Y Combinator Mentoring for Women
christine.net
christine.net
I guess it comes down to this: I don't see how sex matters when you're a business person, when you're programming, when you're building things. The sex of the person rightfully shouldn't come into it - it's their skills that matter. The interpreter, afterall, doesn't spit out a different result depending the sex of the coder - a computer is ultimately a great leveller. It has been a long fought battle to try and gain equality between the sexes and I firmly believe society is increasingly heading towards that goal.
And then when I read things like this it feels like a punch-in-the-face, as though it's saying "equality doesn't matter when it helps women". Or, even worse, there's perhaps an implication that women /need/ the help of other women to succeed and deserve special treatment. Or should I get ideas that there is some sort of conspiracy to form the inverse to the stereotype sexist "men's-only club" boardroom and there's some sort of attempt to reverse that through a "women's-only club". I loathe all these implications.
I've often wondered about this curious double-standard. There's previously been women-only discussions by Google in Computer Science at my University, but I bet there isn't men-only discussions in the psychology department, languages or other women-dominated social sciences and I think they'd be highly controversial if they did. Often an eyelid isn't blinked when someone offers something exclusively for women, but there'd rightly be uproar if someone offered it for men-only. I often wonder if the fact that men do significantly worse than women in exams (and as such University admissions) in this country would be quite such a footnote if the shoe was on the other foot.
I'm not kidding.
I think you'll find that you're lonely. That you gravitate towards talking to other men in the group. That you feel like your voice isn't heard. That you sense resentment towards you. That your opinion isn't valid.
Now imagine going through that every day in your college career.
(I'm assuming you're a man. If you're not, then my 97% die roll failed me.)
But that's not my point. My point is, at that company, I would often go to engineering meetings (with five to seven other people) where I was the only man in attendance. And I can tell you without a doubt that it was hard to get my opinion heard and I felt isolated.
So, I completely agree with your argument. You don't know what it's like until you've been there.
Not to complain, but to make the point:
* I almost got expelled from nursing school because of what I believe was discrimination towards men. I've talked to other men who've had similar experiences.
* I worked on a unit where my charge nurse repeatedly called me a "boy nurse".
* I am frequently referred to as "one of those male nurses".
* Many patients have asked me, "are you going to go on to be a doctor". When I tell them that I'm not, I hear, "Oh." and get a surprised, concerned look.
* I've had my ass pinched/slapped by coworkers. (I'm married. It's not appreciated)
* I had a coworker ask me to help with her, "fertility problems" and don't I look just like her boyfriend.
* Last week, I had a coworker come behind me and start braiding my long hair. I had to tell my coworker that I don't like people messing with my hair. Can you imagine if I did that to a female coworker at Google, IBM or Ford?
* I'm frequently around when women trade child birthing stories, or hear coworkers talk about their menstrual cycles.
* I've had bosses talk to me about how men don't really do foo very well as nurses.
* I'm frequently asked to "be a big, strong man and help me move my patient". I have back problems from 15 years of being asked to do things because of my size and gender.
* I've often been asked to care for hostile, combative, drunk or otherwise chemically altered patients, because I'm a "big, strong man".
I could go on.
Let's just say that I'm happy to mentor any man that comes into this profession. There are certain tricks of the trade that will help a lot that I've picked up along the way. And, there are benefits to being a man in this profession as well.
If the gender FOO's want to get together and help each other out or talk about how to deal with being FOO around so much BAZ... More power to them.
In thinking about it, however, I haven't noticed when working in an ICU that stronger women are asked to care for the 400+ lb patients more often.
It is a fairly common occurrence, however for men to be asked to care for certain patients because "men are stronger". I've also been told by women that they are glad to have more men in the industry because "men are stronger".
I could be wrong, but I struggle to think of an instance where it would be okay for me to to categorize female coworkers as being inherently better or worse because of a physical attribute, however.
Mind you, I am not saying that I have any complaints about my own experience. The women in question have been good bosses, and mostly have let me use my own judgment in deciding how to complete the tasks assigned to me. For those of us programming as an employee, for the most part I think this is all we really want.
