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“Right away, I noticed no other babies”. It was a business conference, not a creche or playground and the norm for such environments IS adults only. “That's w

“Right away, I noticed no other babies”. It was a business conference, not a creche or playground and the norm for such environments IS adults only. “That's when someone approached me and said, "Would you like to stroll your baby outside? I want people to get the full experience out of this conference.”” A perfectly reasonable request that I’d expect and have even proactively accommodated by stepping outside (vs just towards back of room) if I’d decided to attend with a baby. Author may not have felt her kid was noisy but chances are, the YC staff that approached her had noticed or been informed by other attendees that the noise was at distracting level. “I’m not naming this woman because I think the problem is bigger than me or her. It's about this tension in the business world right now. To many people, including me, the pandemic showed that it was possible to be a hands-on mom and a hands-on business partner. Others want to maintain the status quo of business and babies as entirely separate. To me, that's ridiculous. To ask me to leave with a quietly cooing baby during a talk that was explicitly about the challenges of being a mother and founder was shocking. I realized then that the monster of systemic barriers to entrepreneurs who are also moms is bigger than I ever realized”. It would be indeed be foolish to antagonize a YC partner in print over a paper thin argument that’s riddled with holes. Systemic barriers to female entrepreneurs including mothers exist but this wasn’t an instance of that and to suggest otherwise is what’s ridiculous.

refulgentis 2y ago
I understand feeling this way, generically. Let's imagine a public speech. In a small room. Dead quiet except for speaker. There's a suddenly loud happy baby, competing with the adult speaker for volume. They take 2 minutes to wheel the baby to the back of the room, that's only 30 feet away, so nothing really changes in terms of noise elvel. And another woman politely approaches them with their line asking if they'd like to take it outside. The thing is at that point, I have jumped to a # of conclusions: small room, disruptive over long period of time, dead quiet, and acceded to this odd cultural view I never saw anywhere other than moneyed SV and extreme money that talking obliquely means you're being polite. The article doesn't give us data to justify the conclusions I jumped to, but it does give us enough data to know this was a near-platonic caricature of a situation where the unprofessional bit isn't the baby making noise. It was during a talk about the practical challenges of being a founder with an infant, at an event targeted towards being more inclusive to female founders.
- Geekette 2y ago
  The event being centred on female founders doesn’t mean attendees at such an event cannot find a baby’s activity disruptive. Seeing the post from the staff member involved [1] further outlines the founder’s mischaracterization of events: The YC staff member says founder was actually offered use of alternative spaces where she could still hear the talk, both parties had a discussion during the break, she stayed for the entire conference and was never asked to leave. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/surbhi-sarna_elevating-the-position-of-women-has-been-activity-7228899101495476224-IYdo/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/surbhi-sarna_elevating-the-po...

refulgentis 2y ago

I understand feeling this way, generically. Let's imagine a public speech. In a small room. Dead quiet except for speaker. There's a suddenly loud happy baby, competing with the adult speaker for volume. They take 2 minutes to wheel the baby to the back of the room, that's only 30 feet away, so nothing really changes in terms of noise elvel. And another woman politely approaches them with their line asking if they'd like to take it outside. The thing is at that point, I have jumped to a # of conclusions: small room, disruptive over long period of time, dead quiet, and acceded to this odd cultural view I never saw anywhere other than moneyed SV and extreme money that talking obliquely means you're being polite. The article doesn't give us data to justify the conclusions I jumped to, but it does give us enough data to know this was a near-platonic caricature of a situation where the unprofessional bit isn't the baby making noise. It was during a talk about the practical challenges of being a founder with an infant, at an event targeted towards being more inclusive to female founders.

Geekette 2y ago
The event being centred on female founders doesn’t mean attendees at such an event cannot find a baby’s activity disruptive. Seeing the post from the staff member involved [1] further outlines the founder’s mischaracterization of events: The YC staff member says founder was actually offered use of alternative spaces where she could still hear the talk, both parties had a discussion during the break, she stayed for the entire conference and was never asked to leave. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/surbhi-sarna_elevating-the-position-of-women-has-been-activity-7228899101495476224-IYdo/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/surbhi-sarna_elevating-the-po...