10 ms·

Female Founders Conference Live Stream [video]

91 points by craigcannon 9y ago

realPubkey 9y ago
I hate this separations based on gender.
- jjawssd 9y ago
  I find it strange that 50 years ago desegregation was so crucial but now resegregation is the new norm. Black-only colleges, female-only conferences, safe spaces.
  - bdcravens 9y ago
    It's incredibly disingenuous to compare civil rights with a voluntary conference attended by entrepreneurs. There's a huge difference between forced exclusion and voluntary inclusion.
    - jbmorgado 9y ago
      > "There's a huge difference between forced exclusion and voluntary inclusion." Well, factually, this event forcibly excludes from the presentations panel anyone that is not a female. We can discuss about some positive aspect we should or should not see in that, but you can hardly deny the fact.
      - dang 9y ago
        Would you people not conduct this tedious flamewar for the twenty seven thousandth time? It's blatantly off topic and most of us want to sleep the sleep of the dead when we hear it. This goes for both sides, insofar as continuing the argument only feeds it.
        teacup50 9y ago
        Many of us might say the same thing about the conference's divisive approach, said approach's root in intersectional theory and post-modernist-derived political ideology, and our perception of its nature as grossly deleterious.
        noloblo 9y ago
        I agree dang :)
        jjawssd 9y ago
        It's not a flame war. We are not discussing whether it is right or wrong. Only that it exists. And apparently, nobody wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
        dang 9y ago
        It is the poster child for flamewars. Moreover we've asked you twice before not to do this. That path leads to getting banned on HN, so please stop.
      - deleted 9y ago
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      - deleted 9y ago
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    - deleted 9y ago
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- dang 9y ago
  "Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- existencebox 9y ago
  God I'm really opening myself up for trouble by posting in this thread; but that fact alone makes me worried enough about the tone of discourse around these topics that I'll force myself to speak anyway. If the parent is downvoted because it doesn't expound on its point, that's entirely fair; but frankly, I agree (the post was since removed, but the core thrust was that they disliked gender-separated events). Creating artificial separation in order to "help" separation-oriented bias/conflict seems to be fighting against its own ends. It's a well established concept in behaviorism that exposure without a punishing outcome is an effective step towards overcoming personal adversity. I don't believe keeping men and women separate will do anything but encourage more feelings of us-them vs. togetherness, less shared context and experience, and more more misunderstanding/bitterness. I truly believe good role models and non-punishing environments can be provided in mixed scenarios that also provide additional benefits of communication and understanding across the divide. It's a little bit apples to oranges, but I was bullied _heavily_ most of my early childhood, regularly beat up/socially outcast/etc. If I had been homeschooled, pulled out of the system, kept only alongside other bullied youth, I hesitate to think I'd have developed ANY of the resilience or tools I now have to deal with unavoidable situations in real life. Don't read this as a justification of the negative, read this as a pragmatic response to trying to make productive adults who can both push for better interactions while not being unable to work in potentially pathological environments. Having examples of, "this is a popular kid who DOESN'T beat me up" was extremely valuable, and from talking to my wife (STEM, neurosci) at the very least, she's found similar strong mentors in her mixed gender workplace, despite (and sometimes because of) other workers who showed really distasteful behavior. This was, as my posts so often turn into, quite a ramble. Take the following sparknotes: I think that separation only reinforces ingroup/outgroup thinking. We need to build effective social norms together, not in isolation. (Hah, as expected, -2 by the time I even edited to fix some typos, I almost feel vindicated in my pessimism re: discussion on these topics. I'd appreciate if someone would at least rebut rather than just silence something you disagree with; I'd hope readers trust I'm going into this for the purposes of prompting discussion and not to be inflammatory)
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - 9y ago
leejoramo 9y ago
More info here: http://www.femalefoundersconference.org http://www.femalefoundersconference.org
MustafaAdam 9y ago
I don't have a problem with female only stuff. What I do mind is women thinking they are somehow special just because they have a vagina. Whenever it's a women only thing, they shamelessly and self righteously pat themselves on the back .
- theossuary 9y ago
  Not the place or time, go vent your frustrations in a blog post and see if it makes the front page on its own merits
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  We've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break the HN guidelines with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
drenvuk 9y ago
Was this advertised a few days ago somewhere else? It would've been nice to know about it ahead of time.
- craigcannon 9y ago
  we'll post the talks on youtube after the event.
abtinf 9y ago
> The world needs more women-led companies. This seems like a very broad statement. What is meant by "the world"? Whoever is meant by "the world", why do they "need" more companies and why should that need factor into one's career decisions? Why "more" companies instead of working at existing companies? Given that the most obviously influential speaker at that event is an employee at a not woman-led company, isn't that a contradiction of the claim? Why "women-led"? Why focus on biological sex? What about intersex? How about trans or non-binary gendered? In my view, starting or leading a company is just about the single hardest professional undertaking. You should only do it if it closely aligns with your personal purpose, otherwise it will be a nightmare experience. Encouraging someone to take a career path simply because of their association with a group, without reference to their individual objectives, is improper and will lead to an unhappy life.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- munchbunny 9y ago