Maybe this is why I have a hard time accepting programs that seek to pump indifferent women into computer science/programming fields. I can't relate to the idea that women are discriminated against in this field when, more often than not, it has been a woman telling me what to do. For what it's worth, most of these women seemed more than happy to let others do the implementation and make technical decisions, while they focused more on the parts of the work that require human interaction. This is not to say that they did not understand the technical questions or were incapable of doing the implementation, just that it did not seem to interest them as strongly as the inter-personal aspects.
Having said that, I don't have any objections to this program being offered to help women entrepreneurs. I agree with the sentiments expressed elsewhere that men in women dominated fields find the same need to talk to men who have "been there" and can relate to the minority experience.
Compared to my CS classes, it was like a breath of fresh air. (I actually double-booked my afternoons, and walked out of Operating Systems halfway through class to go study ancient Peruvian pottery. It was therapeutic.) I felt like a curiosity at first, but never trivialized or resented. As always, I gravitated towards a couple other people in the department as friends, but they didn't happen to be men.
The pattern I saw was not that men (or the dominant sex) are trivializing and resentment-laden, but that specific departments were. Even the women in the CS department were into the macho-geek BS, and a lot of us men hated it.
That's why we're offended by the suggestion that there should be special anything for women in CS. A lot of us men want computing to grow up, too, and we feel excluded by these women-only programs. There's your sex discrimination.
In neither situation did I ever feel marginalized, or excluded, or ignored. Occasionally I felt like I was an object of curiosity, but I can deal with that.
It is a bit of a culture shock, and in both situations I was careful to observe first and talk later. I saw some guys who entered fandom, immediately started acting like...men, and had a rather unwelcome reception as a result. But that's social skills 101: being aware of existing culture and norms of a group.
That said, I don't have any problem with a group like this. It's not really a sex issue: it's connecting experienced entrepreneurs with like-minded people, which is kinda the point of mentoring. Arguably, PG started YCombinator because he wanted to mentor people like himself; I don't see any reason why a group of women should not be able to do the same thing.
Nope. It's totally a sex issue.
I still think it's a fine thing to do. But this is just a ridiculous statement.
I have no problem with all-male groups like the Freemasons, Boy Scouts, or fraternities.
The things you've listed are all-male for traditional reasons. If someone were to start an all-male group now (like, say, an all-male mentoring group), it would generally be frowned upon. I was just wondering if you'd frown upon it also.
Edit: actually - I can't say that I wouldn't participate myself. Mentoring is mentoring - if I liked the people involved, I'd get involved.
I had no qualms when students at my college started a new all-male acapella group, or when they started "The Men's Project" (which, somewhat ironically, spent a lot of time discussing how to prevent violence against women).
Yeah, but if it's a 50 year old male executive privately mentoring a 22 year old female CS grad, it might get a little creepy. Same thing goes for a 50 year old female executive privately mentoring a 22 year old new grad.
That's not to say that it's wrong for older people to mentor young people of another gender. It's just that the potential for creepiness is higher.
Is being a startup founder like that? I don't know, but it seems plausible that it might be.
She is clearly discriminating based on gender, but she's doing it because of an observed gender imbalance.
I recognize there may be a biological reason why the gender split in our field is the way it is, but I feel it is probably mostly cultural. I'm using lots of qualifying words because I just don't know. It may be a combination of biological and cultural. But since I think there is a cultural component to the disparity, I'm sympathetic to people who make attempts to address it.
Hell, the tone of the parent article alone is enough to justify this group. Guys: we already dominate the industry, and will for the rest of our careers. There's no need to be jerks about it. If you don't see the need for a group to which you'll never belong, just keep quiet.
I believe you mischaracterised my argument or completely misjudged my tone. At no point did I suggest the original author's point-of-view was "utterly ridiculous", just that I found it frustrating and to try and emphatically explain the reasons why. There is a world of difference there. The introductory comments about it being a "controversial rant" have been mischaracterised - the idea was to try and minimise any offence to the original author, that I knew it was slightly hijacking the thread, that it may be a fringe viewpoint and that the author would probably disagree with my point-of-view. At no point was I aiming for "chest-beating", nor do I believe that was the tone of the post, but I do apologise if it came across as such. I do believe, however, that had the roles been reversed that I would not be offended if someone put their arguments forward as I did to support their point of view.
