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Silicon Valley VCs and the Gender Gap
fysdt writes with this excerpt from TechCrunch:
"An analysis of Dunn and Bradstreet data shows that of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004, only 19% had women as primary owners. And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms (as in Silicon Valley) were founded by women. Look at the executive teams of any of the Valley's tech firms — minus a couple of exceptions like Padmasree Warrior of Cisco — you won't find any women CTOs. Look at the management teams of companies like Apple — not even one woman. It's the same with the VC firms — male dominated. You'll find some CFOs and HR heads, but women VCs are a rare commodity in venture capital. And with the recent venture bloodbath, the proportion of women in the VC numbers is declining further. It's no coincidence that only one of the 84 VCs on the 2009 TheFunded list of top VCs was a woman. ... Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007, the proportion of funded female CEOs dropped to 3%."
I'm a man, I don't have venture capital, so I don't care. If women want more venture capital, its not my issue.
This is my sig.
Time for another insightful discussion on the gender gap in tech. There will be no flames, no attacks, and no blaming. Just quiet, reflective discussion.
SSC
nothing's holding anyone back. if women want to be in a field (other than Infantry or SOF) then they can.
maybe we should make some laws to bring up the numbers, eh comrade?
THL phish sticks
...that if women aren't highly represented in these endeavors, it might be a sign that women just aren't interested in the same damn things that men are?!
Sheesh!
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
I've sometimes wondered about levels of testosterone and their link with "the desire to lead".
Women and men are certainly mentally as capable as each other, but I wonder if there's a chemically induced motivation difference.
>"of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004, only 19% had women as primary owners. And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms were founded by women."
Yes, we have discovered a massive conspiracy by society to prevent women from founding new companies. New evidence shows States refuse to give business licenses to women, especially if it is apparent it will be a high-tech company. News at 11....
So there are few women in technology. Sad. There are few men in primary or secondary education, nursing, or child care. Do we care?
If you believe that sociopaths are more likely to become effective CEOs, as has been claimed, then given that antisocial personality disorder is about 3 times more common among men than women, this is pretty much exactly what you'd expect.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Film at 11.
..don't panic
management teams of companies like Apple — not even one woman.
Well, it is Apple ... there's no *women*, but ...
More seriously, it's interesting, but has little bearing on anything. Anyone done any studies on the lack (or excess) of LGBT in tech or venture capital?
Okay, I guess I should get in here before it gets really bad. I'm a PhD student who studies entrepreneurship, so I've read a bit on the topic of gender discrimination and difference in entrepreneurship. In fact, I'm writing this instead of working on the lit review of my research proposal. There is plenty of evidence that women are discriminated when they look for loans or investments. A good read is Blake 2006 "Gendered Lending: Gender, Context and the Rules of Business Lending" in Venture Capital 8(2) pp. 183-201. Basisiaclly, there are pretty large, statistically signifigant, differences in loan approval rates between men and women, after controling for a host of factors like education, business plan, experience ect. Plenty of women applying for loans for high-tech businesses were told by the banker to instead start more traditionally women-oriented businesses like salons or clothes stores. On the venture capital side, access to venture capital is heavily dependent on social networks, if most venture capialists are men, then women will have a harder time getting into these networks. The old boys network still does exist, and it's hard to break in to.
But why does this matter? The fact is that entrepreneurship is the only way that the American economy is going to grow. This is the best feature of our economy. So sure, I agree that women might not be equally as interested in entering the technical fields as men (though I'd say this is due in large part to implicit and explicit discrimination rather than anything biological). But we need all the entrepreneurs we can get. If women, who as you recall make up half the population, can't get a fair shake at starting high-tech firms poised for fast growth and export-base sales. we're doing the economy a disservice.
Sleep is for the weak!
Women control the majority of money in the US. It seems that that is true simply because they survive longer due to their husbands working their fannies into an early grave. But having money and power in the declining years does not bless them with nimble minds at that age. So if we get a bunch of bright young women willing to dedicate themselves totally to tech in the fanatical way that young males often do we may see women getting more funding. I guess they will have to give up on the baby making, long nails, and endless shopping.
This affirms that confirmative action needs more time to... panic!