  I think the quote is a valid point. How do you fix gender imbalance issues? Well, partly by balancing genders better in highly visible places. The "how" is very, very tough, but the goal is worthwhile. Also, "the world needs more women-led companies" and "the tech industry needs more female engineers" are not mutually exclusive. "The world needs more women-led companies" also isn't mutually exclusive with "the world needs more ____-led companies". I know that's not explicitly what you said, but I want to address the inferred sentiment because it shows up every time one of these discussions happens.
- dang 9y ago
  People who insist on relitigating this from first principles every time anything in the category comes up are trolling, whether they mean to or not. Why? Because they force everyone else to either (a) cede the battlefield or (b) suffer the soul-crushing boredom of engaging an argument they don't want to have, one that is always the same and never leads anywhere but nastiness. Here's a first principle that really does apply here: Hacker News exists for the gratification of intellectual curiosity. There is no intellectual curiosity in this battle—only resentment and repetition, the chocolate and peanut butter of tedium. You can agree with either side ideologically, or with both, or with neither, and still know that such flamewars are off topic here, because they violate the core value of the site. Imagine a 2x2 matrix in your head. "Angry tedium" is the quadrant we most want to avoid. Does the conference not gratify your intellectual curiosity? That's cool; there are 29 other things on the front page that might. (Ok, 28 and a job ad.)
toufka 9y ago
Pretty cool lineup. Even just a few speakers in, it's clear for as much commonality as exist between companies and founders, there are also a lot of differences in how to successfully approach different industries. It's validating(?) to see how different companies' & founders' personalities interpret and make good on otherwise simple aphorisms, "be tenacious", "measure, achieve, repeat", "just start". I like seeing that different interpretations are in themselves successful when applied to the appropriate domain.
blhack 9y ago
There are at least several comments in this thread right now that are some version of "I don't like this because it is segragatory". Here's why I do like this: because I have young nieces, and I want them to have role models that look like them. I have a 12 year old niece that I try to expose to as much positive encouragement around her ability to create things as I can, and things like this are a HUGE help. So good. I'm glad this exists, and I hope this continues to exist for years so that when my nieces start getting older, I can show it to them. I think if you don't have daughters, or don't have young girls in your life, it's really easy to overlook how powerful the zeitgeist is. Music, movies, pop culture, business, everything seems to be wanting to steer these people in a specific direction, and if that direction is something you disagree with, it's REALLY difficult to get around it.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > I think if you don't have daughters, or don't have young girls in your life Or you don't buy the "role models" concept..
- deleted 9y ago
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  - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    I think his whole comment begs exactly the downvoted thread's critiques: it's merely saying the popular stance on the same topic (without actually engaging with those others!) and doesn't really address why he thinks it's beneficial. It's entirely vapid virtue signaling.
- empath75 9y ago
  I'd love to live in a world where women were just equally represented at these things as a matter of course without making a big deal about it but until that world actually exists we need things like this.
- throwaway049 9y ago
  I like it for exactly the same reasons as you, and I'll recommend some highlights to my young nieces. But at the same time I am struggling to figure out my own feeling that a good speaker is a good speaker regardless of race or gender (although a strong accent can put me off an otherwise good talk) so maybe I'm patronising my nieces.
primigenus 9y ago
I really appreciated the insight by Poppy CEO Avni that pursuing your passion might lead you to think you know what you're doing and not be open to feedback, whereas pursuing a combination of curiosity and frustration is much healthier. Food for thought.
- toufka 9y ago
  An important nuance between the idea that you should be trying to solve a problem vs your problem. Identifying your problem gets you aimed correctly and can be a significant insight, but if you don't accept feedback by dint of determined (unselfish?) curiosity you're likely to overshoot what is actually marketable.
femwarrior 9y ago
To me, it is one of the feminist headfakes that looking similar is what matters most. Like suppose a girl is interested in maths and another girl is interested in dolls, and a boy is interested in maths and another boy is interested in football. Feminists have us believe that the maths boy and the football boy have more in common than the maths boy and the maths girl. That's just nonsense. When I was a kid, I liked books with female heroines just fine - there are actually a lot of them because one of the most famous children's books authors was a woman who wrote books like Pippa Longstocking. Now feminists have taught me that I should consider the gender of the heroes, and they ruined the books for me to some degree (especially the new ones that are obviously written especially to appease the feminists, giving girls unrealistic superpowers). As far as I can see, it is mostly feminists who tell girls that they would have a hard time in tech. I don't want anybody to tell that to my daughter, as I believe it to be very wrong. I want my daughter to be able to learn from everybody, not just from women.
- deleted 9y ago
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- dang 9y ago
  Please don't create accounts to use HN for ideological battle. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667450 and marked it off-topic. That comment could have done a better job of staying on topic, too, but at least it was closer to the topic and not primarily ideological.
