8 ms·

Female Founders Conference today at 1pm PT

35 points by mkempe 12y ago

mkempe 12y ago
It will be livestreamed.
- arobertson 12y ago
  Do you have a link to that?
  - Centreal 12y ago
    Link missing because still waiting to start?
pskittle 12y ago
the site is well designed! looking forward
dimdimdim 12y ago
Oh god! not again.
blueflow 12y ago
Were Women not allowed on the 'normal' conference? Or why do we have this separation?
- kmeil 12y ago
  The 'normal conference' (aka Startup School) does admit women. I was admitted last year but couldn't attend. This event supports and encourages a community. This will be my second and there isn't an event I went to last year (when I was starting my first company) that was more productive or helpful, including several I paid a lot of $$ for (this is also a free conference). more here if you like: http://www.fastcompany.com/3042308/the-y-combinator-chronicles/how-and-why-y-combinator-got-serious-about-diversity http://www.fastcompany.com/3042308/the-y-combinator-chronicl...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ripb 12y ago
  >Or why do we have this separation? Because it's easier to be a big fish in a small pond.
- Mz 12y ago
  Or why do we have this separation? One of the biggest issues women face is that most men will not talk to them unless they are hoping to bed them. Men sometimes do this out of the best of intentions -- not wanting a woman to think he is hitting on her or not wanting anyone to think there is an affair because he is "friendly" with her -- but it is a very serious obstacle to women being able to network and actually have meaty discussions of business. It's also generally helpful for minorities to see examples of someone "like them" in some important way who has done the thing they inspire to. One of the benefits of that is to see an example of what works, even if you don't know the right questions to ask about "what do I need to do differently to be successful at this, in spite of the fact that people like me are so seldom successful at this?" It can be helpful to see those examples even in cases where you do not think too deeply about what they are doing differently from others "like them." It can just give you a glimpse of a pattern you haven't seen before that you can emulate without fully analyzing. I do what I can to make it possible for women to participate more equally on HN. I am sort of appalled that Jessica Livingston, the sole female among the YC founders and a presenter at this conference, does not see fit to participate more in discussion here. I think her absence on the forum is one of the reasons it is such a boyzone. But I am glad to see YC doing something to try to support women founders, even though I tend to be much more interested in finding a means to be inclusive of women in the "boys club" rather than in trying to segregate them. Nonetheless, segregation for women to help them get started seems to have a track record of success. From what I gather, women-only colleges have a decent track record of producing female leadership and female coding groups appear to also help women break in. So unless I can offer something definitively more effective and also ideologically more palatable, I see no reason to tear it down with criticism.
  - blueflow 12y ago
    One of the biggest issues women face is that most men will not talk to them unless they are hoping to bed them. Do you have ideas how we could reduce this Problem in the future?
    - Mz 12y ago
      I occasionally blog about my thoughts on the topic. Some of those posts can be found here: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/hn-tools.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/hn-tools.html The ones that might interest you most are The Gray Zone, Oh My God It's a Girl! and Glass Walls. I also put some of the responsibility on women, which gets me into endless hot water and accused of "victim blaming." The post Nothing But a Bunch of Boobs takes that angle (but, then, so does Oh My God It's A Girl!, but it is a tad less controversial).
