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Hey there - Anjana (CTO of Callisto) here. You're absolutely right - this problem is not just unique to women, and male founders experience this too (we know that reporting rates are extremely low among men because of the stigma involved.) In fact, our current product for college students (Callisto Campus) is actively used by survivors of all genders. Given that VC-funded founder community is predominantly male, there might be even more male founder-survivors than female.

For the survey, we started with a small list of female founders that we thought we could get a high response rate from. We definitely are interested in doing surveys of all genders.

Callisto Expansion for Founders is launching on November 15th and it is for founders of all genders, not just for women.

Given the power dynamic between genders, do you think it's accurate to draw an equivalency between the sexual harassment of women and of men? You've thought about and know about these issues far more than me (and most people here); how do you think about this question?

SV is run by males and so is much of society. Men also generally have far more physical ability to defend themselves, and to a much greater extent they are socialized to assert themselves. Also, I expect that sexual harassment and assault against men is much less frequent. Finally, I'm sure you are aware that a common way to derail other issues of discrimination is to claim that the people on the dominant side of the power dynamic also are victims, such as when people claim racial discrimination against white-skinned people is ignored. How do you think about these factors?

Your problem is that you're treating "men" as a non-distinct group, not people as individuals. Just because most people in power are men, it doesn't follow that "the people on the dominant side of the power dynamic" cannot also be victims. That's just extremely bad logic. Furthermore, including men would result in having more victims/documented cases, which should help resolve the problem sooner (unless of course one's intention isn't to solve the problem of power abuse and sexual harassment, but instead to "turn the tables on men" or something similarly sexist).

Hi Anjana, thank you for working to tackle such an important problem. I am of the class male-founder-survivor and I'm interested in learning about the upcoming expansion. Is there a way to sign up for a waitlist?

So you admit freely that you actively tried to bias your survey. I admire that you are honest about it, but I'm extremely confused as to why you are honest about that it seems like you're shooting yourself in the foot twice. Firstly by fudging the survey and secondly by admitting it.

Was the intention to manipulate the rates in order to get better PR for Callisto? It seems such an odd move to damage any scientific credibility you could have wished for right out the gates if you intend to honestly change things. I understand the mentality of "Well we are fudging the numbers but its for a good cause so we'll do it anyway", but you do realize that down the road it gives a carte-blanche option of those you wish to pressure into changing to just say "Well we don't give two cents what Callisto says, they've historically fudged their surveys and as such we disregard them completely"?

When you accuse Anjana of (admitting to) intentionally biasing the survey, I think you're referring to this statement:

> [we sent the survey to people] that we thought we could get a high response rate from.

I understood that to mean that they sent the survey to people they expected would fill it out, not that they sent the survey to people they expected would fill out the survey in any particular way. Is that an interpretation you considered and rejected for some reason?

I think that misunderstands the purpose of non-rigorous surveys like this one, which after all only included the "125 [out] of the 384 female founders who have participated in YC", because that's who had signed up for the mailing list they used. It's a rough estimate, and probably a lowball one given that their survey mechanism excludes any respondents who chose not to maintain ties with YC for one reason or another.

The purpose of this survey is to jump up and down while waving its arms in the air and yelling "WE HAVE A PROBLEM"!

We have a problem.

We don't know the exact size and scope of the problem, but at a glance it looks like it's probably bad. I would love to see reliable data about precisely how bad, including among many other things gender cross-tabs. But that data doesn't exist because nobody's gone to the substantial effort to properly collect and publish it. Maybe, if we're lucky, this report will help to create the political will to bring some of that data into existence.

It absolutely blows my mind that your response to this information is that not enough people are thinking of men.

>why not just send it out to everyone and show this disproportion with data instead of just making it an assumption?

Because all projects and studies have to have a scope or they would all use infinite resources. I'm sure there's an absolute plethora of studies that have already established the hugely disproportionate amount of sexual harassment that is by men against women.

