10 ms·

I'm always slightly puzzled as to why this is an issue. Surely the goal is to have lots of innovative and successful startups, and the gender of who is foundin

by philk 16y ago

I'm always slightly puzzled as to why this is an issue. Surely the goal is to have lots of innovative and successful startups, and the gender of who is founding them is irrelevant. There aren't, as far as I can tell, any real barriers to women starting a tech company; being able to code, having a lot of mental resilience and having some starting capital is not something that's only possible if you're male.

whakojacko 16y ago
IMO, Its considered an issue because 1. Women have succesfully entered lots of other previously male-dominated fields (Doctors, Lawyers, Business execs, etc). 2. Tech is considered a "sexy" field to be in. To expand, Women are still a minority in a lot of areas of work where physical differences are mostly unimportant-E.g. truck driving, skilled construction workers (carpenters/electricians), etc. Other engineering fields (eg EE) are similarly male-dominated, but being an EE or whatever isnt "sexy" in the way tech is, so it doesnt get as much attention. By "sexy" I mean the software industry has lots of high-paying jobs, growth, job security (if you are good at what you do), and, most importantly, publicity. Facebook essentially didnt exist 6 years ago, now they have 500m users every tiny change they make is "big" news. If you can create your own company (which , relative to other industries, is incredibly easy to do), you get lots more money and publicity. This makes it a popular target for the "Why arent there more women in industry x" discussion.
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  Do you really believe that the general perception of programming/IT is "sexy"?
  - lenni 16y ago
    I agree, my little theory about why women don't want to work in IT or study CompSci is that they don't want to hang around with the nerdy types. Medicine and Law has more prestige.
    - ahoyhere 16y ago
      Even if you disregard who you work with, what else do medicine and law have that compsci doesn't? * your family & friends will be able to grasp what you do * on average, in those fields you can have a much greater positive impact on other people than you can employed developer * your field is insulated by the need for education - you don't have to worry about 16-year-olds who think working 20 hour days is fun * codes of professionalism (whether or not they're slavishly followed) * regulatory boards that can and do eject bad apples * very hard to outsource to India or other destination du jour * law firms and medical practices don't go boom and bust as often as tech firms do I'm a female developer and I honestly don't care... but then again, I've made myself impossible to compete with. I'd also gnaw off my own leg before working in a corporate tech environment. Let's face it -- the movie that sums up the life of a corporate developer best is _Office Space_. The IT Crowd doesn't make it much more appealing. Meanwhile, lawyers and doctors and biotech and all sorts of other fields where there are more women -- they get the awesome shows and movies.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Your reasons might explain why women enter medicine and law rather than CS. Except for the first reason, they don't explain why women enter advertising and sales but not CS. Further, everything you just said applies equally well to any sort of professional engineer (i.e., the kind where you get certified) or to actuaries. Those fields exhibit a lack of women similar to CS.
      - kd0amg 16y ago
        your family & friends will be able to grasp what you do After listening to a med student and a pharmacy student discuss what they've been doing while on rotations, I'm not entirely certain this is true.
      - sliverstorm 16y ago
        >Let's face it -- the movie that sums up the life of a corporate developer best is _Office Space_. The IT Crowd doesn't make it much more appealing. >Meanwhile, lawyers and doctors and biotech and all sorts of other fields where there are more women -- they get the awesome shows and movies. That's it! We need the IT port of House!
  - patio11 16y ago
    There is an easy test for what fields women find as having social status. Look at the cover of Harlequinn romance novels. I conclude that doctors, bankers, marketing executives, writers, poets, dukes, slaveholding Southerners, vampires, werewolves, and Catholic priests are all seen as more desirable than engineers are.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - lizzy 16y ago
      Thankfully for (male) software engineers, not all women enjoy Harlequinn romance novels. :)
    - jerf 16y ago
      Dukes are appealing to women? Conclusion: YCombinator should start handing out titles of nobility upon acceptance to the program. Problem solved! "And over here is Duke Smith, Lord of Databases, who rules over over data warehouse, and whose rippling pecs shine like the morning dew..." uh, sorry, got off track there.
