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Female founder friend (non tech space) was in a female focused incubator / competition. She got only one set of somewhat critical feedback - ie, lacks experienc

Female founder friend (non tech space) was in a female focused incubator / competition. She got only one set of somewhat critical feedback - ie, lacks experience in X and Y which are key in product space Z. She posted a comment on her social media focusing on this feedback as "criticism" that came from a sexist guy "of course". It was pretty easy to draw the line to the three panelists, one of whom was a guy. Ouch. In a previous life, I'd worked in a awesome (female led!) product company. While I had no experience prior to this, I quickly realized that the product itself and its quality etc was almost irrelevant to success, the X and Y mentioned by the male panelist was unfortunately everything, which you'd only know if you were in the space itself. The female led company I worked for was bought out by a (male led) competitor, who then using much strong x and y skills - cleaned up. Company I worked for got basically nothing. Fast forward - my friends business not doing so great, she asks me for feedback. I said nothing other than enthusiasm. Partly because I was really enthusiastic - she'd put her heart into this project. But her comment on social was in my mind - I had no desire to be next sexist guy "shooting down" an idea She's out of the business I think mostly. Anyways, this parallels the take of the article.

pm90 6y ago
I won’t even pretend to know enough to be able to solve this problem. But does your social circle not include other female friends that you could discuss the optics of this situation with? Or better yet, be honest with the female friend that you wanted to advice, pointing out what she had done before and expressing your apprehension in providing critical feedback?
- notsuoh 6y ago
  "But does your social circle not include other female friends that you could discuss the optics of this situation with?" Respectfully, this shouldn't be on the person from whom advice is being sought, but on the asker. "Or better yet, be honest with the female friend that you wanted to advice, pointing out what she had done before and expressing your apprehension in providing critical feedback?" If someone asked me this, I'd probably think they used hashtags like #redpill or were into bashing Ellen Pao or something. It comes across as, "you can't say anything these days without being offensive, men in tech are soooo mistreated."
  - pm90 6y ago
    > If someone asked me this, I'd probably think they used hashtags like #redpill or were into bashing Ellen Pao or something. It comes across as, "you can't say anything these days without being offensive, men in tech are soooo mistreated." Interesting. I hesitate to accept your interpretation as the universal one, because my experience has been that there are ways to express these concerns without coming off as a bigot. Perhaps more education, awareness or discussion is required.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - matheusmoreira 6y ago
      > my experience has been that there are ways to express these concerns without coming off as a bigot Please share with us. I can't think of a single way to express these concerns without looking like a "red piller". The mere fact someone even has concerns marks them as suspicious and harmful.
  - vmception 6y ago
    the oppression olympics get nobody anywhere the problems genders face are interrelated, invalidating all men that complain about something just because of a history specifically disenfranchising women will not help your cause
  - qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
    >If someone asked me this, I'd probably think they used hashtags like #redpill or were into bashing Ellen Pao or something. It comes across as, "you can't say anything these days without being offensive, men in tech are soooo mistreated." Wise moderates don't even join the conversation on social media. A wise decision for an individual, but it's harmful to all of us collectively. One negative side effect is people assume that everyone is an extremist of one stripe or another.
- random5634 6y ago
  This is a fair question - not sure why you are getting down votes. Background - I'm actually on the left a fair bit. So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them. I'm not looking for that either. In terms of my colleague who I'd mentored in past (before things had gotten more extreme). I think others have made good suggestions - do you want some suggestions that may have already been made (it's never truth really - just another persons guess) or comfort.
  - pm90 6y ago
    > I'm actually on the left a fair bit. So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them. I'm not looking for that either. Thank you for pointing this out. You’re absolutely right on this one, and I would retract my suggestion if HN allowed me to edit the previous comment.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcv 6y ago
    > "So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them." Well, yes and no. I can see how it's a burden, but they're also the people with the most hands-on experience. If they won't explain, how can anyone else learn? Because it is a serious problem, and not solving it is not acceptable. Of course men, or whichever the privileged group in any particular case is, have a responsibility to listen and learn, but that only works if someone is willing to explain. Although I'd love to agree that it's the responsibility of the oppressor or privileged group to fix the problem, it has got to be a collective responsibility. You can't help people without the involvement of the people you're trying to help.
    - benlivengood 6y ago
      > Well, yes and no. I can see how it's a burden, but they're also the people with the most hands-on experience. If they won't explain, how can anyone else learn? Take a sociology class at your local community college, read a book, read some blogs/articles by women, people of color, and other minorities. There are a lot of really good ways to learn from the people who have taken the time to write/speak about the issues they face.
- lgleason 6y ago
  I have female friends who would advise the same thing as the OC.
bastawhiz 6y ago
