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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

Was the question about the baby really so bad?

It seemed to me like the person asking about it tried as hard as he could to ask it in a positive way (i.e. not accusatory, but offering opportunity to explain).

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Yes. In an employment setting, it's an unlawful question. The reason it's unlawful to ask a job candidate the question is the same reason that it's unethical to ask a prospective investment target: the premise of the question is bogus, and rebutting it requires the candidate to explain and defend private child care and home life arrangements.

Offering a candidate an "opportunity to explain" a question that shouldn't have been asked in the first place isn't a positive thing.

It's obviously a reasonable question and the fact that it's illegal to ask is outrageous.

There was a bunch of discussion of good intentions above. You're one of those people who may or may not have good intentions, but as a woman who might someday have a kid, you make me angry. People like you make me REALLY angry. It's reasonable to doubt my interest in my own f(&ing company, it's reasonable to think I'll suddenly get stupid for hormonal reasons and won't be able to deal with business, it's reasonable... what? Do you not think I'm an intelligent being who has thought about the ramifications of having a kid and running a business? Do you think that it's just some sort of thing that I don't even notice until pop I have a squalling child and then I'm all like wow my brain has turned into maternal mush and I never even expected that! Unlike men who just do stupid business s#(& for rational reasons, like wanting to buy a yacht or upgrade the girlfriend or plain old greed. You don't even give men the credit of asking them if they might pay enough attention to their own kids to lose a moment's focus when one is born.

People like you see stupidity, lack of focus, and incompetence in men as simply individual traits. At the same time you treat women as some sort of broad idiot class, implying that women need to justify to you that popping out a kid won't jeopardize the business. You're the reason one of my friends in grad school wouldn't tell anyone she was pregnant for months and months and months, so that no one would deny her a research or teaching assignment or put her on some involuntary leave.

edited for asterisks. And one last comment: if you think the woman you are doing business with is not good at business, stop doing business with her. If you think she is, give her enough respect to figure she'll deal with children appropriately, and don't ask stupid questions about whether she'll lose interest in her own company. If you want to ask who will handle x business aspect if she takes leave, that's fine, as it is not a stupid question.

>People like you make me REALLY angry.

Same to you buddy. Guess we'll have to fight it out in the political arena like anything else people can't agree on.

PS I didn't even say the things I believe that would really make you angry, like "pregnant women and women with young children probably shouldn't be working at all, and definitely not running a startup".

PPS That's a hell of a lot of wild assumptions about what "people like me" believe" off of one sentence.

This was already fought in the "political arena", and your side lost, because your side is dumb. But you keep flying your freak flag proudly, anonymous retrograde goofball. We'll all just take turns pointing out how stupid your arguments are.

Ah, good old Whig history. Well, as we can see from the rise of the Right world-wide and of neo-Reaction among thoughtful people online (hey, I used to be liberal too, you know), you may not be on the 'winning' side forever. So try not to be such an arrogant douchebag now, lest you fall that much harder later.

I just explained why it wasn't. You didn't even acknowledge my comment, let alone rebut it.

You explained why it's illegal, but I don't agree with the reasoning. I don't believe the government should be interfering in this kind of thing at all to begin with, but this is a particularly stupid example where something that is clearly highly relevant is somehow off limits due to political correctness.

My comment is right there for people to read, and your comments are as well, and it's plainly obvious that you're unable to actually respond to the substance of what I said.

What substance? What you posted didn't deserve anything beyond a simple, "that's not true", but it was transparently bullshit.

When we raised money, nobody asked my male cofounder if he was going to be distracted by his young children. Why? Because they knew it would make them look like assholes. That they don't treat women the same way is a hint.

They should have asked.

No, they shouldn't have. Because a), the conversational presumption in business contexts is that people are not total idiots, and will have thought about blatantly obvious things, and b) it's a useless question: you're always going to get the "yes, I'm dedicated" answer. Oh, and c) it's rude, and being unnecessarily rude is not a good way to build a business relationship.

Those are tactical considerations and have nothing to do with the general liberal attempt to make the entire line of consideration verboten. Liberals would have it that we should pretend that such considerations don't even exist, which is transparently stupid.

The bit about her losing interest was clearly without tact. Like asking "are you going to love your baby more than your company?"

However, I think tactfully having and voicing concern of how the pregnancy would affect her job performance in a ceo to investor meeting was valid. I wasn't sure myself, so I did a few google searches and which came up with headlines like "Why 43% of Women With Children Leave Their Jobs, and How to Get Them Back", and the legal right for 3 months of maternity leave in the US. It's perfectly reasonable to wonder what kind of preparation the company has to handle these issues.

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