I also quite obviously disagree that I'm a "jerk", and I firmly believe that my opinion still matters despite apparently being the "wrong sex" to be able to have one on this matter and that this sort of discussion is not and should not be out of bounds.
What do you mean "we"? The fact that some other guys dominate "the industry" does absolutely nothing for me.
If this is like other similar efforts, it's an attempt to help connected women compete with connected men. Meanwhile, "unconnected" women and men remain left out.
Excuse me for not seeing that as a significant improvement.
> If you don't see the need for a group to which you'll never belong, just keep quiet.
Would you say that to anyone other than unconnected white men?
I would find it very sad if that you described happened, though. I think a male point of view would be valuable on a discussion of an issue like proto-feminism, for example. The idea that someone would get shouted down from a discussion for having a dissenting point of view to me seems bizarre assuming they facilitate the discussion, but perhaps that's just me.
This could happen (to a man in such a class, or to a woman in a male-dominated workplace) with no one shouting at anyone, or expressing any kind of hostility, or even really doing anything wrong. These are difficult problems.
Now, if your ideas are not received because of existing prejudice, that's a different issue.
I dunno. I think what it comes down to is that in most things, male\female is much the same experience, even if it expresses it self in different ways. You can rant on about all the sucky hard experiences one side gets, but I think if you really look, you'll find the otherside has a very similar set of problems as well.
Except for the US college system is dominated by women. There are roughly 6.4 million men and 8.7 million women currently enrolled in college. By 2016 the gap will jump to 7 million men and 10.3 million women. And since the top colleges can get away with accepting more men to even out the gender ratios, that means the median college classroom is entirely dominated by women except for a few niche departments like computer science and physics.
Suppose you're a member of minority M, looking to get into group G, which is dominated by members of group D, who are all significantly different in some very obvious way. Wouldn't you personally like a little reassurance from someone else in M who's made it in G, that you too can do well? It's just plain human insecurity. As a girl who takes a lot of CS classes, even though I never experience any hostility from the guys in the classes, it just feels a little weird. I certainly do feel more insecure. Like it or not, just because so many more guys are in these classes, girls form a stereotype of CS as being something for guys and not for them. They have to hear that message from a girl, a living counterexample, to shake that stereotype. Being outnumbered by guys everywhere does nothing but reinforce stereotypes.
I was really into Japanese culture and language, and was very excited to immerse myself in the whole experience all 3 times. For the two summers, this was not a problem. I took the same approach for my year long stay.
However, after month 4 or 5, I totally burned out. I was spending all week and all weekend speaking Japanese, which I was improving at a lot, but still required a lot more mental effort than speaking English. Beyond that, there are just lots of little cultural things to always be mindful of and this added a small but constant burden, too.
It was at this time that I started attending an English speaking church, attended by ex-pats. One thing I discovered was that, even if the person was Taiwanese and we were speaking Japanese because that was the one common language between us, we still agreed on the same things that were weird about Japan.
Having this support group made a world of difference. I was still in a Japanese environment, spending most days speaking mostly Japanese, but I had an outlet.
I suspect this is what women get from having female connections in the CS/programming world. As much as our society sometimes tries to ignore the fact, men and women are different enough that it is occasionally necessary to get away from the other culture and retreat into your own, even if only to hear someone agree about how weird the other culture can be.
Maybe because you are a member (myself included) of a homogeneous monk-like cloistered society that meets daily with your own kind where everyone knows the secret hand-shake and acknowledges you. Given that nobody does lone-programming anymore if you are different you are going to be side-lined.
I guess the argument killer here is "put your hands up all those who would trade places as a man to be a women in a male dominated - some say one of the last - in the software industry?".