> lacks experience in X and Y which are key in product space Z. Obviously you didn't post the feedback, but I wonder how this was phrased. If the feedback was "improve X and Y", I think I sympathize with the panelist. The feedback was solicited! If it was framed as "unlikely to succeed because inexperienced in X and Y" then I think that crossed a line from critical feedback to a somewhat demeaning comment, even if it was right. Regardless of how it actually played out, there's a good lesson here that you should be mindful of how your communication is understood. It's not enough to be right, it's important to speak in a way that makes sure what you're conveying is delivered in a useful way.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  What the people in this thread are saying is that when there's nothing to gain by speaking, the most foolproof way to be mindful of how your communication is understood is to not communicate. That's a great life principle that goes a whole lot farther than this particular subject.
  - threwawasy1228 6y ago
    Completely agree, in the face of a person who is possibly hostile, or just in general a person that generates a lot of uncertainty what incentive could you give me not to stay silent? People need to think about it in terms of incentives, what incentive do I have to try communicating with an incredible mindfulness and scrutiny that I might then fail at. The failure to do so properly could have potentially endless downsides? The default incentive is always going to be avoidance as much as possible. Not because of any desire to be sexist, but because is the instinctive path of least resistance.
    - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
      > or just in general a person that generates a lot of uncertainty what incentive could you give me not to stay silent? not OP but the silence is a feature that allows you to actively listen[1] which is impossible when trying to come up with an answer while the other person still speaks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening
Gustomaximus 6y ago
I've had similar a few times. The most illogical was had a sales person (female) telling me (male) about how girls cant get ahead in the company, naturally in context to themselves. I asked them what their boss was (female) and their bosses boss (female) and til a few months before, their bosses bosses boss (was female and recently changed to male). Was not a happy look I received. And 100% there is sexism/racism in workplaces but in my small bubble of the world it feels a reasonable proportion of people put these kind of excuses on their lack of progression over looking inward, but I've tended to work in more progressive environments so maybe I've missed what the wider world is like.
- undefined1 6y ago
  maybe she was talking about Queen Bee Syndrome? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee_syndrome
  - neycoda 6y ago
    But saying a woman has queen bee syndrome is misogyny, right?
    - dang 6y ago
      Would you please stop posting flamebait comments? You've done it repeatedly in this thread already. We're trying for more substantive discussion here.
drbojingle 6y ago
What were X and Y?
raducu 6y ago
This reminds me of a previous workplace. An otherwise cool female coleague kept making claims people were misogynistic, at first I thought she was joking or that she did have some claim, because someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke. Then I left the company, and I talked with an ez coleague who was promoted as a team lead. The guy was into some new age stuff, about helping everyone, and she was slaking/not interested; the higher ups wanted to fire her. Not my friend, he really believed in her. When it was clear she was about to be fired, she complained about him to the HR, that he's sexist and all that. That guy was the least sexist guy I've ever met and the only one caring for her.
- neycoda 6y ago
  > someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke "mysoginistic" in the sense of "I literally hate women" or in the sense of "I think women are less capable than men" or "I liked a physical feature of her"? There's more to choose from, the list of things that are called "misogyny" nowadays has gotten incredibly expansive.
  - temporalparts 6y ago
    I think the concept is pretty straightforward? It's if you believe women < men generally (not like, avg(women height) < avg(men height)). The last one, "I liked a feature of her" is not misogynistic absent of context. The context here is really important. It's like saying "I like your haircut". Did I pass up promotion for another person in a non-modeling job because they had a shitty haircut?
    - techbio 6y ago
      Not sure I understand the analogy. You mean speaking professionally in a professional context is not (should not be?) misogynistic. Then is it not a little strange that you're commenting on a person's haircut, who is not applying for a modeling job for which they're required to cut their own hair?
      - 6y ago
MathCodeLove 6y ago
This victimhood mentality is atrocious and is something I recently wrote about. I don't normally do this but here's a shameless plug if anyone wants to read a bit more about this phenomenon. https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/2021/03/heroes-victims-and-society.html https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/2021/03/hero...
- raducu 6y ago
  I've found that women in particular seem to really try to avoid any form of "open conflict" and seem to have a much harder time taking any form of "criticism". I'm much, much more likely to feel like I'm walking on eggshells around women, this happens with men also, but more in a personal setting. This combined with the whole metoo movement certainly didn't help women in receiving frank feedback or mentorship.
- rambambram 6y ago
  Your article hit home, very good read. Does your blog have an RSS-feed, or is there somewhere I can 'follow' you?
  - barrkel 6y ago
    Generally append rss.xml or atom.xml to a blogspot url and you've got it. https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/rss.xml https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/rss.xml https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/atom.xml https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/atom.xml
  - MathCodeLove 6y ago
    Thank you! I see another user replied to you about an RSS-feed, do you find their answer sufficient? I don't have any social media presence as of yet, I'm just getting into blogging and that was my first ever article.
- dgiol 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing this. One of the best pieces I've read on the topic, it's sad to see society's shift in this regard. I agree with you, and we can't know yet what the consequences of this will be in the long term. It seems like it matters less and less how good we are at what we do, and more and more what "class" we are considered to be in. In my view there are few things more rewarding than taking control of our lives, and stop blaming others for our own shortcomings.

