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Could you point me at some studies that suggest that there are intrinsic things about men and women that would make it more likely for women to not be capable of participating in a startup in their 20s?

I don't claim that the male and female mind are the same. I suspect that the differences between them have more to do with culture and pattern-recognition than biology, even though there is some overlap there. I'm also not anything more than an armchair neuroscientist, so if you'd like to point me at this "mounds of evidence to the contrary", please go ahead. (Edit: This sentence sounds a bit more snarky than I intended it to)

As far as I know, we're still in a big grey area as far as how much evidence points to the majority of someone's mind being nature, and how much nurture, and how those interact. I'm working with the assumption that people's mindsets are almost entirely a blank slate at (or a bit before) birth, and that the vast majority of what they think about the world and all the stuff that comes with that is created via pattern-recognition over the course of their lives, with patterns they're exposed to frequently when young being more strongly ingrained than others. Am I wrong here?

That is, I'm saying that I think that if you took a baby female, and raised it in an environment where the only exposure she had to what a "female" was and how a "female" differs from a "male" were manufactured (reversed even), that she would have those ideas about being a female instead of the ones in common usage.

My conclusion isn't driven by political correctness either, although I can see how you would make that assumption. I don't give a shit about political correctness.

Startups are very risky, men are more predisposed to risk: http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/ep062942.pdf

I do not doubt that men are more predisposed to risk, or that testosterone does not play a role in the decision-making process of humans, but I do not think that these studies show enough of a discrepancy to account for the low amount of women involved in startups, or the low ratio of women in tech fields in general.

I would not be surprised if there were a somewhat higher percentage of males versus females in tech. As it is, that is not the case, unless you're using very large values of "somewhat".

(It's getting better though, and seems to be getting better as the idea that programming or tech stuff "isn't for girls" becomes less common).

On what basis? We have a low pool of female talent (in tech), I have given you a mechanic whereby women would be less disposed to getting involved in startups.

That gives us (statistically poor) evidence of an outcome and a mechanism which could cause it.

Why do you feel there must be some extra discrimination that must be limiting female Y-Combinator applicants with no evidence to back this up? What is the mechanic? How did it not apply for the 7 women who did get in?

btw - I am ignoring the 'not enough women in technology' point since it isn't the topic of the OP and is too large in scope for the time available.

You have given me a mechanic that accounts for a minor discrepancy in behavioral patterns, not a large one.

No evidence of women not getting involved in tech because they felt inadequate as women? This is something that people have been screaming about for a while.

A lot, if not the majority, of women are brought up surrounded by the assumption that they aren't good at math, or that they won't be doing much of anything but be housewives, as a lot of men are brought up surrounded by the assumption that they will be providers, and will chase tail. These are, obviously, simplifications.

A lifetime of being discouraged from "not your gender" activities is going to make an individual less likely to do said activities, regardless of their natural propensity for said activities.

The 7 women who did get in would be women who either realized that they were capable of it, decided they didn't care about the social pressures, or weren't surrounded by the social pressures to begin with. They could also be females that are closer to the average male in the ways that count for joining a startup. There's a lot of possibilities.

I dont think that Y Combinator has been discriminating against women. I do think that the cultural perception of gender roles in the US makes it less likely for women who would otherwise be applying to even get to the point where they'd have something to put on an application.

Less than a hundred years ago, women didn't have the right to vote. There's still a large percentage of the population that thinks that the place for a woman is in the kitchen, making babies. Do you really think that theses attitudes have no effect on the amount of women doing things like joining startups? You and I may not have attitudes like that, but if you think that those attitudes are rare, you are mistaken.

The same thing happens with men with different activities.

The studies you showed, while they did show differences between males and females with regards to risk-taking, did not show a huge difference between males and females. If we were talking about 11 female founders out of 30, it would be one thing. That is not the case. There is a large difference, and I find the "well men are more prone to risk taking" argument quite unconvincing when the data shows that men are more prone to taking risks -- but not nearly to the same degree as the discrepancy.