Your argument of course is not a new one. The best example I can think of is hiring musicians for Orchestra. You would think that gender would not be a problem. Surely a musician who is good enough would get a job in a Orchestra based on musical ability in the "12 minute recital" alone? Yet Orchestras have been a male dominated industry ~ http://www.polyphonic.org/panels.php?id=7&day=1 Read here more on the debate on Orchestral selection and among other things gender.
Is this issue another structural issue within Startups where gender dominance is only skills based? Or are there entry hurdles that can be knocked down with some small changes? Don't we all want as many high quality entrepreneurs and Startups to florish? Or is it a "foo only club?" where you can join in as long as you are one of "us"?
Really? I need a support group.
I'm being facetious.
This was a throw away line Doug Crockford gave in a talk I was listening to, "Quality" talk I was listening to the other day (about 10-15m in) ~ http://developer.yahoo.net/blogs/theater/archives/2007/05/do...
For most SoftCo. management this is probably what they think.
That's what I thought and was the reason I chose this instance. I remember seeing an example of perceived vs actual performance and more women where hired because of bias selection. How many Orchestras try this I don't know.
Sex shouldn't matter, but how people perceive me due to my sex could have an impact on how I do things.
I know the following would make me sound like a really passive aggressive person, but I write some awful code when someone pisses me off. One time in school I had no choice over who to partner with, and my partner was this awful guy who told me explicitly that he didn't want to work with me because I was female. In the end I wrote most of the code anyway (all he'd provide is copy-pasted code labelled file1, file2, file3 etc. either cause he just didn't know how to do anything or it was just him being passive aggressive at being forced to work with me), but it ended up being the most obfuscated, profanity-laced code I had ever written. I spent quite a bit of time refactoring and deleting comments before submitting it.
I would never do that professionally (instead I go and rant on IRC or twitter for a bit to friends), but I can say I am sometimes tired of the sexism (just like you are tired of the double standard) and it affects me once in a while, and that certainly affects the work I do in myriad ways.
As a white male, I'm sure I enjoy all sorts of implicit advantages I don't even notice, but it still weirds me out to see groups wear their exclusionary nature not only openly, but with pride.
As a white male in tech, I can see how you might find it difficult to empathize with someone in that situation. Best sort of "imagine if" scenario would be if I dropped you in the middle of a foreign country and you looked around and realized that there were a few Techers there with you. You guys (and gals?) might have some beers together, and if anyone from Turkmenistanians wanted to join you, they could.
Did you see the episode of Will and Grace, where Matt Damon pretends to be gay because that is the only way he can get accepted into the men's chorus group?
But yes, I don't see any worth in "diversity" for its own sake, unless we are talking about a diversity of skill-sets, knowledge, or something else worth talking about.
"Point of view is worth 80 IQ points"
Wrong. Diversity that brings in useful points of view is good. Diversity that brings in other points of view is bad.
> "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points"
My cat has a different point of view but I'm pretty sure that she doesn't have anything useful to say about Google App Engine.
Cute insinuation.
Do you really want to argue that every person can add something useful to any discussion of Google App Engine? Or is it just every woman?
If not, then the "diversity" argument fails, at least wrt Google App Engine.
While the right points of view add 80 IQ points, some points of view don't add any IQ points, and some even subtract. Gender, orientation, and ethnicity are sometimes good predictors for "useful point of view" but not always.
The advantage of using my cat is that she isn't offended when I point out that she doesn't have a useful perspective on something.
I'm sure you believe this yourself, you behave like this, and you have probably witnessed this a great deal - but this doesn't necessarily generalize.
However, there has been a lot of (empirical) research into this area and it's shown that this still is an issue. For example: http://psy.ex.ac.uk/seorg/glasscliff/
If you're selling to a broad multisexual audiance, it makes sense to have a confederate in your midst to point out any faux pas you may make.
I don't object to employing someone for their knowledge of a market though when it's relevant. When in Rome, it might be handy to hire some Romans...
formatting
And we do talk about the same things for men when it comes to reading ability and scholastic performance. In fact just a couple weeks ago I posted a review of Peg Tyre's new book The Trouble With Boys.