worik 9y ago
The comments here have been weird. The moderation intense. It is a valid question: Why does women organising together create such hostile excitement? Perhaps it is an illustration of the need for such organising?
- JauntyHatAngle 9y ago
  I am quite glad for heavy moderation on these topics, look at reddit for example, this kind of talk would quickly go off topic and devolve into mud slinging. There is certainly an odd dynamic on the "nerdy" websites when it comes to promoting the under-represented gender. That said, comments like yours (and mine) are only adding to that problem. I guess I'm a hypocrite.
  - worik 9y ago
    Totally agree about the need for moderation. I am not complaining! I am not sure how our comments are adding to the problem. We should not act as if there is no problem with prejudice and bigotry in society generally. Sexism and misogyny in technology in particular.
  - worik 9y ago
    Why are so many so afraid? Would they be afraid of a "Black Founders Conference"? What about men tackling issues like work/life balance and getting connections to their families? A "Men as Parents" conference? I am a long way away from San Francisco so I really have no idea what the ins and outs of the local culture are, but I see this same fear here. Not a nostalgia for old gender roles, but some sort of fear about being left out. It is changing, but has a long way to go.
    - jshevek 9y ago
      I haven't yet seen any evidence of fear.
  - colemickens 9y ago
    Not taking any sides, but this whole "HN is more mature than reddit on these topics" meme is wrong and out-dated. I mean, goodness, look at this thread (well, if you have showdead on at least).
deleted 9y ago
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cgh 9y ago
I had never even heard of NIO before, probably because I don't watch Formula E racing. That EP9 electric supercar looks stunning. I look forward to watching the CEO's talk at some point (I don't have time for the live stream right now and I've probably missed it anyway). So they seem to have the EV technology down. Their goal is an autonomous EV. I wonder how their autonomous technology stacks up, does anyone know?
brianwawok 9y ago
What if they are biologically different in certain areas, and they do not WANT to be in that area? Do we continue to force them into roles that they don't want to meet a quota? I am not saying that is the case in EVERY male dominated field, but it could be in some. For the reverse, I have no desire to be a nurse or a nanny or a elementary teacher. I know there are programs to get more males in the first and third of these, but not sure it can be that successful. Because I have 0 desire to do either. Perhaps many other males share my feelings. That could easily explain the imbalance, not discrimination. I think the end game to equality is to not have a quote for every single thing. Oh the population if 49% female but this job only has 12% females, it needs adjusted. The end game of equality is to be race/sex/religion blind in all hiring decisions. Literally hire the best person for each job.
- just4themoney 9y ago
  Nobody is saying anything about quotas or forcing anyone to do things they don't want to do.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    From above > I'd love to live in a world where women were just equally represented at these things as a matter of course What is that isn't the natural state? What if 50% of the people that want to do X aren't of gender Z? How do we decide if we should do more to encourage X to do Z, or realize that Z doesn't WANT to do X, and focus on other issues?
- dang 9y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668250 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 9y ago
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tnone 9y ago
First off, if you want to see hostile excitement, go look at what happens when men try to get together to talk about real legal discrimination rather than just low representation. A skeptical internet thread is nothing compared to the protesting, fire alarm pulling, slander and career sabotage that occurs. Second, people don't like it because it's special pleading, funneling disproportionate attention to a minority in the industry for the sake of the omnipresent boogieman of "cultural pressure". Of course coupled with heavy handed moderation that if you disagree, you're a bad person. The fact that it is easy to get support for stuff like this is paradoxically used as evidence that it's hard. But coverage does not equal incidence, and equal opportunity has not lead to equal occupations in those countries focusing the most on gender equality. Thus the goal posts get moved again in search of a 50/50 utopia that will never happen.
- dang 9y ago
  We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667704 and marked it off-topic.
  - tnone 9y ago
    Thank you for proving the point. Criticism must be punished, even when it's directly addressing raised questions. It is exactly these sorts of actions that create the "hostile excitement" OP was complaining about. Cause and effect is a bitch. All you had to do was not treat the subject as sacred.
    - dang 9y ago
      That's inaccurate. The problem is that people's passions about the hot generic things are so strong that they blast them into every remotely related context, obliterating the specifics that make a given post interesting. The term 'flamewar' expresses vividly how these dynamics consume everything in sight if allowed to. On HN we're trying not to let that happen.
mr_spothawk 9y ago
> I'd love to live in a world where women were just equally represented at these things as a matter of course serious question: why? what would make it better? to be clear: i am not opposed (in any way) to equal representation. i do prefer (real, meaningful) equal opportunity, rather that homogeneity.
- empath75 9y ago
  Because the only way that situation would happen would be if the sexism that's endemic to the industry and the country were no longer a problem.
- dang 9y ago
  > serious question: why? Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667456 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667456 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667379 We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668250 and marked it off-topic.
  - mr_spothawk 9y ago
    if your problem is that the conversation has been had, why not remove/flag/off-topic the baitparent, too?