    - thesethings 16y ago
      You were probably joking. But just in case somebody from another country is reading this (and missed the reference): I am female, and have never read a Harlequinn romance novel. None of my female friends have read them, either. None of my older female relatives have read them either. (I'm not saying some people aren't reading them. Just that they're like daytime soap operas: Cheap enough to make, and popular enough to survive, but not necessarily relevant.) Must be something wrong with my friends and me. Lately many of us have been crushing out on guys who work at coffee shops. But my point is this: There is such a thing as sub-culture. This means not everybody likes the same stuff. To put it in start-up terms: it's the long tail... of attraction. This is 2010, people. :D #dowatchalike
      - sliverstorm 16y ago
        I am male, and I am not into porn. That doesn't mean it doesn't accurately reflect the desires of males, on average. Material like that will cater to it's audience. Then the only question is, who is it's audience and do they represent a significant portion of the greater whole we are trying to study.
edanm 16y ago
" Surely the goal is to have lots of innovative and successful startups, and the gender of who is founding them is irrelevant." Yes and no. Just as Paul Graham often says that there could be more startups than there are, and that would be a good thing, I suspect there can be a lot more female-founded startups, and that would also be a good thing. The goal is to have more successful startups, and from the numbers, it looks like there's many women who might otherwise have created a successful company, but don't start one because of lack of awareness/society pressures/etc. In other words, just like pg tries to get more people to try entrepreneurship with his essays, by raising awareness and showing it is possible, more concentrated efforts to raise awareness are needed for groups who are also likely to succeed, but who are harder to get to.
philwelch 16y ago
It's a touchy political issue. Some people, for ideological reasons, would prefer gender equality everywhere possible. Some people suspect that women are different from men in how they use software, and that women are better equipped to serve female customers.[1] And some people think the low numbers of women in startups, or in the tech industry, indicates some fundamental discrimination or injustice against women. [1] Think about the 50's and 60's--there were tons of companies almost entirely run by men who produced lots of products used almost exclusively by women. You have to wonder how well they really understood their customers.
- patio11 16y ago
  women are better equipped to serve female customers While it would be difficult to A/B test, I rather suspect that the Y chromosome is not depressing my conversion rates.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    For a moment there I thought you were going to make a completely different joke because of the quote you picked. It must be my dirty mind at work.
  - techbio 16y ago
    We are going to need more identical-twins-separated-at-birth for this study, too.
- viggity 16y ago
  Its funny how you never hear about anyone arguing for gender equality when it comes to death row or homelessness or psych wards or menial physical labor.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- amirmc 16y ago
  You have to wonder how well they really understood their customers A quote comes to mind: "You are not your target market". This is as true of women selling to women as it is for men selling to women. Those companies in the 50's and 60's you refer to probably did perfectly well for themselves as long as they were listening to (and learning from) their customers.
tbrownaw 16y ago
I'm always slightly puzzled as to why this is an issue. Young, single guys don't like having all of their coworkers also be guys? (Especially if they work crazy hours and are a bit light on social skills.) Having more women in the field would make it more socially acceptable? A bigger industry is better? (What about the industries we'd be stealing the women from?) More competition is better? (Even when you're the one being competed against?) Maybe having more women is a sign that the industry has become socially acceptable, or that we've learned better social skills, or something? Maybe "women" here is really a stand-in for some larger group that wants our perceived salaries without our perceived social sacrifices? i.e., I suspect it's not really about the women at all...
sliverstorm 16y ago
Anytime a group that thinks they are a minority notices somebody else is making a lot of money doing something, they decide they naturally deserve a piece of that pie too. Whether or not there are barriers is irrelevant to whether or not they will clamor for their 'fair share'.