In related news, only 3% of make-up firms and 1% of flower firms were founded by men.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
If 3% of "tech firms" and 1% of "high-tech firms" were founded by women, and yet 19% are primarily owned by women, that seems to suggest that women position themselves very well in terms of getting to the top of these companies.
In terms of founding firms, if one gender wants to found more firms --- then maybe they should just found more firms? I don't see how anything but the most abstruse and heavy-handed affirmative action is going to change that. ("Oh, you want a business license? But you're a male and we've already completed our quota of patri-licenses! Try again next decade.")
Maybe male-dominance of firms can be explained by three facts: (1) founding a firm is one of the more risky ways to try to secure wealth for oneself; (2) tendency to take greater risks is positively associated with testosterone levels (link and link); and (3) males have higher testosterone levels than women.
Sure, there is much more that needs to be done in the realm of women's rights. But that men tend to want to found firms and women do not, is not really high up on the list. Let's try making sure women do not get assaulted as much as they do. This will probably increase their mental well-being and self-confidence such that they will be even more able to succeed in things like finance and high-tech as well!
...what is the Viet Cong doing in Silicon Valley?
The SV startup culture is very darwinian. VCs put their money where they think it will pay off, no matter who is the CEO of a potential investment. Maybe the author should put his money where his mouth is and start a fund that has a mandatory 50-50 mix of male-female CEOs.
A women working with computers? Absurd! Give those gals some barbies and let them worry about thinks like good-looking actors and the kitchen.
I would just like to chime in and say that correlation is not causation.
I think that way too often "gender gap" issues are misconstrued. Bad statistics are used to push worse agendas.
So let's assume that the numbers presented above are factual, properly represented statistics that accurately reflect the reality of the world. So what? What does that even mean?
I'm guessing there are fewer male nurses than female nurses. Oh noes!!!1! Smells like discrimination to me!
Or maybe, and just maybe, men and women have different priorities and value systems and therefore make different choices in their lives. Maybe working 60+ hour weeks for a shaky startup in a high stress environment is less appealing to most women than it is to most men. I don't know. And you probably don't either.
Hmmm...
The percentages near the end are somewhat misleading. If there are only 19% of mainly women-owned businesses, who receive VC, they only get about half of that what men do. But I think especially the high-tech industry is the one getting all the VC, and there the percentage is, according to TFA, 1-3%. So women would, if one assumed that most VC went into this industry, get more than men.
So, all in all, these numbers are, at best, misleading.
Silicon Valley is a meritocracy. People who get put in positions that they don't deserve, just because of their skin color or their gender might hold the title, but won't hold the respect or the credibility.
I know plenty of females that are competent in terms of technology. But the ones who are in leadership positions right now started out in tech 20+ years ago. They were the first wave. Now, we have more females in the general ranks, and they will filter their way up. But it takes time.
Force-feeding gender equality in a meritocracy won't work. They have to earn it just like everyone else. And when they do, no one will blink an eye or care, because everyone will think they deserve it.
Seriously its all about the money, nothing else.
This isn't some high-ground moral debate, its about moolah, show me the money.
Doubt me? Find the big stories about the gender gap in nursing, therapy, primary and secondary education (though strikingly, once you get to higher education then all of a sudden the gender gap IS an issue... why there? why not for primary and secondary?), for mechanics, for ditch diggers. There's a HUGE gender gap in every one of those fields, 90%+ male or female dominated in each, and you hear nothing about it.
Now bring in: finance, (medical) doctors, venture capital, CEOs, math, science, technology (anything with $$$), and its suddenly important.
Guess we'd better force women at gunpoint to enter careers they wouldn't voluntarily choose to enter. After all, it's for their own good. And it makes the weak spined males feel better about themselves. Cuz that's what this is all about, isn't it?
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
FFS - the entire issue of female ownership is partly genetics. Women aren't as competitive as men are. It's a fact. Get over it. We don't need any more equal opportunity programs, we don't need morons meddling in people's natures. Those women who ARE competitive should certainly not be held back because they are women - but get any group of women together, and they quickly determine how to COOPERATE. Unlike the guys. With us, some muscle brain has to establish his alpha-dog dominance, and he leads. Simple as that.