Male victims of sexual harassment are generally thought to be under-reported and under-studied due to the same biases which influnced the article. It would not have been very difficult to push this survey out to the general YC population.

>I'm sure there's an absolute plethora of studies that have already established the hugely disproportionate amount of sexual harassment that is by men against women.

Male victims significantly under-report sexual misconduct, have access to fewer support resources, and receive help less frequently.

- Breiding, M.J., Chen J., & Black, M.C. (2014). Intimate Partner Violence in the United States — 2010. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

23.4% of women and 10.5% of men report they were raped and 6.6% of women and 10.5% of men report they were victims of attempted rape.

- Fiebert, Martin S. (2000). "References Examining Men as Victims of Women's Sexual Coercion". Sexuality and Culture. 4 (3): 81–88. doi:10.1007/s12119-000-1023-7

46% of men who reported some form of sexual victimization were victimized by women.

- Weiss, K. G. (2008). "Male Sexual Victimization: Examining Men's Experiences of Rape and Sexual Assault". Men and Masculinities. 12 (3): 275–298. doi:10.1177/1097184X08322632

I apologise for throwing the book at you, but you threw a book that doesn't exist at the parent comment and your attitude is disrespectful to people who are genuinely victimized by sexual misconduct.

Now kindly collect your mind and think. Is it possible that men under-report because it's ridiculous for society to accept that a man can be sexually harassed by a woman?

Let's say it happens, hypothetically - maybe it never happens, maybe happens all the time. But let's say it has happened to a certain male. Now, what is this male to do?

If he stays quiet it is the same as females who don't report. That encourages the harasser to keep doing what she is doing and we already know that.

If he reports - nobody believes him, because women don't harass. Moreover, he becomes a point of ridicule because our society expects men to be strong and unharassable by women. They are physically stronger and they can always escape or fight. It's insane to think about that - like how? How can that happen?

Actually, can a man fight with a woman? No - it's also ridiculous - because if he wins, well obviously he won, he is a man, he is stronger. And he will get sued because he will get accused of harassment. If he loses - he loses from a woman. "Got beat by a girl" - have you heard that phrase? Do you have any idea how impossible it would be for a male to live in a world ridiculed in this kind of way?

So how can a study establish that at all - if men won't even admit due to pride even at study time? But just in case - do you happen to have any of this "plethora" of studies? Are you sure? People have been sure about many things that are right and then their minds are blown by scientific discoveries.

So please, think, provide evidence and please, consider men as human beings as well - we are not so different from women after all.

The survey shows nearly 20% of respondents experienced some kind of harassment or assault and your only comment is “what about men?”.

I’m sure if men within YC experience this kind of behaviour they can use the same reporting tools on bookface.

The GP has a valid criticism - why weren't men included in the survey? That criticism does not detract from the results w/r/t to female founders in any way.

> I’m sure if men within YC experience this kind of behaviour they can use the same reporting tools on bookface.

I strongly suspect you're correct, but without seeing the tool I can't say for sure. Even so, the GP's criticism was "why weren't men included?", not "why aren't men able to report and act against sexual harassment?"

I think men not being surveyed created an unhealthy environment for discussion - not because men experience harassment at the same level as women, but because they missed an opportunity to show that and as a community we get the very sort of conversations occurring in this thread. The GP voiced a criticism, and you seem to have taken it to mean that the GP felt that men's experiences are more important. I don't believe that was the intent going in to this project, nor do I believe that was what the GP intended.

Is it not reasonable to ask for a study to include both men and women? At the very least it would be good as a point of comparison - if 20% of men also experience some type of harassment, the approach to solving the problem would likely be different than if very few men experienced harassment.

Also just because someone posts a particular opinion, doesn't mean that is their only response. The obvious response is "this is a bad thing", but that has been said several times in this thread already, and wouldn't contribute to discussion at all. If something is worth discussing, why not let people discuss it.