I'm glad she mentioned this. How could Livingston not want more women founders? She's trapped with 80 dudes six months out of the year.
I'm certainly for equal treatment, but whether the media wants to admit it or not - people are different. That's why Title 9, quota hiring and Chief Diversity officers (gag!) have been such utter failures. Right idea, wrong execution. Working in admissions in school was one of the most eye opening things I've ever done. Some of the other efforts are great, but most come off as discriminating double standards.
HHI 60k, Black, 2.1 GPA, similar EC, no record, ACT Score 16 - Accepted.
HHI 50k, White, 3.2 GPA, similar EC, no record, ACT Score 22 - Rejected.
Most were variations of that. That is, less qualified applicants in similar economic situations were admitted solely because of race. Obviously I knew these practices existed (oh hai Division 1 athletics), I was just surprised how blatant it was especially with economic situations being roughly equal in many of the cases. Scholarships were even worse, but seeing as it was a few years ago, I don't remember specific cases. Just apply the above to general scholarship fund stuff.
Edit: Didn't like how the first sentence read.
For the record, I'm an adamant supporter of AA. And not entirely because it helped me out personally.
edit: I go through all this work to say something to get an argument, and all I do is get a downvote? C'mon guys...
Just like having a 99% white male University is not bad in itself, it's a consequence of bad - Inequality in society. The goal of aa (should be) is to deal with that.
There is an inherent problem. We tend to gauge gender equality by things like the male/female exec ratio. That's fine. But then we try to improve equality by artificially equalising that. Ok..but we are getting into murky waters? How do we know if the underlying problem is solved now. The goal of such a program is not to be needed at some point in the future. When you're talking about minorities in schools etc. that can take a long time, but aa is not acceptable (to me) indefinitely.
There's also another type of aa*. EG the organisation believes certain staff ratios are good for corporate culture, good for morale, good to give an impression of equability etc. etc. That's a different kettle of fish. Completely different. The company/school may have rational economic reasons for this decision, but that is discrimination for utilitarian reasons. How would you feel if for the same reasons, the decision was made to hire all white males?
As a middle class white kid, I actually got bit by affirmative action, but I'm 100% for what I perceive as the idea behind it (give everyone a damn chance!) and hold no grudges at all. The execution, in my mind has just been bad because it leads to reverse discrimination. Unfortunately, I'm not well read enough in the subject to propose a plan to fix it. I'm working on it.
The inequalities between Americans is almost trivial compared to the inequalities found between rich and poor countries. And even though I still do it, that's why I feel so foolish complaining about anything
I mention that tradeoff because it's the decision we get to make. Free markets give us poor people who live like kings compared to the poor bastards who are all equal.
I think that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are an acceptable price to pay for a well-off poor people.
Me - I'm far more concerned with what I've got than I am with what someone else has. Why are you so concerned with what other people have? More to the point, how much are you willing to give up for equality?
Depending on the metric you are using we do well. If you are talking about making sure people have the bare essentials, we do pretty well. The "extras" like education are lacking though.
I think that the University of California system has higher percentages of Asian Americans than other academically comparable institutions since California banned affirmative action.
You don't see Black Basketballers Mentoring Associations, do you?
All through my career I have seen a handful of women hackers and some were pretty damn good ones. Keep on pushing girls!!
Frankly, this is the first post I've read where someone is offering plain and simple help. It would be great if she could help everyone, but her available 'free helping' time is I'm sure limited, and she choose a filter to limit the pool and to serve her personal goals as well.
I say thank you!
Sometimes you need someone to look upon, who you can use as inspiration or for support. The closer they are to you the better you tend to feel. For example, I would look first for a local incubator (Spain) instead of aiming for a foreign one (e.g. US), but that doesn't mean the foreign ones aren't as good, just that I probably will feel more comfy on the one that's closer and consider we will understand each other better. This of course can be true or not, and I will find out eventually.
Before thinking about "does genre matter", think of the subject and change genre for something else. Does it sound normal to you? Then why the controversy when it's about genre (or race, politics or whatever)? This is just a proposition to try to bring more players into the game :)
There is a lack of european-descent long-distance runners in the top tiers. Not too many woman play football. Very few men do much knitting. Do we need outreach and mentoring to change make sure that all groups are a mirror of the world's demographic makeup?