Guys enjoy cutthroat competition more often than women do, so guys get into occupations that make use of it. We can't all become pussies, so that women can compete. Nor can they grow muscle, or manipulate their psychological makeup to compete with the guys.
Liberals need to get a grip on reality. Our nation wasn't built by sensitive little gayboys.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
How is this important? Go make me a sandwich.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The proportion of women to men that are convicted sex offenders, ravecar drivers, welders, etc is quite low also. Is this sexual discrimination or is this differences in motivations? The prportions of testosterone to estrogen is quite different also, am I the only one that can see that hormones may be to blame?
Apple doesn't have any women among its top executives, and neither does AMD. But HP has 3 of the top 10, Intel has 3 of the top 15, Amazon has 2 of 12. Not a stellar performance by any means, but not a complete absence either. This seems to be one area where Ms. Fiorina had a positive impact on HP.
I'm trying to come up with something witty to say, but the only woman CEO that comes to mind is Carli Fiorina. That worked out well for HP...
No man is an island. These stereotypes exist whether I like it or not. I have an 18 month old son we are about to have a daughter.
I'm not about to teach my son to play with girl oriented toys like dolls etc. or dress him in dresses. Regardless of what I believe, he would be the one to suffer if I did. He would be teased. He would be ostracised. He would be beaten up. I'm not going to change society as a whole just by making my own house rules that do not fit in. Me and mine would just be labelled weird.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
sudo make me a sandwich
Most comments seem to be from the outside looking in, looking from the big picture to the small.
Try a different strategy. Look at the small picture and imagine it replicated a zillion times.
So, the wife and I serve the evil empire at our corporate jobs. Due to gender quotas, etc, she's pretty much untouchable at a big enough corporation in her technical field. The only way it could be better for my wife, is if she were a minority. Me, I'm just another off the shelf white male tech dude. Which of us should stay in the corporate world to haul down some cash and (more importantly) health insurance? The replaceable cog in the machine man, or the quota'd fire-proof woman? Obviously the least risky solution is she keeps her day job, he forms the new company.
Multiply by roughly 10000x and you get the reported numbers. No great surprise, really.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Maybe harder for women to get private funding, but much easier getting government loans, either small biz or schooling, etc.
Besides, VC stuff isn't that great, you are beholden to people who just want a huge return back, and swiftly. They won't ever care about the tech or doing a good job or being in it for the long haul.
You'd think this would be learned by now. Want a company, or to start your own business, expand on some ideas? That's fine! But you don't have to go this VC route either. Do what it takes to stay private and self funded some how. If this means you stay small for a long time..at least you are still working and don't have to put up with PHBs, dumb VC investors, dumber generic stockholders, etc.
Small does not necessarily translate into bad, and giant doesn't necessarily translate into good either, despite what those pirates believe and are taught in the biz schools.
There's more to life than some nebulous goal of being a big biz tycoon. We already have quite enough of those globalist turkeys running around, we don't need any more of them..we need less of them.
And this "bigger is always better" corporate mindset is wrecking the economy as a whole, not making it better. All these huge companies are just eating the middle class up and spitting them out, leaving them stuck with huge debts, personal and governmental, and shifting the wealth of the nation into fewer and fewer hands, where they don't care after that point, they'll go elsewhere with that stripped wealth and just let everyone else rot.
It's a vicious circle where they have to kowtow to the wall street pirates to achieve "growth" in their business, which has de evolved into just building up, acquiring with takeovers, stripping assets to achieve this growth, selling off the good stuff cheap and fast, shuffling off the jobs as fast as possible, another way they get short term profits, then bailing once your company and your idea has been destroyed with their golden parachutes they vote themselves to take. Lather, rinse, repeat, with co-opting our government in the meantime, to let them keep getting away with that.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/19658
That's what you want, to be part of that system?
So..stay away from those guys. Do it yourself, stay small and integrated, have a better life, less hassles and headaches and bogusness, don't be part of that corrupt and morally bankrupt system if you can avoid it.
You should care because the only way to make this work...
