Were Women not allowed on the 'normal' conference? Or why do we have this separation?
I was admitted last year but couldn't attend. This event supports and encourages a community.
This will be my second and there isn't an event I went to last year (when I was starting my first company) that was more productive or helpful, including several I paid a lot of $$ for (this is also a free conference).
more here if you like: http://www.fastcompany.com/3042308/the-y-combinator-chronicl...
One of the biggest issues women face is that most men will not talk to them unless they are hoping to bed them. Men sometimes do this out of the best of intentions -- not wanting a woman to think he is hitting on her or not wanting anyone to think there is an affair because he is "friendly" with her -- but it is a very serious obstacle to women being able to network and actually have meaty discussions of business. It's also generally helpful for minorities to see examples of someone "like them" in some important way who has done the thing they inspire to. One of the benefits of that is to see an example of what works, even if you don't know the right questions to ask about "what do I need to do differently to be successful at this, in spite of the fact that people like me are so seldom successful at this?" It can be helpful to see those examples even in cases where you do not think too deeply about what they are doing differently from others "like them." It can just give you a glimpse of a pattern you haven't seen before that you can emulate without fully analyzing.
I do what I can to make it possible for women to participate more equally on HN. I am sort of appalled that Jessica Livingston, the sole female among the YC founders and a presenter at this conference, does not see fit to participate more in discussion here. I think her absence on the forum is one of the reasons it is such a boyzone. But I am glad to see YC doing something to try to support women founders, even though I tend to be much more interested in finding a means to be inclusive of women in the "boys club" rather than in trying to segregate them. Nonetheless, segregation for women to help them get started seems to have a track record of success. From what I gather, women-only colleges have a decent track record of producing female leadership and female coding groups appear to also help women break in. So unless I can offer something definitively more effective and also ideologically more palatable, I see no reason to tear it down with criticism.
I think it is a good start, one more thing I highly suggest is to partecipate more in the opensource. I know it is a bit OT.
Trust me, there are men as you described but there are (probably more) who are just interested in your skills and abilities.
Why don't try to scale more this: https://github.com/trending/developers?since=weekly
Take for example: https://github.com/LeaVerou
We need more Lea Verou here, in internet, in hi-tech and life.
This is just very, very sexist, and I'm surprised nobody has called you out on it.
That piece made the front page, so I suspect some folks here have context as to what I mean: That women have trouble getting men to engage them in a meaty way. Many men err on the side of caution, as I stated above. Heterosexual men have a tendency to engage women only superficially, unless they are looking for a romantic relationship. No, not all men do that. But a high percentage seem to and it's problematic.
I regret that it was probably not the best way to express it, but I'm not sure there is a good way to say it in brief.
Do you have ideas how we could reduce this Problem in the future?
If it isn't an issue for you, then you may be a statistical outlier. It seems to be a pretty typical experience for most women -- not all, of course, but it appears to be quite common. Even female founders* sometimes talk about the degree to which they have been treated like nothing but a piece of ass by men they were trying to make deals with, an issue men do not typically have to face when they are trying to launch a business.
* http://heidiroizen.tumblr.com/post/84530650750/its-different...
For some reason, "observant" women keep denying it though.
Hint: if you were relevant, you wouldn't need to remind people. And if you weren't stuck up, you'd have made a point here instead of acting sanctimonious.
The ones that might interest you most are The Gray Zone, Oh My God It's a Girl! and Glass Walls.
I also put some of the responsibility on women, which gets me into endless hot water and accused of "victim blaming." The post Nothing But a Bunch of Boobs takes that angle (but, then, so does Oh My God It's A Girl!, but it is a tad less controversial).
Because it's easier to be a big fish in a small pond.
To add to the above, it somewhat, superficially at least, frees women from men's ideology. But again, exposing gender antagonism.
Two, it is what people expect, in a way, so why not take this as a marketing differentiator? Perception can matter more than reality. Basically exploiting 'gender antagonism', as it were. This is a prototypical Lacanian symptom.