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Thank you. This is good. Every generation there's a set of young people who discover "self-confidence is enough" and "discrimination is over." Over twenty or t

by kaitai 13y ago

Thank you. This is good. Every generation there's a set of young people who discover "self-confidence is enough" and "discrimination is over." Over twenty or thirty years some groups of them realize that this is not true. As you say above, the technique of not looking at gender and looking for what I personally can improve or do differently is the rational and utilitarian course of action. It is, after all, the only thing I can do as an individual. But there are those situations that keep coming up now and then that don't have a solution -- for me. For other people, there is a solution. For me, it becomes clear that I simply need to go elsewhere. Fine. I can be as flexible as I need to be. But when it's, say, meeting with a venture capitalist and I'm always not quite what they're looking for, or if it's meeting with my grad school advisor and always being too talkative and emotional, or etc. -- and nothing I do changes this! -- and I have to work around venture capitalists/advisors/etc... it really slows me down, because I also have to work around the same sh*t that everyone else does.

trustfundbaby 13y ago
Absolutely right. Vivek Wadhwa has this long-ish piece in which he writes about this and the part that touched me the most was this "During the interview, I relayed my own experience in building a tech company in the Deep South of the US. When I was looking for funding for my second start-up, local VCs wouldn’t even return my phone calls, despite the fact I had previously helped build a public company with $120m in revenue. In Silicon Valley, an entrepreneur with credentials like mine would have had dozens of VCs knocking on his door. But the advice other successful Indians gave me was to have “a white guy” on my management team to deal with the VCs. So that’s exactly what I did. I went on to raise millions in venture capital." On one hand you see the drive that ultimately made Wadhwa a successful man, but you also see the compromises that he had to take to get there that are completely abominable to certain groups (American born minorities specifically). Even more important is this point which goes directly to Chloe's disdain for Sandberg's call for women to come together as a group "When we researched why Indians had been successful, we learned that they had gained significant benefits from the social and professional networks they had formed. These helped to mobilise the information, know-how, skills and capital needed to start technology firms. The Indian networking organisations were among the most vibrant and active professional associations in the region, with memberships ranging from several hundred in the newer associations to over one thousand in the established organisations." This method of forming niche groups to support gender and ethnic minorities has proven to be successful, which is why I was so disappointed to see Chloe dump on it.
calibraxis 13y ago
Yes, when reading this article, I wondered how influenced it was by the philosophy of hyper-individualism. And maybe even the positive-thinking ideology Barbara Ehrenreich discusses. (http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsidedexcerpt.htm http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsidedexcerpt.htm) But people team up to accomplished shared ends; they're constantly "pushing in". Startups are often done by people who work crazy hours to gain something they didn't have before. We build formal corporations (weird sorts of communes) and informal networks. Because we live in a social context; money ceases to make any sense absent certain social relations. So it's only rational for people to form teams where members support each other through shared difficulties. (http://leanin.org/circles/ http://leanin.org/circles/) (Would be even better if it's not just for those whose problem is the glass ceiling, but also the dark basement.)
- calibraxis 13y ago
  BTW, the gendered passive "lean in" rhetoric is definitely a problem, here I agree with the author, and previously misunderstood.

by kaitai 13y ago

trustfundbaby 13y ago

Absolutely right. Vivek Wadhwa has this long-ish piece in which he writes about this and the part that touched me the most was this "During the interview, I relayed my own experience in building a tech company in the Deep South of the US. When I was looking for funding for my second start-up, local VCs wouldn’t even return my phone calls, despite the fact I had previously helped build a public company with $120m in revenue. In Silicon Valley, an entrepreneur with credentials like mine would have had dozens of VCs knocking on his door. But the advice other successful Indians gave me was to have “a white guy” on my management team to deal with the VCs. So that’s exactly what I did. I went on to raise millions in venture capital." On one hand you see the drive that ultimately made Wadhwa a successful man, but you also see the compromises that he had to take to get there that are completely abominable to certain groups (American born minorities specifically). Even more important is this point which goes directly to Chloe's disdain for Sandberg's call for women to come together as a group "When we researched why Indians had been successful, we learned that they had gained significant benefits from the social and professional networks they had formed. These helped to mobilise the information, know-how, skills and capital needed to start technology firms. The Indian networking organisations were among the most vibrant and active professional associations in the region, with memberships ranging from several hundred in the newer associations to over one thousand in the established organisations." This method of forming niche groups to support gender and ethnic minorities has proven to be successful, which is why I was so disappointed to see Chloe dump on it.

calibraxis 13y ago

Yes, when reading this article, I wondered how influenced it was by the philosophy of hyper-individualism. And maybe even the positive-thinking ideology Barbara Ehrenreich discusses. (http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsidedexcerpt.htm http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsidedexcerpt.htm) But people team up to accomplished shared ends; they're constantly "pushing in". Startups are often done by people who work crazy hours to gain something they didn't have before. We build formal corporations (weird sorts of communes) and informal networks. Because we live in a social context; money ceases to make any sense absent certain social relations. So it's only rational for people to form teams where members support each other through shared difficulties. (http://leanin.org/circles/ http://leanin.org/circles/) (Would be even better if it's not just for those whose problem is the glass ceiling, but also the dark basement.)

calibraxis 13y ago
BTW, the gendered passive "lean in" rhetoric is definitely a problem, here I agree with the author, and previously misunderstood.