91 points by craigcannon 9y ago

realPubkey 9y ago

I hate this separations based on gender.

jjawssd 9y ago
I find it strange that 50 years ago desegregation was so crucial but now resegregation is the new norm. Black-only colleges, female-only conferences, safe spaces.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  It's incredibly disingenuous to compare civil rights with a voluntary conference attended by entrepreneurs. There's a huge difference between forced exclusion and voluntary inclusion.
  - jbmorgado 9y ago
    > "There's a huge difference between forced exclusion and voluntary inclusion." Well, factually, this event forcibly excludes from the presentations panel anyone that is not a female. We can discuss about some positive aspect we should or should not see in that, but you can hardly deny the fact.
    - dang 9y ago
      Would you people not conduct this tedious flamewar for the twenty seven thousandth time? It's blatantly off topic and most of us want to sleep the sleep of the dead when we hear it. This goes for both sides, insofar as continuing the argument only feeds it.
      - teacup50 9y ago
        Many of us might say the same thing about the conference's divisive approach, said approach's root in intersectional theory and post-modernist-derived political ideology, and our perception of its nature as grossly deleterious.
      - noloblo 9y ago
        I agree dang :)
      - jjawssd 9y ago
        It's not a flame war. We are not discussing whether it is right or wrong. Only that it exists. And apparently, nobody wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
        dang 9y ago
        It is the poster child for flamewars. Moreover we've asked you twice before not to do this. That path leads to getting banned on HN, so please stop.
    - deleted 9y ago
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    - deleted 9y ago
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dang 9y ago
"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 9y ago
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existencebox 9y ago
God I'm really opening myself up for trouble by posting in this thread; but that fact alone makes me worried enough about the tone of discourse around these topics that I'll force myself to speak anyway. If the parent is downvoted because it doesn't expound on its point, that's entirely fair; but frankly, I agree (the post was since removed, but the core thrust was that they disliked gender-separated events). Creating artificial separation in order to "help" separation-oriented bias/conflict seems to be fighting against its own ends. It's a well established concept in behaviorism that exposure without a punishing outcome is an effective step towards overcoming personal adversity. I don't believe keeping men and women separate will do anything but encourage more feelings of us-them vs. togetherness, less shared context and experience, and more more misunderstanding/bitterness. I truly believe good role models and non-punishing environments can be provided in mixed scenarios that also provide additional benefits of communication and understanding across the divide. It's a little bit apples to oranges, but I was bullied _heavily_ most of my early childhood, regularly beat up/socially outcast/etc. If I had been homeschooled, pulled out of the system, kept only alongside other bullied youth, I hesitate to think I'd have developed ANY of the resilience or tools I now have to deal with unavoidable situations in real life. Don't read this as a justification of the negative, read this as a pragmatic response to trying to make productive adults who can both push for better interactions while not being unable to work in potentially pathological environments. Having examples of, "this is a popular kid who DOESN'T beat me up" was extremely valuable, and from talking to my wife (STEM, neurosci) at the very least, she's found similar strong mentors in her mixed gender workplace, despite (and sometimes because of) other workers who showed really distasteful behavior. This was, as my posts so often turn into, quite a ramble. Take the following sparknotes: I think that separation only reinforces ingroup/outgroup thinking. We need to build effective social norms together, not in isolation. (Hah, as expected, -2 by the time I even edited to fix some typos, I almost feel vindicated in my pessimism re: discussion on these topics. I'd appreciate if someone would at least rebut rather than just silence something you disagree with; I'd hope readers trust I'm going into this for the purposes of prompting discussion and not to be inflammatory)
- deleted 9y ago
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- 9y ago