Furthermore, many of the social risk-taking activities studied may not be motivated out of anything that is intrinsic to being a man or a woman. A man may take risks as a form of mating dance. A man may also take risks because "that's what a man does".

This is not a simple issue, and I doubt it can be reduced to purely biological differences, other than in the very literal level that all differences between individuals can.

Effect of testosterone on economic behavior: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090824151254.ht...

Look I am intersexed and I have dealt with such stuff all of my life. The one thing I have learnt is that we aren't blank slates, but we aren't mentally engineered either. It is true that environment plays a huge role in the development of a child, but please understand this.

Gender is something that is innate to your mind. Be it through proprioception or something more complex than that. It is etched in you in the womb and the way it expresses itself is something that is acquired in tandem with the environment. Now understand this too, gender is a spectrum. What most talks center around are the peaks of the two bell curves, but there are lots of folks on either sides. There are kind, sensitive men and abusive, viscous women. The truth is just like skin color gender isn't exactly something to go on when dealing with another human being. Some people tend to conform, but a lot of folks don't and those are the interesting ones.

I feel like laughing my head off each time I read such things. It is true that it sucks to be a woman, but it sucks to be a man too. I will say this again and again, when you see the spaces society creates as an outsider then you begin to understand that things aren't absolute. I am sub-human to most people, and my right to access a lot of spaces that most readers of this thread take for granted is fought out in courts around the world. To most people I am a freak, but they don't understand. They've been taught to see a world that can fit in neat boxes, only that nature doesn't really care. [edit: This sounds really mean and rude when I read it again before going to sleep. To any reader I assure you this was not my intention. I am sorry if I came across like that to you.]

What I am trying to say is that don't create women only spaces, or LGBTI friendly spaces, or anything like that. Create human friendly spaces. Embrace and accept the differences in others and only then can you see that the world is far more complex than any label we can slap on top of it.

[edit: forgot grammar and spell check. Sorry.]

I'm on the same page regarding gender and the need for an effort for "human friendly spaces". I've been phrasing things in a binary-gender manner because gender being a spectrum is a bit tangential and distracting to the point here, and is something that a much lower percentage of the population seems to have waken up to.

FWIW, I've spent a fair amount of time explaining that it doesn't just suck to be a woman, or a man, or a whatever to people. I think it's very hard for people to see how much assumptions about the way people are supposed to act based on their appearances or physical features really affect peoples day-to-day lives. Whether that's avoidable or not is another discussion.

Anyhow, I wish you luck.

Interesting. I really wish that more people like you existed in this world.

Can I ask you something? How did you get interested in this? If you don't mind can you please drop me a line at yesthisisananonymousid [at] google mail?

Thank you.

[edit: This might sound weird to you, but I would really love to talk to you. All of my life I have to fake being a boy for the benefit of my parents. I have to talk differently, walk differently, gesture differently, adjust my posture differently, look at things differently. The lines were drawn in my childhood; I was either a boy or it was the streets for me. Of course, I doubt it that my parents would have acted on that threat, but growing up with such stuff changed me. It's like someone stole my childhood from me. I don't know what it is like to have a normal life anymore. It's something really profound to meet someone who just gets it without saying. Please do indulge me with that.

Oh and my parents aren't monsters they just followed the status quo. I love them and I shall continue to love them no matter what.]

I'd be glad to. I'll email you either tonight or tomorrow, probably tonight.

You've got this wrong. kaens did not claim that men and women are "fundamentally the same". He's saying, don't assume there are fundamental (crippling) differences.

All you've pointed out is that there are indeed fundamental differences of some kinds, but not of the sort kaens was talking about. The inconclusiveness you raise supports his point.

Edit: Wow. Downvoted. What on earth for?

Amen.

There are, obviously, some population differences between men and women; for instance, on average men are taller. Blame the hormones. But people confuse mean and variance, and this is one case where instinctive ignorance of probability is tantamount to sexism. In fact, it's plain rude to do that to people.