pm90 6y ago

I won’t even pretend to know enough to be able to solve this problem. But does your social circle not include other female friends that you could discuss the optics of this situation with? Or better yet, be honest with the female friend that you wanted to advice, pointing out what she had done before and expressing your apprehension in providing critical feedback?

notsuoh 6y ago
"But does your social circle not include other female friends that you could discuss the optics of this situation with?" Respectfully, this shouldn't be on the person from whom advice is being sought, but on the asker. "Or better yet, be honest with the female friend that you wanted to advice, pointing out what she had done before and expressing your apprehension in providing critical feedback?" If someone asked me this, I'd probably think they used hashtags like #redpill or were into bashing Ellen Pao or something. It comes across as, "you can't say anything these days without being offensive, men in tech are soooo mistreated."
- pm90 6y ago
  > If someone asked me this, I'd probably think they used hashtags like #redpill or were into bashing Ellen Pao or something. It comes across as, "you can't say anything these days without being offensive, men in tech are soooo mistreated." Interesting. I hesitate to accept your interpretation as the universal one, because my experience has been that there are ways to express these concerns without coming off as a bigot. Perhaps more education, awareness or discussion is required.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    > my experience has been that there are ways to express these concerns without coming off as a bigot Please share with us. I can't think of a single way to express these concerns without looking like a "red piller". The mere fact someone even has concerns marks them as suspicious and harmful.
- vmception 6y ago
  the oppression olympics get nobody anywhere the problems genders face are interrelated, invalidating all men that complain about something just because of a history specifically disenfranchising women will not help your cause
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
  >If someone asked me this, I'd probably think they used hashtags like #redpill or were into bashing Ellen Pao or something. It comes across as, "you can't say anything these days without being offensive, men in tech are soooo mistreated." Wise moderates don't even join the conversation on social media. A wise decision for an individual, but it's harmful to all of us collectively. One negative side effect is people assume that everyone is an extremist of one stripe or another.
random5634 6y ago
This is a fair question - not sure why you are getting down votes. Background - I'm actually on the left a fair bit. So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them. I'm not looking for that either. In terms of my colleague who I'd mentored in past (before things had gotten more extreme). I think others have made good suggestions - do you want some suggestions that may have already been made (it's never truth really - just another persons guess) or comfort.
- pm90 6y ago
  > I'm actually on the left a fair bit. So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them. I'm not looking for that either. Thank you for pointing this out. You’re absolutely right on this one, and I would retract my suggestion if HN allowed me to edit the previous comment.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mcv 6y ago
  > "So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them." Well, yes and no. I can see how it's a burden, but they're also the people with the most hands-on experience. If they won't explain, how can anyone else learn? Because it is a serious problem, and not solving it is not acceptable. Of course men, or whichever the privileged group in any particular case is, have a responsibility to listen and learn, but that only works if someone is willing to explain. Although I'd love to agree that it's the responsibility of the oppressor or privileged group to fix the problem, it has got to be a collective responsibility. You can't help people without the involvement of the people you're trying to help.
  - benlivengood 6y ago
    > Well, yes and no. I can see how it's a burden, but they're also the people with the most hands-on experience. If they won't explain, how can anyone else learn? Take a sociology class at your local community college, read a book, read some blogs/articles by women, people of color, and other minorities. There are a lot of really good ways to learn from the people who have taken the time to write/speak about the issues they face.
lgleason 6y ago
I have female friends who would advise the same thing as the OC.

bastawhiz 6y ago

> lacks experience in X and Y which are key in product space Z. Obviously you didn't post the feedback, but I wonder how this was phrased. If the feedback was "improve X and Y", I think I sympathize with the panelist. The feedback was solicited! If it was framed as "unlikely to succeed because inexperienced in X and Y" then I think that crossed a line from critical feedback to a somewhat demeaning comment, even if it was right. Regardless of how it actually played out, there's a good lesson here that you should be mindful of how your communication is understood. It's not enough to be right, it's important to speak in a way that makes sure what you're conveying is delivered in a useful way.

