Comment by lauraklein | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lauraklein | Hacker News Reader

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I hope that wasn't the point I was making. The point I was trying to make was that telling people that, "most women want x" isn't helpful, regardless of whether it's true right at this moment in history. More to the point, it makes life harder for women who DO want to work at startups (whether or not they want to have babies), because it reinforces the stereotype that we don't want to work full time.

I don't want an investor thinking that's true when I walk into a meeting to ask for money. I don't want a CEO thinking that's true when I'm looking for a job. I don't want them thinking it's true about all women, because it's not true about the woman who matters most to me - ME.

It's about more than letting women do what they want. It's about believing women can do the things they want to do - in this case work at startups. It's about believing that many women do, in fact, want to work at startups and that more will want to work at startups if we talk about how awesome it is. It's about the fact that what we do want changes based on a lot of things that have nothing to do with biology or nature, and that sometimes changing what we want is a really good thing for everybody.

Thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate the feedback.

I do work in an area where women are extremely underrepresented--- open source software development. By some estimates, 1.5% of open source software developers are women (in contrast nearly 1/3rd of software developers with jobs are women).

I have noticed a few things. The first is that women tend to report being hit on fairly frequently just because the gender ratios are skewed. This isn't the end of the world and workplace/professional society romances and sexual encounters are are not that uncommon so it's going to happen unless we decide sex isn't part of the human condition (which isn't going to work).

The second is that the single most consistent annoyance mentioned to me is everyone asking "how do we get more women involved in open source?" This drives women away.

The third is hard to quantify but my sense is that of the women who come to open source, the vast majority come to it through employment. They have a job, and this is a means to get that job done. You see a lot more men who are independent consultants and hobbyists, and these make up the bulk of most projects. I would say the ratio of hobbyists/consultants of men to women in open source is probably 100:1.

If men get a job in open source it is more often through open source work, in other words participation is usually a career investment while for women it is more often something to do for a job.

There are exceptions of course. And one shouldn't underestimate their importance--- my grandmother was programming computers in Fortran, as she was an astrophysics professor. However at some point I think it is important to realize that asking the question, "how do we get more women involved" misses the point, and in fact drives women away. It's a counterproductive strategy. Simply saying "you are welcome at the table" is IMO a far more helpful way to proceed.

This. "How do we get more women in OSS?" is the same as saying "How do we get more male nurses"? If men want to become nurses, then they will become nurses, if women want to become open source software developers they will become OSS developers.

> If men want to become nurses, then they will become nurses, if women want to become open source software developers they will become OSS developers.

That's true only if there are no institutional or cultural barriers. From reading the experience of women who are interested in OSS or men who are interested in becoming nurses, that does not seem to be the case.

I'd agree with this.

The only exception really is to look at institutional (not cultural) barriers IMO. "Are we doing something that keeps people from being willing to have a seat at the table?"

Cultural barriers are beyond our immediate control where they extend beyond an immediate institution. If nursing is seen as unmanly, then there's not a lot one can do about that. And very often well-meaning attempts to "fix" cultural problems ends up re-inforcing them. Culture is a very resilient, homeostatic thing, and indeed, the idea that "we know what's better for women than they do" is pretty obviously sexist, but it is the same thing that comes up when saying "how do we get more women involved in X."

In general the only culture you can change is that of your own institutions, including your business and your family. That's it.

Edit: Downvotes are a bit amusing. Guess someone finds the idea challenging?

Or fatuous. You've made a lot of sweeping assertions about what can be done about culture with no evidence and no obvious expertise.

You could be right, of course, but a lot of the weaker responses to feminism have the same basic "no point in trying, ladies" conclusion that you do, and turn out to be suspiciously convenient for the speaker. So anybody with much history in this is not going to have time for resistance-is-futile comments whose supporting evidence is, "Gosh, that looks hard to me."

That goes double for startup people. It's par for the course that half of everybody tells you your idea is wrong, unworkable, impossible, foolish, or dangerous, and that you shouldn't even try. You quickly learn not to listen to those people except to see (so rarely, alas) if they have some novel point.

Because you're talking rubbish.

Are you an anthropologist, to be able to say how resilient culture is to change? Can you produce some studies to back up this claim?

How do you explain the anti-slaving and civil rights movements? They didn't take 1000's of years, yet the idea black people were inferior was pretty deeply ingrained in the white culture's psyche.

Saying "we can't change the bad things in our culture" is self-defeating and destructive.

Cultural barriers are beyond our immediate control where they extend beyond an immediate institution. If nursing is seen as unmanly, then there's not a lot one can do about that.

Just because it's not your forte does not mean it cannot be done. There are people who are quite skilled at "hacking" culture. Also, culture is not that homeostatic. One of the things about gradual change is that it goes unnoticed so that people take it for granted that "this is how it has always been" when, in fact, that isn't true. Culture evolves over time. The trick is to help it evolve more in step with the times instead of having a huge lag. It's often the degree of lag-time that creates huge friction and pain.

From my understanding male nurses not only get paid more, but have access to more options/promotions because they are male. So really, it's the opposite of women's experiences in STEM (http://rachelappel.com/stats-data-and-answers-as-to-why-ther...).

Saying "You are welcome at the table" isn't enough. Your actions need to back up those words.

>It's about believing that many women do, in fact, want to work at startups and that more will want to work at startups if we talk about how awesome it is.

This seems to be going against your point that you shouldn't be telling people what women want to do.

The author of the original article was making the point that people advocating that women work in startups (or have other professional careers) makes it hard for women like her, who don't want to do so.

In summary, you say that the other side makes it hard "for women who DO want to work at startups". The other side says you make it hard for women who don't.

Given the gross disparity between the number of women having children and the social acceptability of that act vs the number of women working in startups, we can conclude that one of those two claims of "difficulty" is full of shit.

There is no mass epidemic of women excluded from childbirth due to female targetted promotion of startup culture.

No there isn't, but if you'll notice I included startups as just a part of the overall drive.

I'm not picking a side, but I can tell you from experience that many of the women I know, who happen to be stay at home moms, do feel embarrassed about what they do.

And I do believe it's a result of career advocacy. I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy, in one side telling the other to stop advocating because it causes difficulty for the former, without acknowledging that the former can use the exact same argument.

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