leejoramo 9y ago

More info here: http://www.femalefoundersconference.org http://www.femalefoundersconference.org

MustafaAdam 9y ago

I don't have a problem with female only stuff. What I do mind is women thinking they are somehow special just because they have a vagina. Whenever it's a women only thing, they shamelessly and self righteously pat themselves on the back .

theossuary 9y ago
Not the place or time, go vent your frustrations in a blog post and see if it makes the front page on its own merits
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dang 9y ago
We've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break the HN guidelines with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

drenvuk 9y ago

Was this advertised a few days ago somewhere else? It would've been nice to know about it ahead of time.

craigcannon 9y ago
we'll post the talks on youtube after the event.

abtinf 9y ago

> The world needs more women-led companies. This seems like a very broad statement. What is meant by "the world"? Whoever is meant by "the world", why do they "need" more companies and why should that need factor into one's career decisions? Why "more" companies instead of working at existing companies? Given that the most obviously influential speaker at that event is an employee at a not woman-led company, isn't that a contradiction of the claim? Why "women-led"? Why focus on biological sex? What about intersex? How about trans or non-binary gendered? In my view, starting or leading a company is just about the single hardest professional undertaking. You should only do it if it closely aligns with your personal purpose, otherwise it will be a nightmare experience. Encouraging someone to take a career path simply because of their association with a group, without reference to their individual objectives, is improper and will lead to an unhappy life.

deleted 9y ago
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munchbunny 9y ago
I think the quote is a valid point. How do you fix gender imbalance issues? Well, partly by balancing genders better in highly visible places. The "how" is very, very tough, but the goal is worthwhile. Also, "the world needs more women-led companies" and "the tech industry needs more female engineers" are not mutually exclusive. "The world needs more women-led companies" also isn't mutually exclusive with "the world needs more ____-led companies". I know that's not explicitly what you said, but I want to address the inferred sentiment because it shows up every time one of these discussions happens.
dang 9y ago
People who insist on relitigating this from first principles every time anything in the category comes up are trolling, whether they mean to or not. Why? Because they force everyone else to either (a) cede the battlefield or (b) suffer the soul-crushing boredom of engaging an argument they don't want to have, one that is always the same and never leads anywhere but nastiness. Here's a first principle that really does apply here: Hacker News exists for the gratification of intellectual curiosity. There is no intellectual curiosity in this battle—only resentment and repetition, the chocolate and peanut butter of tedium. You can agree with either side ideologically, or with both, or with neither, and still know that such flamewars are off topic here, because they violate the core value of the site. Imagine a 2x2 matrix in your head. "Angry tedium" is the quadrant we most want to avoid. Does the conference not gratify your intellectual curiosity? That's cool; there are 29 other things on the front page that might. (Ok, 28 and a job ad.)

