Show HN: A platform for women to crowd-source advice in confidence
shello.com
shello.com
So I created Shello to cut down on time spent across multiple plaforms and where women could ask questions on any topic from a single app experience, get great advice and build new female connections in the process. You can find out more about it at: https://www.shello.com/about-us/
Please let me know any questions, we're just starting out so any feedback as well would be super helpful.
It's about setting a tone and building a culture.
But I'm in a good mood, so I'll only say that there's nothing intimate about an environment where everyone is anonymous.
The author is creating a platform for one group of people to discuss their common issues. In this case, that the common feature between people in this group is gender.
Other platforms exist for discussion between people with common attributes. An example is cancer survivors. Discussion in a cancer survivor group should probably be limited to cancer survivors. Do you think that people who have not experienced cancer first or second hand would have a good reason to post their problems in that group? I can imagine the posts now - "I haven't had cancer or experienced it in any form but here's how you should deal with chemotherapy." That's probably not appropriate.
I'd say that kind of group is latently hostile because it seeks exclusion rather than to encourage a broader perspective, and discussion topics probably center around the excluded group (ingroup/outgroup). Seems like a good litmus test.
Cmon, be real. There are discussion groups that select against other parties. Some of these groups are socially acceptable (cancer survivors, people in debt, women's issues). Other's might not be socially acceptable (excluding people based on their skin color).
In this case, a group to discuss women's issues is socially acceptable to a majority of people. If you're unhappy with this standard then go campaign against it somewhere else, don't try to poo-poo the OP's app.
Note that we accept those, but not "whites only" ones.
I think the main thing here is that men cannot advise women on issues that are related to being a woman. Sure there are other topics that men could indeed contribute and add value but the reason women are joining shello is to hear from other women.
There are already platforms like Quora and Reddit where its open to all, but are predominantly male-heavy, but hardly any where women can drive the conversations.
Re. "the main thing", it would really help me out if you could provide some examples of issues that relate to being a man, that a women cannot advise a man on.