What do you mean "make it work"? Perhaps it already is? As far as I can see the ONLY data backed evidence in the article is that more men than women get VC dollars and that the women are equally, if not better, qualified. This is NOT evidence of sexism and could be easily due to the fact that women may find the high pressure and huge work load of starting up a company less appealing than men. This could even be viewed as a sign of superior intelligence!
All I'm saying is that perhaps, for the most part, stereotypes have been greatly relaxed (although there are still some throw-backs out there) and what we are seeing is the result of those relaxed stereotypes. We do know that there are differences between the genders so it should not be surprising that this results in differing levels of interest for different types of job. What we have to care about is ensuring equal opportunity for all and not worrying about differing take-up. While the article does conjecture about that there is no evidence to support those conjectures.
Carol Bartz. CEO of Autodesk, where she did well, then Yahoo, where she inherited a mess and isn't doing too well so far.
I do some "Angel" investing on occasion (I'm not at VC stage yet), meaning that I invest some of my money in promising startups. As much as it may seem that "the kids" have all the tech-saavy and good ideas, I look for startups that are lead by people with fairly extensive experience in both "tech" and business. That means that I'd be hard pressed to put my hard-earned money into a new company that's being run by a 25-year-old who is probably right out of college and has never run a business before. Now, I know that many of the great companies were started by kids with no business experience and I'm probably missing out on a good thing here. However, when I am presented with two competing proposals of otherwise equal potential where the difference is that one company is lead by a kid with no "real-world" experience and the other is lead by someone who's been in the field for 10-20 years, has run other businesses (even failed ones), I'll probably go for the experience - if all other factors are equal. In fact, I believe the youngest person I've ever funded was around 33 at the time.
So, how does this fit in with the gender issue? I've been in the IT field since 1984 and I can tell you that girls were almost entirely absent from my field. What this means in terms of total experience today is that those in the high-tech field with the most experience tend to be predominately men. It would also follow that those with enough experience in their field who are seriously ready to both run a business that requires funding at the VC-level (i.e. millions of dollars) and have enough of a portfolio and background to attract VC would tend to be predominately men. Think about the ages of people running *most* large, successful companies; they tend to be in their 50's or older. Look back at how many women were in the workforce, getting management and "technical" experience in the 70's and 80's. Keeping in mind that during that time women really didn't have the same opportunities as men in the workplace and they tended toward more "traditional" positions - thus further reducing their potential experience in roles that would lead to high-level executive positions.
Is this *fair* to women? Not really. They've always had to fight harder to be accepted into non-traditional roles in business. Is it *fair* to men for women to get moved into positions of authority simply because there aren't enough women in positions of authority? No. However, as someone who puts my money out there on the line, I'm looking for the best chance of a return that I can find. I don't care about the race, creed, color or gender of who's leading the company. I care about their chances of leading the company to success and my getting a return on my investment. Generally that will tend to lean toward those with experience, and in the technical fields that *tends* to be populated with males.
Now, I'm always on the lookout for the exceptions...
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
Men and women aren't equal. They are equivalent. That difference is important because it means that they don't have to perform/achieve the same functions/goals. Remember Newton's law about equal and opposite? If a woman really wants to do a traditionally male role, fine. If a man wants to do a traditionally female role, fine. To complain that they tend to fall into separate categories of their own will is stupid and political correctness bullcrap. Sure there are instances where discrimination plays a role, but I firmly believe that the largest reason that there aren't many women in positions like this is because there aren't many women who want them and of those that want them, there are less that are qualified for them. That might (actually, it probably will) change in the future with different generations coming of age, but trying to throw legislation at it is a mistake. Affirmative action and hiring quotas just hurt everyone eventually because it means scraping the bottom of the barrel for someone who fits your quota even if they absolutely suck at the job role.
I am a hetero male going into a nursing career. I chose that because I decided that I didn't want to make a career out of my tech hobbies and thus ruin my hobby. I wanted something outside a cubicle and that I could be proud of helping others. I've faced plenty of my own gender stereotypes and it annoys me when someone comments how they need more men in nursing or similar rubbish. Not many guys are interested in it and there is nothing that *should* be done about it. Its just the way things are. I sincerely hope that I never get hired just because I'm a minority in the field.