- pskittle 12y ago
  The separation exists because of the gap in the number of women starting companies I believe
- mc32 12y ago
  Well, I see two things at play here. One, there could be a subset of topics which are by the nature of things of interest to women in particular, so they can dive into these kinds of things from a woman's perspective. To add to the above, it somewhat, superficially at least, frees women from men's ideology. But again, exposing gender antagonism. Two, it is what people expect, in a way, so why not take this as a marketing differentiator? Perception can matter more than reality. Basically exploiting 'gender antagonism', as it were. This is a prototypical Lacanian symptom.
cbd1984 12y ago
Flagged for transphobia.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  Based on...what, exactly?
  - UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
    Not OP, but I assume because they named it "Female only" they were intentionally trying to exclude transgendered people. "Women only" could have included both born-woman and transitioned-woman, but "female only" is only born-woman. Wouldn't surprise me if that was the case, there is a lot of overt prejudice against born males who transitioned to a woman from both men and women (women think they're men trying to steal woman's spotlight, for example). However the fact that the OP has been heavily downvoted for bringing up this issue, says a lot about how HN feels about transgender issues.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      Female only is not transphobic and is not excluding transwomen. Op is downvoted not because they have correctly identified transphobia and HN is full of bigots (although it is) but because OP has leapt to an unsupported assumption. There is nothing transphobic about the submitted link. Edit: also, as far as I can tell op only got one or two downvotes, and so if they are being heavily downvoted they're also being up voted too.
      - UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
        > Female only is not transphobic and is not excluding transwomen. Someone is born male or female, they decide to be a man or woman. It isn't overt but the implication is clear, they want specifically people born female to attend. Otherwise it is a very strange word choice. > There is nothing transphobic about the submitted link. The link? No. The event itself? Maybe.
mkempe 12y ago
The conference actually starts at 2pm. Registration is at 1pm but for those who will watch online 2pm is the relevant time.
swatow 12y ago
I see two flagkilled top level comments and I assume they are saying "why do we need .... just for women". I assume that the flaggers believe that this issue has already been resolved, and debating this distracts from the real issues, and therefore should be discouraged. On the other hand, I recall that a story about sexism in tech was flagkilled, only to be revived by the moderators. In this case I assume that the flaggers believed that the issue of sexism in tech has already been shown to be exaggerated, and flooding HN with articles like this only distracts from other interesting topics. So my question is: are the moderators willing to be explicit about their role in guiding the debate on HN on these issues. That is, are they willing to admit that there is not consensus among HN posters on the importance of sexism in tech, or encouraging women to work in the industry, but that the moderators themselves have taken a side on this issue and want to enforce it on HN debates?
jtcchan 12y ago
Here's the link to the livestream: http://live.femalefoundersconference.org/ http://live.femalefoundersconference.org/
cbd1984 12y ago
Apparently the HN mods are transphobic and won't discuss how exclusionary this is.