toufka 9y ago

Pretty cool lineup. Even just a few speakers in, it's clear for as much commonality as exist between companies and founders, there are also a lot of differences in how to successfully approach different industries. It's validating(?) to see how different companies' & founders' personalities interpret and make good on otherwise simple aphorisms, "be tenacious", "measure, achieve, repeat", "just start". I like seeing that different interpretations are in themselves successful when applied to the appropriate domain.

blhack 9y ago

There are at least several comments in this thread right now that are some version of "I don't like this because it is segragatory". Here's why I do like this: because I have young nieces, and I want them to have role models that look like them. I have a 12 year old niece that I try to expose to as much positive encouragement around her ability to create things as I can, and things like this are a HUGE help. So good. I'm glad this exists, and I hope this continues to exist for years so that when my nieces start getting older, I can show it to them. I think if you don't have daughters, or don't have young girls in your life, it's really easy to overlook how powerful the zeitgeist is. Music, movies, pop culture, business, everything seems to be wanting to steer these people in a specific direction, and if that direction is something you disagree with, it's REALLY difficult to get around it.

Chris2048 9y ago
> I think if you don't have daughters, or don't have young girls in your life Or you don't buy the "role models" concept..
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  I think his whole comment begs exactly the downvoted thread's critiques: it's merely saying the popular stance on the same topic (without actually engaging with those others!) and doesn't really address why he thinks it's beneficial. It's entirely vapid virtue signaling.
empath75 9y ago
I'd love to live in a world where women were just equally represented at these things as a matter of course without making a big deal about it but until that world actually exists we need things like this.
throwaway049 9y ago
I like it for exactly the same reasons as you, and I'll recommend some highlights to my young nieces. But at the same time I am struggling to figure out my own feeling that a good speaker is a good speaker regardless of race or gender (although a strong accent can put me off an otherwise good talk) so maybe I'm patronising my nieces.

primigenus 9y ago

I really appreciated the insight by Poppy CEO Avni that pursuing your passion might lead you to think you know what you're doing and not be open to feedback, whereas pursuing a combination of curiosity and frustration is much healthier. Food for thought.

toufka 9y ago
An important nuance between the idea that you should be trying to solve a problem vs your problem. Identifying your problem gets you aimed correctly and can be a significant insight, but if you don't accept feedback by dint of determined (unselfish?) curiosity you're likely to overshoot what is actually marketable.

femwarrior 9y ago

To me, it is one of the feminist headfakes that looking similar is what matters most. Like suppose a girl is interested in maths and another girl is interested in dolls, and a boy is interested in maths and another boy is interested in football. Feminists have us believe that the maths boy and the football boy have more in common than the maths boy and the maths girl. That's just nonsense. When I was a kid, I liked books with female heroines just fine - there are actually a lot of them because one of the most famous children's books authors was a woman who wrote books like Pippa Longstocking. Now feminists have taught me that I should consider the gender of the heroes, and they ruined the books for me to some degree (especially the new ones that are obviously written especially to appease the feminists, giving girls unrealistic superpowers). As far as I can see, it is mostly feminists who tell girls that they would have a hard time in tech. I don't want anybody to tell that to my daughter, as I believe it to be very wrong. I want my daughter to be able to learn from everybody, not just from women.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dang 9y ago
Please don't create accounts to use HN for ideological battle. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667450 and marked it off-topic. That comment could have done a better job of staying on topic, too, but at least it was closer to the topic and not primarily ideological.

worik 9y ago

The comments here have been weird. The moderation intense. It is a valid question: Why does women organising together create such hostile excitement? Perhaps it is an illustration of the need for such organising?