Okay, an example. Let's say that on average, men are better fighters than women - whether that's societal or innate is neither here nor there, but take it as generally true. It doesn't change the fact that my sister could kick my arse. If I trusted in statistics there, I'd have been wearing my teeth as a necklace by the age of ten.

So even if the means are different, the variances are so high that you can't know what the person in front of you, male or female, is good at. What that means is that if you go into something like this with preconceptions based on gender, then you are being unfair to the person in front of you - male or female - by not judging them on who they are and what they can do. And if you fail to allow for the gender roles that society forces people into, then you're closing yourself off to talent. And if you close yourself off to talent you can use, your company deserves to fail.

I don't want to be that guy or that company.

(This is pretty personal for me, actually; my mother taught me BASIC when I was seven or so. She's a much better programmer than I am.)

Which is an excellent argument not to discriminate against an individual.

However, what the OP and this thread are discussing is ways of 'fixing' a low percentage of women in startups. Which could be caused by either women on average having a worse skill set for startups or on average having less of a desire to take risky economic decisions.

If these are the causes then there isn't likely to be any way to 'fix' it.

I'm fairly certain that the percentage of women in startups is much lower than can be explained by purely biological means.

I bet it can be completely explained by a combination of biological and environmental causes.

Just because the claim is made that there are biological differences between men and women does not mean that the disparity of women vs. men in startups is entirely (or even mostly) due to biological causes.

If you want more women in startups then you have to either change women or change startups.

I'm really starting to get the impression that people think that I've been arguing that there aren't any biological differences between males and females. I probably should have worded that sentence as "fundamentally different in regards to what they are capable of doing, minus some very obvious physical limitations like childbirth and ejaculation of semen"

Yes, that's a much more succinct way of putting it.

"Don't assume there are fundamental (crippling) differences."

I think you should assume fundamental differences, because that's what both the research and experience show. Certainly more can be done for younger women, but if you don't think that businesswomen in their 40s are on average more capable than their younger counterparts then you probably haven't spent much time around businesswomen. (For reference, I took a class on women and entrepreneurship so I've been exposed to a lot of 20ish female entrepreneurs and a lot of 40ish businesswomen.)

Does the research and experience show that businessmen in their 40s are on average more capable than their younger counterparts? I bet it does!

You can make fun of me if you want, but the fact is that there are many, many differences between men and women. We don't really know what those differences mean in the real world, but we shouldn't pretend they don't exist any more than we should assume that they're 'crippling'.

As for which ones would prevent a woman from being successful as an entrepreneur in her 20s, it's impossible to say because success as an entrepreneur is multiplicative. There are dozens of factors, and only one has to be zero or near zero to make the whole thing fall apart. But the very fact that women are so different from men makes this theory quite plausible, albeit completely speculative.

I'm not making fun of you. I'm saying that women being more successful entrepreneurs in their 40s may not be tied to them being women, but to them being twice as old and experienced as a 20 year old

Thank you. If you really want to attract scorn the question could extend to race as well. Too often we confuse equality with uniformity. Woman tend to be worse at math, black guys tend to be great at basketball. Who cares? We're all people.

Political correctness puts a thin outward veneer over real the issue -- that deep inside of us we all want to be better than the people around us-- race, gender, physical disabilities and class are only the most obvious ways that we all play the game.

I think that there are many things done in the same vein with the intent of alleviating minority's struggles due to racism that do more to promote the concept of racism than not.

I'm not confusing equality with uniformity, although it's hard to express why that is clearly.

deep inside of us we all want to be better than the people around us

I disagree with this, particularly strongly with the absoluteness of it, and I think that it's an attitude that is mostly propagated by a weird bunch of cultural catch-22s.

Male and female bodies are not completely different. I suspect for example knees work similarly across genders. So it does not automatically follow that the brains are different.

Sure, there will be some different things. For example female brains probably have learned to not bump into things with their chests, whereas male brains have learned not to bump into things with their groins.

I find this sort of reductio ad pundenda dehumanizing: it betrays a pathological contempt for subtlety; and an autistic insensibility to humanity.