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True, but, that is not the issue. While both men and women are indeed needed for baby-making, the burden of child care falls disproportionately on women in our
by klunger 12y ago
True, but, that is not the issue. While both men and women are indeed needed for baby-making, the burden of child care falls disproportionately on women in our society. So, male founders with young children can reasonably expect their child to be cared for by their partner while they dedicate all of their time to YC. But, the same cannot be said of potential female founders. It is not sexist to recognize this unfortunate state of affairs and suggest that child care support be considered an issue particularly important to women.
Thus, since YC expects their founders to spend most of their waking hours working on their start-up, they need to provide adequate child care support, if they want to have women with children among their founders (at least, those who are not already extremely rich and can afford the outrageous child care rates in SF).
- tptacek 12y agoIt doesn't even make sense for an investor to provide office space, or even payroll services. How could it possibly make sense for them to provide child care? This is a red herring. In fact, it comes across a little like "well, thing will be better for women once society fixes their expectations about child care". No. Women are perfectly capable of balancing their child care needs inside their families using their own support networks. Child care is a private issue. Founders are adults. Don't infantilize them. Don't try to run their families for them. What needs to stop happening is people bringing up child care as an impediment to entrepreneurship. That's the child care problem we have in startupland.