whatshisface 6y ago
What the people in this thread are saying is that when there's nothing to gain by speaking, the most foolproof way to be mindful of how your communication is understood is to not communicate. That's a great life principle that goes a whole lot farther than this particular subject.
- threwawasy1228 6y ago
  Completely agree, in the face of a person who is possibly hostile, or just in general a person that generates a lot of uncertainty what incentive could you give me not to stay silent? People need to think about it in terms of incentives, what incentive do I have to try communicating with an incredible mindfulness and scrutiny that I might then fail at. The failure to do so properly could have potentially endless downsides? The default incentive is always going to be avoidance as much as possible. Not because of any desire to be sexist, but because is the instinctive path of least resistance.
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    > or just in general a person that generates a lot of uncertainty what incentive could you give me not to stay silent? not OP but the silence is a feature that allows you to actively listen[1] which is impossible when trying to come up with an answer while the other person still speaks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening

Gustomaximus 6y ago

I've had similar a few times. The most illogical was had a sales person (female) telling me (male) about how girls cant get ahead in the company, naturally in context to themselves. I asked them what their boss was (female) and their bosses boss (female) and til a few months before, their bosses bosses boss (was female and recently changed to male). Was not a happy look I received. And 100% there is sexism/racism in workplaces but in my small bubble of the world it feels a reasonable proportion of people put these kind of excuses on their lack of progression over looking inward, but I've tended to work in more progressive environments so maybe I've missed what the wider world is like.

undefined1 6y ago
maybe she was talking about Queen Bee Syndrome? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee_syndrome
- neycoda 6y ago
  But saying a woman has queen bee syndrome is misogyny, right?
  - dang 6y ago
    Would you please stop posting flamebait comments? You've done it repeatedly in this thread already. We're trying for more substantive discussion here.

drbojingle 6y ago

What were X and Y?

raducu 6y ago

This reminds me of a previous workplace. An otherwise cool female coleague kept making claims people were misogynistic, at first I thought she was joking or that she did have some claim, because someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke. Then I left the company, and I talked with an ez coleague who was promoted as a team lead. The guy was into some new age stuff, about helping everyone, and she was slaking/not interested; the higher ups wanted to fire her. Not my friend, he really believed in her. When it was clear she was about to be fired, she complained about him to the HR, that he's sexist and all that. That guy was the least sexist guy I've ever met and the only one caring for her.

neycoda 6y ago
> someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke "mysoginistic" in the sense of "I literally hate women" or in the sense of "I think women are less capable than men" or "I liked a physical feature of her"? There's more to choose from, the list of things that are called "misogyny" nowadays has gotten incredibly expansive.
- temporalparts 6y ago
  I think the concept is pretty straightforward? It's if you believe women < men generally (not like, avg(women height) < avg(men height)). The last one, "I liked a feature of her" is not misogynistic absent of context. The context here is really important. It's like saying "I like your haircut". Did I pass up promotion for another person in a non-modeling job because they had a shitty haircut?
  - techbio 6y ago
    Not sure I understand the analogy. You mean speaking professionally in a professional context is not (should not be?) misogynistic. Then is it not a little strange that you're commenting on a person's haircut, who is not applying for a modeling job for which they're required to cut their own hair?
    - 6y ago

MathCodeLove 6y ago

This victimhood mentality is atrocious and is something I recently wrote about. I don't normally do this but here's a shameless plug if anyone wants to read a bit more about this phenomenon. https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/2021/03/heroes-victims-and-society.html https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/2021/03/hero...

raducu 6y ago
I've found that women in particular seem to really try to avoid any form of "open conflict" and seem to have a much harder time taking any form of "criticism". I'm much, much more likely to feel like I'm walking on eggshells around women, this happens with men also, but more in a personal setting. This combined with the whole metoo movement certainly didn't help women in receiving frank feedback or mentorship.
rambambram 6y ago
Your article hit home, very good read. Does your blog have an RSS-feed, or is there somewhere I can 'follow' you?
- barrkel 6y ago
  Generally append rss.xml or atom.xml to a blogspot url and you've got it. https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/rss.xml https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/rss.xml https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/atom.xml https://inconvenientconsiderations.blogspot.com/atom.xml
- MathCodeLove 6y ago
  Thank you! I see another user replied to you about an RSS-feed, do you find their answer sufficient? I don't have any social media presence as of yet, I'm just getting into blogging and that was my first ever article.
dgiol 6y ago
Thanks for sharing this. One of the best pieces I've read on the topic, it's sad to see society's shift in this regard. I agree with you, and we can't know yet what the consequences of this will be in the long term. It seems like it matters less and less how good we are at what we do, and more and more what "class" we are considered to be in. In my view there are few things more rewarding than taking control of our lives, and stop blaming others for our own shortcomings.