Women and men are different, and perhaps the reason that software startups are male-dominated speaks to that difference rather than a social issue. In other words, perhaps our society is that way because of how we are rather than how we are being driven by our society.
All that being said, I met Christine at Demo Day was was very impressed-- if she's offering to mentor you, you should take her up on it. If you couldn't/wouldn't have the guts to dive in and kick ass without this mentorship/support group, I'd suggest that you probably aren't temperamentally suited to be an entrepreneur.
Moreover, it'll give lonely male hackers more choice beyond the no talent Julia whatsherface-cant-get-back-my-15minoflife-after-reading-her-lameness-in-Wired, the designer and "community" chicks, the high-powered VC women, and the one or two technical female founders (re Leah Culver).
I've met some really talented technical women out there (see the women of Meebo) and I've learned a lot from just talking to them and giving them the leg up of YC, LB, or TS would be a good move.
Although you probably didn't mean it, this attitude is most definitely Part Of The Problem. It's a pain because you're right - in an ideal, evenly-divided environment, there would be a lot of within-group dating, and everyone would be fine with that.
The problem is that, as long as there's a significant imbalance, the constant romantic interest is going to be seriously offputting for the few women in the group.
The men don't even need to be malicious or socially maladroit (although, let's face it, as a group hackers tend to lack social skills, which makes things much worse). What would be a perfectly reasonable level of possible romantic interest from each individual person rapidly becomes intolerable if it's all concentrated on the lone female in a big group of males. Which is why you hear so many female geeks screaming "Stop trying to date me, damn it, and look at my code!"
-Clonk.-
Yes, the guys have it worse if you view it primarily as a dating situation. But viewing it primarily as a dating situation is a large part of what makes it so uncomfortable for the women in the first place.
Consider this very crude quantitative model: There is a group of 10 (straight) male hackers who spend workdays together. They would prefer to spend 95% of their day working, and 5% flirting. So they spend 5% of their time frustrated, and 95% satisfied.
A female hacker joins the group. She's no celibate saint - she, too, would like to spend 5% of her time flirting and 95% working. But, because she's the only woman around, 50% of her time is occupied by her coworkers trying to flirt with her. So, despite a much better position in the dating situation, she spends 45% of her time being frustrated by the constant romantic attention when she'd far rather be working.
Do you see how we could end up with a situation in which "normal" behaviour, or "just treating someone like you would anyone else", can make someone feel very uncomfortable indeed?
It's certainly much more serious than the minor inconvenience of being unable to meet potential romantic partners at work.
People in PLENTY of more evenly paired occupations flirt all day long. If flirting is something a woman hates then go right ahead into programming! You can easily avoid human interaction almost entirely.
Let's work constructively to get more bright young women to apply.
Why young? Are women over 30 over-represented among start-up founders? Does she feel that we are ticking time bombs waiting to run off to have babies? Is she simply uncomfortable mentoring someone slightly older? What is it?
I don't question the intentions. But I do question the quality of a mentoring group where the mentors themselves carry outdated self-defeating stereotypes. Reminds me of an otherwise intelligent Indian friend of mine who is completely hung up about having darker skin.
I am one of the mentors in the group and participated in TechStars at the grand old age of 38 and have two young children, and I can say that our group would be happy to work with applicants of any age. I don't believe that Christine's comment is meant to indicate our support of women within a particular age range (or whether they have or plan to have children) -- it's a reference to what we believe the median age of YC applicants are.
Your comment does make me wonder, however: what is that number? Does anyone know?
"Y Combinator Mentoring from prominent businesswomen".
Considered asking yourself why something being for women is offensive?
It's pointless anyway... Why aren't there more white basketball players? Racism? Probably more likely the same reason there aren't more women founders.
You have to admit a special school only for white basketball players would be pretty offensive. no?
I'm just looking for a bit of consistency here though. Either every instance of racism/sexism is offensive, or they are all fine.