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We had gender roles because it was the most effective way to survive and raise a family. The cost was that women were assigned rather basic responsibilities. Be

We had gender roles because it was the most effective way to survive and raise a family. The cost was that women were assigned rather basic responsibilities. Because tech and services have evolved families can outsource some of the chors done by women in the past like cooking, cleaning. In the case of making babies the the technology is still in development but we will get there. Artificial wombs will be an option in the next decades. Still the baby requires for the normal emotional development close contact with the mother. In the end the fundamental role of the mother to bond with the baby cannot be outsourced and I do not think that's desirable. Will there always be differences between men and women in the workplace? I think the answer to the question is yes, at least for women who chose to raise a family. Fundamentaly that is a life choice. But now with more freedom for women there is more pressure for them to achieve. Creating a company is hard, very hard. Raising a kid at the same time I believe it requires super human effort. I profoundly respect the author, she is a real fighter. But few women when given the choice would choose to do what she did. Feeding a baby in the car while doing research seems far from desirable for most women I presume. Then the question is why she did it? I will be interested to know her view, but I presume she really cared about her company and it was beyond money. This is the price to pay for creating a company, Musk works crazy hours to keep his two companies alive. Female founders with a kid are under the same pressure. There is nothing we can do here to make it easier: the world of businesses is a race, a competition, nobody cares about you're personal problems: a kid, cancer, etc. > I want to see a world where men and women, who make up equal halves of humanity, also make up equal halves of leadership. When that happens, I wholeheartedly believe that the entire world will benefit. The push towards equality of outcomes is a dangerous ones as it creates expectations that are not realistic to be met. Given our biological makeup and the roles that derive from that I believe this is the not realistic. While I totally agree that women who want to lead and are willing to make the sacrifices required are making the world a better place, it is not for everyone and we should accept and respect that.

bhubert 6y ago
I know I'm a little lateto the party, but I want to make the point that I don't actually think that there being few women in leading roles is the problem. I think it is a symptom. I think it is a symptom of a real underlying hidden problem that is the discourse of todays society is biasing the interests of our children differently based on gender. A lot of places we're strongly associating the color blue with boys and the color pink with girls. We force these colors upon them while they're such a young age that they might grow the same associations. I think this also happens with attributes other than favorite color, attributes such as behavioral patterns. I'm bot saying there's not also a biological aspect to this, but noone I've read has any idea of how much is nurture and how much is nature, but it seems to me that when looking at our (as a society) practices with our small ones, there is certainly room for a great deal being nurture. In short I don't think that the problem is that there are few women in leading roles, I think the problem is that we are raising our boys to want to be leaders and our girls to not.
- cutemonster 6y ago
  > the problem is that we are raising our boys to want to be leaders and our girls to not. What you think initially caused that behavior in the first place, some time long ago?
  - RestlessMind 6y ago
    I remember reading about this in "Sapiens". Suppose there were indeed women leaders many thousands of years back. Due to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, they would not have had any opportunity to both bear a child for a couple of years at least (9 months of pregnancy, breast feeding afterwards) and be a leader at the same time. Add to that the high rate of infant mortality and you have vastly diminishing chances of a leader-woman passing her genes to baby girls. Now compound this over thousands of generations and you will have the society of early-20th century, before infant mortality rates started going down and societies started becoming wealthier that a leader-woman has to invest only a few months at most for a child by outsourcing most of the "gatherer" duties.
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      I've been thinking a bit along the same lines Sounds like an interesting book, thanks for mentioning
galoisgirl 6y ago
> But few women when given the choice would choose to do what she did. Feeding a baby in the car while doing research seems far from desirable for most women I presume. Then the question is why she did it? I'd say the question is why men do it. In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, all men say "I wish I hadn't worked so hard". (That's the second after "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me", and others' expectations of male CEOs are a problem too.) Why do men chose to live a life they regret later?
- drobert 6y ago
  I think for men the incentives are different. If they succeed they have more options in dating, financial freedom, respect from other men, etc. Women get respect too but don't think more dating options (I would even presume the opposite). I met few women that are heavily into investments and becoming independent financially. Women value more relationships, happiness. Men are willing to sacrifice those for money and fame. The fundamental issue at hand is sexual selection and the desire to leave something behind. It goes beyond societal norms and is buried deep into our biology. > Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. Ernest Shackleton
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    This is the answer, I'm pretty certain. But I think it'd be good with more female CEO's, for the whole world (this also based on biology).
- LunaSea 6y ago
  For men it's not a choice.
  - galoisgirl 6y ago
    It is. However, I'll admit that societal pressures work both ways, they affect men too. Men are not as free to be a stay-at-home parent if they chose to as women are.
dennis_jeeves 6y ago
drobert, yours is a fairly well balanced comment. Summary of the article: we are puppets to our biology. This goes well belong gender, I'm sure that the guy who is paraplegic will have his own story on how he has to cope with things that many people take for granted. Some of the most objective posts here have been either flagged or banned, i.e there is no option to up vote them.
mdorazio 6y ago
Thank you for stating this as clearly as you did. I'll probably get downvoted for comment, but my reaction to reading this essay was to be angry with Tracy. She repeatedly put herself in situations where she had to choose between family and company (or at least thought she did), and for what? Regardless of gender, if you want to have a successful family and you want to have a successful high-growth startup, you're going to have a bad time. This idea that rockstar CEOs can magically have everything needs to die - if you pick that path it comes with sacrifices that you need to recognize up front. Either you're going to be a bad parent/spouse (applies to most of the male CEOs I know) or you're going to be a leader who doesn't inspire confidence in employees (let alone co-founders, from personal experience). If you want a well-balanced life, consider other options like a lifestyle business or the corporate ladder.
- cutemonster 6y ago
  Looking at the end result: company sold for $$$$$$$, and I'd think the child will have a happy childhood and grow up and be a happy adult, ... Then it seems to me she was precisely that rock star CEO plus with "everything", ie a baby in this case. So it's been done already and so definitely is possible, I'd say. > sacrifices that you need to recognize up front ... Either you're going to be a bad ... No. Instead, I want society to change, so it becomes easy and un-stressful to be a female CEO with a small baby.