by philk 16y ago

whakojacko 16y ago

IMO, Its considered an issue because 1. Women have succesfully entered lots of other previously male-dominated fields (Doctors, Lawyers, Business execs, etc). 2. Tech is considered a "sexy" field to be in. To expand, Women are still a minority in a lot of areas of work where physical differences are mostly unimportant-E.g. truck driving, skilled construction workers (carpenters/electricians), etc. Other engineering fields (eg EE) are similarly male-dominated, but being an EE or whatever isnt "sexy" in the way tech is, so it doesnt get as much attention. By "sexy" I mean the software industry has lots of high-paying jobs, growth, job security (if you are good at what you do), and, most importantly, publicity. Facebook essentially didnt exist 6 years ago, now they have 500m users every tiny change they make is "big" news. If you can create your own company (which , relative to other industries, is incredibly easy to do), you get lots more money and publicity. This makes it a popular target for the "Why arent there more women in industry x" discussion.

ahoyhere 16y ago
Do you really believe that the general perception of programming/IT is "sexy"?
- lenni 16y ago
  I agree, my little theory about why women don't want to work in IT or study CompSci is that they don't want to hang around with the nerdy types. Medicine and Law has more prestige.
  - ahoyhere 16y ago
    Even if you disregard who you work with, what else do medicine and law have that compsci doesn't? * your family & friends will be able to grasp what you do * on average, in those fields you can have a much greater positive impact on other people than you can employed developer * your field is insulated by the need for education - you don't have to worry about 16-year-olds who think working 20 hour days is fun * codes of professionalism (whether or not they're slavishly followed) * regulatory boards that can and do eject bad apples * very hard to outsource to India or other destination du jour * law firms and medical practices don't go boom and bust as often as tech firms do I'm a female developer and I honestly don't care... but then again, I've made myself impossible to compete with. I'd also gnaw off my own leg before working in a corporate tech environment. Let's face it -- the movie that sums up the life of a corporate developer best is _Office Space_. The IT Crowd doesn't make it much more appealing. Meanwhile, lawyers and doctors and biotech and all sorts of other fields where there are more women -- they get the awesome shows and movies.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Your reasons might explain why women enter medicine and law rather than CS. Except for the first reason, they don't explain why women enter advertising and sales but not CS. Further, everything you just said applies equally well to any sort of professional engineer (i.e., the kind where you get certified) or to actuaries. Those fields exhibit a lack of women similar to CS.
    - kd0amg 16y ago
      your family & friends will be able to grasp what you do After listening to a med student and a pharmacy student discuss what they've been doing while on rotations, I'm not entirely certain this is true.
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      >Let's face it -- the movie that sums up the life of a corporate developer best is _Office Space_. The IT Crowd doesn't make it much more appealing. >Meanwhile, lawyers and doctors and biotech and all sorts of other fields where there are more women -- they get the awesome shows and movies. That's it! We need the IT port of House!
- patio11 16y ago
  There is an easy test for what fields women find as having social status. Look at the cover of Harlequinn romance novels. I conclude that doctors, bankers, marketing executives, writers, poets, dukes, slaveholding Southerners, vampires, werewolves, and Catholic priests are all seen as more desirable than engineers are.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - lizzy 16y ago
    Thankfully for (male) software engineers, not all women enjoy Harlequinn romance novels. :)
  - jerf 16y ago
    Dukes are appealing to women? Conclusion: YCombinator should start handing out titles of nobility upon acceptance to the program. Problem solved! "And over here is Duke Smith, Lord of Databases, who rules over over data warehouse, and whose rippling pecs shine like the morning dew..." uh, sorry, got off track there.
  - thesethings 16y ago
    You were probably joking. But just in case somebody from another country is reading this (and missed the reference): I am female, and have never read a Harlequinn romance novel. None of my female friends have read them, either. None of my older female relatives have read them either. (I'm not saying some people aren't reading them. Just that they're like daytime soap operas: Cheap enough to make, and popular enough to survive, but not necessarily relevant.) Must be something wrong with my friends and me. Lately many of us have been crushing out on guys who work at coffee shops. But my point is this: There is such a thing as sub-culture. This means not everybody likes the same stuff. To put it in start-up terms: it's the long tail... of attraction. This is 2010, people. :D #dowatchalike
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      I am male, and I am not into porn. That doesn't mean it doesn't accurately reflect the desires of males, on average. Material like that will cater to it's audience. Then the only question is, who is it's audience and do they represent a significant portion of the greater whole we are trying to study.

edanm 16y ago

" Surely the goal is to have lots of innovative and successful startups, and the gender of who is founding them is irrelevant." Yes and no. Just as Paul Graham often says that there could be more startups than there are, and that would be a good thing, I suspect there can be a lot more female-founded startups, and that would also be a good thing. The goal is to have more successful startups, and from the numbers, it looks like there's many women who might otherwise have created a successful company, but don't start one because of lack of awareness/society pressures/etc. In other words, just like pg tries to get more people to try entrepreneurship with his essays, by raising awareness and showing it is possible, more concentrated efforts to raise awareness are needed for groups who are also likely to succeed, but who are harder to get to.

philwelch 16y ago

It's a touchy political issue. Some people, for ideological reasons, would prefer gender equality everywhere possible. Some people suspect that women are different from men in how they use software, and that women are better equipped to serve female customers.[1] And some people think the low numbers of women in startups, or in the tech industry, indicates some fundamental discrimination or injustice against women. [1] Think about the 50's and 60's--there were tons of companies almost entirely run by men who produced lots of products used almost exclusively by women. You have to wonder how well they really understood their customers.

patio11 16y ago
women are better equipped to serve female customers While it would be difficult to A/B test, I rather suspect that the Y chromosome is not depressing my conversion rates.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  For a moment there I thought you were going to make a completely different joke because of the quote you picked. It must be my dirty mind at work.
- techbio 16y ago
  We are going to need more identical-twins-separated-at-birth for this study, too.
viggity 16y ago
Its funny how you never hear about anyone arguing for gender equality when it comes to death row or homelessness or psych wards or menial physical labor.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
amirmc 16y ago
You have to wonder how well they really understood their customers A quote comes to mind: "You are not your target market". This is as true of women selling to women as it is for men selling to women. Those companies in the 50's and 60's you refer to probably did perfectly well for themselves as long as they were listening to (and learning from) their customers.

tbrownaw 16y ago

I'm always slightly puzzled as to why this is an issue. Young, single guys don't like having all of their coworkers also be guys? (Especially if they work crazy hours and are a bit light on social skills.) Having more women in the field would make it more socially acceptable? A bigger industry is better? (What about the industries we'd be stealing the women from?) More competition is better? (Even when you're the one being competed against?) Maybe having more women is a sign that the industry has become socially acceptable, or that we've learned better social skills, or something? Maybe "women" here is really a stand-in for some larger group that wants our perceived salaries without our perceived social sacrifices? i.e., I suspect it's not really about the women at all...

sliverstorm 16y ago

Anytime a group that thinks they are a minority notices somebody else is making a lot of money doing something, they decide they naturally deserve a piece of that pie too. Whether or not there are barriers is irrelevant to whether or not they will clamor for their 'fair share'.