JauntyHatAngle 9y ago
I am quite glad for heavy moderation on these topics, look at reddit for example, this kind of talk would quickly go off topic and devolve into mud slinging. There is certainly an odd dynamic on the "nerdy" websites when it comes to promoting the under-represented gender. That said, comments like yours (and mine) are only adding to that problem. I guess I'm a hypocrite.
- worik 9y ago
  Totally agree about the need for moderation. I am not complaining! I am not sure how our comments are adding to the problem. We should not act as if there is no problem with prejudice and bigotry in society generally. Sexism and misogyny in technology in particular.
- worik 9y ago
  Why are so many so afraid? Would they be afraid of a "Black Founders Conference"? What about men tackling issues like work/life balance and getting connections to their families? A "Men as Parents" conference? I am a long way away from San Francisco so I really have no idea what the ins and outs of the local culture are, but I see this same fear here. Not a nostalgia for old gender roles, but some sort of fear about being left out. It is changing, but has a long way to go.
  - jshevek 9y ago
    I haven't yet seen any evidence of fear.
- colemickens 9y ago
  Not taking any sides, but this whole "HN is more mature than reddit on these topics" meme is wrong and out-dated. I mean, goodness, look at this thread (well, if you have showdead on at least).

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cgh 9y ago

I had never even heard of NIO before, probably because I don't watch Formula E racing. That EP9 electric supercar looks stunning. I look forward to watching the CEO's talk at some point (I don't have time for the live stream right now and I've probably missed it anyway). So they seem to have the EV technology down. Their goal is an autonomous EV. I wonder how their autonomous technology stacks up, does anyone know?

brianwawok 9y ago

What if they are biologically different in certain areas, and they do not WANT to be in that area? Do we continue to force them into roles that they don't want to meet a quota? I am not saying that is the case in EVERY male dominated field, but it could be in some. For the reverse, I have no desire to be a nurse or a nanny or a elementary teacher. I know there are programs to get more males in the first and third of these, but not sure it can be that successful. Because I have 0 desire to do either. Perhaps many other males share my feelings. That could easily explain the imbalance, not discrimination. I think the end game to equality is to not have a quote for every single thing. Oh the population if 49% female but this job only has 12% females, it needs adjusted. The end game of equality is to be race/sex/religion blind in all hiring decisions. Literally hire the best person for each job.

just4themoney 9y ago
Nobody is saying anything about quotas or forcing anyone to do things they don't want to do.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  From above > I'd love to live in a world where women were just equally represented at these things as a matter of course What is that isn't the natural state? What if 50% of the people that want to do X aren't of gender Z? How do we decide if we should do more to encourage X to do Z, or realize that Z doesn't WANT to do X, and focus on other issues?
dang 9y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668250 and marked it off-topic.
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tnone 9y ago

First off, if you want to see hostile excitement, go look at what happens when men try to get together to talk about real legal discrimination rather than just low representation. A skeptical internet thread is nothing compared to the protesting, fire alarm pulling, slander and career sabotage that occurs. Second, people don't like it because it's special pleading, funneling disproportionate attention to a minority in the industry for the sake of the omnipresent boogieman of "cultural pressure". Of course coupled with heavy handed moderation that if you disagree, you're a bad person. The fact that it is easy to get support for stuff like this is paradoxically used as evidence that it's hard. But coverage does not equal incidence, and equal opportunity has not lead to equal occupations in those countries focusing the most on gender equality. Thus the goal posts get moved again in search of a 50/50 utopia that will never happen.

dang 9y ago
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667704 and marked it off-topic.
- tnone 9y ago
  Thank you for proving the point. Criticism must be punished, even when it's directly addressing raised questions. It is exactly these sorts of actions that create the "hostile excitement" OP was complaining about. Cause and effect is a bitch. All you had to do was not treat the subject as sacred.
  - dang 9y ago
    That's inaccurate. The problem is that people's passions about the hot generic things are so strong that they blast them into every remotely related context, obliterating the specifics that make a given post interesting. The term 'flamewar' expresses vividly how these dynamics consume everything in sight if allowed to. On HN we're trying not to let that happen.

mr_spothawk 9y ago

> I'd love to live in a world where women were just equally represented at these things as a matter of course serious question: why? what would make it better? to be clear: i am not opposed (in any way) to equal representation. i do prefer (real, meaningful) equal opportunity, rather that homogeneity.

empath75 9y ago
Because the only way that situation would happen would be if the sexism that's endemic to the industry and the country were no longer a problem.
dang 9y ago
> serious question: why? Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667456 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667456 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14667379 We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668250 and marked it off-topic.
- mr_spothawk 9y ago
  if your problem is that the conversation has been had, why not remove/flag/off-topic the baitparent, too?