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Comment by yuncun | Hacker News Reader

I think they're just trying to attract more women, not disqualify men. From my experience, women engineers are super chill about this stuff. When I was in college, I used to get emails all the time from the womens society of engineers or something, inviting me to events and stuff.

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Perhaps I'm more introverted than you are, but there is no way you could get me to go to a conference whose invitation and description excludes the possibility of my gender (or race, or other delineating characteristic) being interested in learning from female founders.

Then again, if prospective female founders are benefiting from my not being there, so be it. I assume there are several other ones I can go to, Startup School seems like the nearest gender-nonspecific equivalent.

Ironically, one of the hurdles that women have to face is that 'default' language is male. If you feel so ostracised that the term 'other women' is all that is necessary to completely turn you off going to a conference, imagine what it must be like for women surrounded by a swamp of male pronouns and references in this sector.

I agree, and can imagine. There is little irony in this, as I am a member of a community (Asian males) that is usually marginalized and heavily ridiculed in mainstream American culture. I have frequently been the oddball in a room who feels out of place and has a funny accent that people laugh at. Not every male who hangs out here is necessarily rich, successful, and white as you seem to imagine.

Anyway, none of this changes the fact that I wouldn't feel particularly comfortable going to said conference, and I imagine neither would most men. If this effect is intended, it's perfectly fine by me (as I have made clear in my comment, and have even laid out a viable alternative).

Not every male who hangs out here is necessarily rich, successful, and white as you seem to imagine.

???

You're reading a hell of a lot into my comment that wasn't there.

"Perhaps I'm more introverted than you are, but there is no way you could get me to go to a conference whose invitation and description excludes the possibility of my gender (or race, or other delineating characteristic) being interested in learning from female founders."

There are some events I avoid because of the language being all about men and the speakers all being male. It's just never intentional when that happens. We're not so different, you & I.

>I think they're just trying to attract more women, not disqualify men.

They may not explicitly disqualify men from attending, but the language on the site and the proceeding application form makes it very clear who they want, and do not want, there.

To be clear though, I don't care one way or another. I find these type of events to be laughable at best, but they're only a small part of this bizarre, gender war fueled narrative we're having pushed into the IT industry every day by online "journalists" who've never even been a part of it.

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