Comment by francesca | Hacker News Reader

Comment by francesca | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I was hoping hackernews would have a better discussion on this topic but I guess not.

I think I'm the only person who is infuriated by Penelope Trunk's article in TechCrunch Titled "Stop telling women to do startups" It moves up to the top of HackerNews very quickly, and I'm a little disappointed by the comments in the article. The title is pure nonsense first of all, and while there are maybe two points that I could agree with, it overall is a very poorly constructed argument. As a 20-something starting her career, I would hate for this type of talk to become a trend amongst women, because this logic cannot influence the next gen of women movers and shakers.

1. Women have choices and they aren't choosing startups because they want to have their own children: FALSE women are not empowered to balance the work life continuum. For men, the startup legend is one they would like to fulfill--a la the Pirates of Silicon Valley. For Penelope Trunk, she would rather be soft on the women who are itching to live life with a less exciting career (quite contrary to her title of "Brazen Careerist").

2. Raising Money and Running a Startup is Hard, so don't just tell anyone to do it!: FALSE women should be empowered to make these decisions and push themselves into riskier situations. In fact women who have partners with a stable income and have children should feel even more empowered to launch their own company (like so many women on this list have done) WHY CAN'T THEY BE RISKY! Why can't they work their ass off and succeed--or fail? I tried to start my own company, tried to raise money and failed miserably and guess what, I'm probably WAY more clever now because of that.

Saying that women have a natural imperative to raise children is horrible backwards. Women are the only ones who can give birth, but they are also capable of building great ideas, great work environments, great products and great companies. I'm horribly disappointed in this piece.

For men, the startup legend is one they would like to fulfill

Ah, but why do you think that is? It's not the really legend they are chasing, for the most part. Men are competitive, driven to be successful, make lots of money, and driven to take risks because women reward decisive, winning, wealthy, successful risk-taking men with more attention than losers and boring, predictable guys. This drive to succeed is partly biological (higher testosterone, for example) and partly social conditioning reinforced by the behavior of the women they have known in their life.

In contrast, men aren't especially attracted to success. It's not unattractive, but they care more about beauty and personality. Most women know this, which is probably one reason why people turn to outside "empowerment" and other paternalistic encouragement and positive reinforcement to affect female behavior. Meanwhile, women are choosing fields and careers that interest them, like psychology, biology, and education, or that will result in a high-status profession like law or medicine.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, evidence points to women caring about male attention and caring about having children and a family.

[women] are also capable of building...

I think that by now it is more or less conclusively proven that women are capable of a great deal. Humans are highly adaptable and throughout history both men and women did whatever they could to survive and raise their children. The question is what do women really want? What will make them happy?

As a guy I have read a different article.

The article I read was about talking the talk versus walking the walk. And being aware that sacrifices will have to be made. And that people have a mind of their own and most of the people take the route of less sacrifices.

Honestly, nowadays in western world anybody can do just about anything if they put their mind and effort towards it. And acting as if women don't do startups as per some kind of society's disapproval is weak.

I was raised by an emancipated woman, who was a truck driver 40 years ago. I see the same kind of women around me. They are few, but they command respect and admiration.

And there is this other kind, too busy writing and debating to even get anything done.

My point? The author shared her experience of walking the walk in contrast to others who in a Victorian fashion talk the proper talk.

These are the voices I want to hear. Young women actually effected by the debate at hand.

Why encourage women to start startups? 1) Because starting your own company is the hardest and potentially most rewarding career choice available and 2) Because women aren't doing it as frequently as men. It's that simple.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com