bhubert 6y ago

I know I'm a little lateto the party, but I want to make the point that I don't actually think that there being few women in leading roles is the problem. I think it is a symptom. I think it is a symptom of a real underlying hidden problem that is the discourse of todays society is biasing the interests of our children differently based on gender. A lot of places we're strongly associating the color blue with boys and the color pink with girls. We force these colors upon them while they're such a young age that they might grow the same associations. I think this also happens with attributes other than favorite color, attributes such as behavioral patterns. I'm bot saying there's not also a biological aspect to this, but noone I've read has any idea of how much is nurture and how much is nature, but it seems to me that when looking at our (as a society) practices with our small ones, there is certainly room for a great deal being nurture. In short I don't think that the problem is that there are few women in leading roles, I think the problem is that we are raising our boys to want to be leaders and our girls to not.

cutemonster 6y ago
> the problem is that we are raising our boys to want to be leaders and our girls to not. What you think initially caused that behavior in the first place, some time long ago?
- RestlessMind 6y ago
  I remember reading about this in "Sapiens". Suppose there were indeed women leaders many thousands of years back. Due to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, they would not have had any opportunity to both bear a child for a couple of years at least (9 months of pregnancy, breast feeding afterwards) and be a leader at the same time. Add to that the high rate of infant mortality and you have vastly diminishing chances of a leader-woman passing her genes to baby girls. Now compound this over thousands of generations and you will have the society of early-20th century, before infant mortality rates started going down and societies started becoming wealthier that a leader-woman has to invest only a few months at most for a child by outsourcing most of the "gatherer" duties.
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    I've been thinking a bit along the same lines Sounds like an interesting book, thanks for mentioning

galoisgirl 6y ago

> But few women when given the choice would choose to do what she did. Feeding a baby in the car while doing research seems far from desirable for most women I presume. Then the question is why she did it? I'd say the question is why men do it. In The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, all men say "I wish I hadn't worked so hard". (That's the second after "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me", and others' expectations of male CEOs are a problem too.) Why do men chose to live a life they regret later?

drobert 6y ago
I think for men the incentives are different. If they succeed they have more options in dating, financial freedom, respect from other men, etc. Women get respect too but don't think more dating options (I would even presume the opposite). I met few women that are heavily into investments and becoming independent financially. Women value more relationships, happiness. Men are willing to sacrifice those for money and fame. The fundamental issue at hand is sexual selection and the desire to leave something behind. It goes beyond societal norms and is buried deep into our biology. > Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. Ernest Shackleton
- cutemonster 6y ago
  This is the answer, I'm pretty certain. But I think it'd be good with more female CEO's, for the whole world (this also based on biology).
LunaSea 6y ago
For men it's not a choice.
- galoisgirl 6y ago
  It is. However, I'll admit that societal pressures work both ways, they affect men too. Men are not as free to be a stay-at-home parent if they chose to as women are.

dennis_jeeves 6y ago

drobert, yours is a fairly well balanced comment. Summary of the article: we are puppets to our biology. This goes well belong gender, I'm sure that the guy who is paraplegic will have his own story on how he has to cope with things that many people take for granted. Some of the most objective posts here have been either flagged or banned, i.e there is no option to up vote them.

mdorazio 6y ago

Thank you for stating this as clearly as you did. I'll probably get downvoted for comment, but my reaction to reading this essay was to be angry with Tracy. She repeatedly put herself in situations where she had to choose between family and company (or at least thought she did), and for what? Regardless of gender, if you want to have a successful family and you want to have a successful high-growth startup, you're going to have a bad time. This idea that rockstar CEOs can magically have everything needs to die - if you pick that path it comes with sacrifices that you need to recognize up front. Either you're going to be a bad parent/spouse (applies to most of the male CEOs I know) or you're going to be a leader who doesn't inspire confidence in employees (let alone co-founders, from personal experience). If you want a well-balanced life, consider other options like a lifestyle business or the corporate ladder.

cutemonster 6y ago
Looking at the end result: company sold for $$$$$$$, and I'd think the child will have a happy childhood and grow up and be a happy adult, ... Then it seems to me she was precisely that rock star CEO plus with "everything", ie a baby in this case. So it's been done already and so definitely is possible, I'd say. > sacrifices that you need to recognize up front ... Either you're going to be a bad ... No. Instead, I want society to change, so it becomes easy and un-stressful to be a female CEO with a small baby.