35 points by mkempe 12y ago

mkempe 12y ago

It will be livestreamed.

arobertson 12y ago
Do you have a link to that?
- Centreal 12y ago
  Link missing because still waiting to start?

pskittle 12y ago

the site is well designed! looking forward

dimdimdim 12y ago

Oh god! not again.

blueflow 12y ago

Were Women not allowed on the 'normal' conference? Or why do we have this separation?

kmeil 12y ago
The 'normal conference' (aka Startup School) does admit women. I was admitted last year but couldn't attend. This event supports and encourages a community. This will be my second and there isn't an event I went to last year (when I was starting my first company) that was more productive or helpful, including several I paid a lot of $$ for (this is also a free conference). more here if you like: http://www.fastcompany.com/3042308/the-y-combinator-chronicles/how-and-why-y-combinator-got-serious-about-diversity http://www.fastcompany.com/3042308/the-y-combinator-chronicl...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ripb 12y ago
>Or why do we have this separation? Because it's easier to be a big fish in a small pond.
Mz 12y ago
Or why do we have this separation? One of the biggest issues women face is that most men will not talk to them unless they are hoping to bed them. Men sometimes do this out of the best of intentions -- not wanting a woman to think he is hitting on her or not wanting anyone to think there is an affair because he is "friendly" with her -- but it is a very serious obstacle to women being able to network and actually have meaty discussions of business. It's also generally helpful for minorities to see examples of someone "like them" in some important way who has done the thing they inspire to. One of the benefits of that is to see an example of what works, even if you don't know the right questions to ask about "what do I need to do differently to be successful at this, in spite of the fact that people like me are so seldom successful at this?" It can be helpful to see those examples even in cases where you do not think too deeply about what they are doing differently from others "like them." It can just give you a glimpse of a pattern you haven't seen before that you can emulate without fully analyzing. I do what I can to make it possible for women to participate more equally on HN. I am sort of appalled that Jessica Livingston, the sole female among the YC founders and a presenter at this conference, does not see fit to participate more in discussion here. I think her absence on the forum is one of the reasons it is such a boyzone. But I am glad to see YC doing something to try to support women founders, even though I tend to be much more interested in finding a means to be inclusive of women in the "boys club" rather than in trying to segregate them. Nonetheless, segregation for women to help them get started seems to have a track record of success. From what I gather, women-only colleges have a decent track record of producing female leadership and female coding groups appear to also help women break in. So unless I can offer something definitively more effective and also ideologically more palatable, I see no reason to tear it down with criticism.
- blueflow 12y ago
  One of the biggest issues women face is that most men will not talk to them unless they are hoping to bed them. Do you have ideas how we could reduce this Problem in the future?
  - Mz 12y ago
    I occasionally blog about my thoughts on the topic. Some of those posts can be found here: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/hn-tools.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/hn-tools.html The ones that might interest you most are The Gray Zone, Oh My God It's a Girl! and Glass Walls. I also put some of the responsibility on women, which gets me into endless hot water and accused of "victim blaming." The post Nothing But a Bunch of Boobs takes that angle (but, then, so does Oh My God It's A Girl!, but it is a tad less controversial).
pskittle 12y ago
The separation exists because of the gap in the number of women starting companies I believe
mc32 12y ago
Well, I see two things at play here. One, there could be a subset of topics which are by the nature of things of interest to women in particular, so they can dive into these kinds of things from a woman's perspective. To add to the above, it somewhat, superficially at least, frees women from men's ideology. But again, exposing gender antagonism. Two, it is what people expect, in a way, so why not take this as a marketing differentiator? Perception can matter more than reality. Basically exploiting 'gender antagonism', as it were. This is a prototypical Lacanian symptom.

cbd1984 12y ago

Flagged for transphobia.

dragonwriter 12y ago
Based on...what, exactly?
- UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
  Not OP, but I assume because they named it "Female only" they were intentionally trying to exclude transgendered people. "Women only" could have included both born-woman and transitioned-woman, but "female only" is only born-woman. Wouldn't surprise me if that was the case, there is a lot of overt prejudice against born males who transitioned to a woman from both men and women (women think they're men trying to steal woman's spotlight, for example). However the fact that the OP has been heavily downvoted for bringing up this issue, says a lot about how HN feels about transgender issues.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Female only is not transphobic and is not excluding transwomen. Op is downvoted not because they have correctly identified transphobia and HN is full of bigots (although it is) but because OP has leapt to an unsupported assumption. There is nothing transphobic about the submitted link. Edit: also, as far as I can tell op only got one or two downvotes, and so if they are being heavily downvoted they're also being up voted too.
    - UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
      > Female only is not transphobic and is not excluding transwomen. Someone is born male or female, they decide to be a man or woman. It isn't overt but the implication is clear, they want specifically people born female to attend. Otherwise it is a very strange word choice. > There is nothing transphobic about the submitted link. The link? No. The event itself? Maybe.

mkempe 12y ago

The conference actually starts at 2pm. Registration is at 1pm but for those who will watch online 2pm is the relevant time.

swatow 12y ago

I see two flagkilled top level comments and I assume they are saying "why do we need .... just for women". I assume that the flaggers believe that this issue has already been resolved, and debating this distracts from the real issues, and therefore should be discouraged. On the other hand, I recall that a story about sexism in tech was flagkilled, only to be revived by the moderators. In this case I assume that the flaggers believed that the issue of sexism in tech has already been shown to be exaggerated, and flooding HN with articles like this only distracts from other interesting topics. So my question is: are the moderators willing to be explicit about their role in guiding the debate on HN on these issues. That is, are they willing to admit that there is not consensus among HN posters on the importance of sexism in tech, or encouraging women to work in the industry, but that the moderators themselves have taken a side on this issue and want to enforce it on HN debates?

jtcchan 12y ago

Here's the link to the livestream: http://live.femalefoundersconference.org/ http://live.femalefoundersconference.org/

cbd1984 12y ago

Apparently the HN mods are transphobic and won't discuss how exclusionary this is.