is, and in this case it's true, as by law in the Netherlands, various promotional and termination choices are required to be justified by numbers, which is not the case in Anglo-Saxon countries, where employers are more so at liberty to subjectively assess whom they wish to promote, and whom not.

replies(1): >>26616405 #
sidlls ◴[29 Mar 21 00:31 UTC] No.26616405[source]▶
Yes, and I'm sure the Dutch robotically compute such numbers, and there is rarely or never any subjectivity in their decision making that is justified ex post facto by clever accounting.
replies(1): >>26616445 #
Blikkentrekker ◴[29 Mar 21 00:39 UTC] No.26616445[source]▶
You're attacking a straw man of things I never said.

I simply said that in Dutch decisions of whom to promote, numbers play a greater sway than in Anglo-Saxon promotions; the claim you are attacking is another altogether.

replies(2): >>26617405 #>>26621653 #
DoreenMichele ◴[29 Mar 21 03:25 UTC] No.26617405[source]▶
Your remarks kind of sound pretty dismissive of and attacking towards Anglo-Saxon culture and I think some people get tired of hearing about supposed "Dutch superiority." The Dutch don't have everything beautifully and perfectly sorted, though they do appear to have a better track record in certain respects than average.

The Dutch cultural tendency to be very blunt is probably not helping your case.

I'm leaving this comment in hopes of being personally helpful to you as an individual and it's probably foolish for me to do so. It would probably be better for me to say nothing, but it's just kind of a pet peeve of mine so to speak, so I am doing it anyway.

replies(2): >>26619687 #>>26620299 #
1. Blikkentrekker ◴[29 Mar 21 10:26 UTC] No.26619687[source]▶
> Your remarks kind of sound pretty dismissive of and attacking towards Anglo-Saxon culture and I think some people get tired of hearing about supposed "Dutch superiority." The Dutch don't have everything beautifully and perfectly sorted, though they do appear to have a better track record in certain respects than average.

This entire thread is a sea of doomsday tears of fatalism and how bad it is, and how the culture is on a collision course with death, and mine was the perspective that I'm skeptical that it's truly as bad as they claim.

I'm far less dismissive of their own culture than they are.

But indeed, what they're tired of is not dismissing Anglo-Saxon culture, but that an outsider does so and having to hear that it's not the entire world.

They're own dismissals are far greater than mine.

> The Dutch cultural tendency to be very blunt is probably not helping your case.

My case? is it not further evidence of my thesis that there are cultural differences at play here?

One may assume that is is only to be expected that in a blunter culture, one would be less inclined to use sexism as an excuse when one be criticized.

Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon's famed tendency for politeness might very well be a contributing factor, if again, it truly be the case that it is so common for sexism to be used as an excuse when criticism be leveled.

> I'm leaving this comment in hopes of being personally helpful to you as an individual and it's probably foolish for me to do so. It would probably be better for me to say nothing, but it's just kind of a pet peeve of mine so to speak, so I am doing it anyway.

You are free to do so, and I am free to disagree and point out the opposite.

From my perspective, it comes across as a petulant child who excessively and unreasonably talks about a culture that is failing, but lashes out defensively when an outsider chimes in and says “It might be bad, but I'm not sure it's as bad as you claim.”, for then it is an outsider who does so, and apparently that crosses the line, not the dismissal in and of itself.

replies(2): >>26619728 #>>26622158 #
2. DoreenMichele ◴[29 Mar 21 10:33 UTC] No.26619728[source]▶
it comes across as a petulant child

That's basically a personal attack.

I'm not someone who downvoted you and my above remark was my first reply to you.

Have a good day.

replies(1): >>26622148 #
3. Blikkentrekker ◴[29 Mar 21 14:29 UTC] No.26622148[source]▶
It's no more a personal attack than what you did. You said how I came across, and I offered an opposite perspective how they came across.
replies(1): >>26622887 #
4. circlefavshape ◴[29 Mar 21 14:30 UTC] No.26622158[source]▶
Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon's famed tendency for politeness might very well be a contributing factor, if again, it truly be the case that it is so common for sexism to be used as an excuse when criticism be leveled

So if a Brit/American wants to insult you they'll do it politely/obliquely, the flipside being that politeness can often be misinterpreted as an insult. That won't happen with the Dutch, because if they want to insult you they'll just insult you directly. Is that what you mean? If so - haha, v interesting!

5. DoreenMichele ◴[29 Mar 21 15:10 UTC] No.26622887{3}[source]▶
I have a serious medical condition and I'm sometimes pretty impaired while posting here.

When I said it was sort of a pet peeve of mine, that perhaps sounds like I meant I was criticizing you and that's really not what I meant. I meant it aggravates me to see someone post in good faith, get downvoted to hell until they seem to be pissed off and no one will reach out to them and say "This doesn't work well on this forum for this reason."

I occasionally do try to make that effort in part because I'm a demographic outlier so I don't readily fit in here and have always had to really work at it and I sometimes get a lot of downvotes for what seems to be simply being a different demographic.

This forum skews culturally American to some degree. There do seem to be a fair number of Dutch members who post, but it is run by an American company and that helps shape the dominant culture here.

I'm American but I'm a former military wife. Like the Dutch, I tend to be pretty blunt.

Some people find me to be refreshingly direct. Others find me to be rude, crude and socially unacceptable. It seems to have little to do with my behavior and more to do with their cultural expectations.

I was only trying to tell you your bluntness will tend to be interpreted by most Americans as rudeness and disrespect, though some people with military experience will be more tolerant.

It's always a risk to say something to a total stranger and that's likely why it's common for someone to get downvoted to hell and no one tries to talk to them about that in some kind of helpful fashion: Because it can get misinterpreted and make the problem worse and make you a target of their ire.

I don't really care. I tend to do what makes sense to me and accept that sometimes it bites me in the ass.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't have to sit around justifying my guilty conscience. I don't have one. I don't stand idly by and say "Not my problem."

I'm sorry this didn't go well. I don't intend to discuss it with you further. If your take away from this is that I attacked you rather than that I was trying to reach out and bridge the cultural barrier you will face on HN, welp, you win some, you lose some.

Have a great day. Sincerely.