Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

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.)

Genuine question, if you were a man in that situation, what would you do?

In what situation?

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.

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.

The Dutch aren't any more analytical or rational than any other nation or nationality.