There is plenty of evidence that women are discriminated when they look for loans or investments. A good read is Blake 2006 "Gendered Lending: Gender, Context and the Rules of Business Lending" in Venture Capital 8(2) pp. 183-201. Basisiaclly, there are pretty large, statistically signifigant, differences in loan approval rates between men and women, after controling for a host of factors like education, business plan, experience ect.
I have looked up that study and I must say that I find the statements here a bit misleading. The abstract says it is "a case study involving interview data from loan officers in Worcester, Massachusetts in the US". While a case study can be interesting for other reasons, statistically speaking it's on the level of anecdotal evidence. Furthermore this study "[looks] through the lens of geography" (presumably because the author works for a Department of Geography). Hard to extrapolate from such a tiny sample of VC lending in the USA, isn't it?
So you say that there is "plenty of evidence that women are discriminated" and "statistically significant differences", and in the same breath you mention a study that doesn't support what you just said because it's not statistically significant. If there is plenty of evidence why not pick a study that supports your rather strong statement?
Homeless men greatly outnumber homeless women.
Or how about fixing the died-on-the-job-gap, too?
Men die more often on the job.
Focusing on those few men that have been wildly successful is silly when so many other men are used and thrown away.
raising half a dozen children and later helping out with the grandchildren? On average, raising those children will have a bigger impact on society than spending her reproductive years on a career.
If you wanted to cripple Western Civilization you could convince most of the smart women that they had to have careers, weigh down the middle class with taxes to curtail family size there, and give welfare to everyone else. Many people will beat the odds and more than a few trust fund brats will disappoint, but overall wouldn't this explain a lot? This bias against reproduction has created a very nasty negative feedback loop I think.
Unless you buy into the notion that humans are arbitrarily exempt from the rules of evolution of course.
I'm just saying that interfering less with personal decisions might lead to better outcomes. Enough with the reeducation programs.
Venture capitalists are risktakers. Tech top execs are risktakers. Overall execs are risktakers. Taking risks tends to send people to the extremes of their groups, bigger winners or bigger losers. Men tend to be at the top of professions, but also at the bottom, and in the lowest jobs, and without income at all. Men are much more likely to be injured by their jobs, to have risky jobs, and live shorter lives.
Women tend to take fewer and less extreme risks, and tend to be in the middle of achievement, but more reliably achieve minimum standards of living.
Biologically men are more expendable. Aggression gets more rewards, but it also takes more damage. The limiting factor on human population growth is the number of women, while even one man can produce an entire generation among all the women.
There are social conventions held over from less developed societies that work to hold women back. And the bias towards training men to take risks and be expendable is an unfair gender bias now that the biological value isn't what determines social value.
So long as risktaking is so different between men and women, rewardtaking is going to be similarly different. We could get closer to our inherent value regardless of gender's arbitrary constraints if we stopped ignoring the gender behavior that we are free to change, but don't, that affects success. And if we stopped ignoring the costs to either gender that come with either the achievement or the risktaking that underlies it.
--
make install -not war
I think you got the saying the other way around. It should be "men-soldiers are capable of anything, shy of conceiving babies."
I once had a signature.
So, Dunn & Bradstreet reports that 19% of all companies in all industries are run by women.
And then it tells us 3% of tech firms were founded by women.
And then it tells us that 1% of high-tech firms "as in Silicon Valley" were founded by women.
Finally, it tells us that 9% of Venture Capital investments go to women-led companies (in some nebulous undefined "historical" time period) and for 2007 the figure is 3%.
Let's see here ... 1% women led companies in Silicon Valley. 3% of VC funding.
1%. Hmmm.
3%. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Sounds like the article, which purports to concentrate on technology firms, seems to suggest the women-led companies in Silicon Valley have no trouble whatsoever getting funding, and lots of it.
And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms (as in Silicon Valley) were founded by women. Look at the executive teams of any of the Valley's tech firms -- minus a couple of exceptions like Padmasree Warrior of Cisco -- you won't find any women CTOs. Look at the management teams of companies like Apple -- not even one woman. It's the same with the VC firms -- male dominated. You'll find some CFOs and HR heads, but women VCs are a rare commodity in venture capital. And with the recent venture bloodbath, the proportion of women in the VC numbers is declining further. It's no coincidence that only one of the 84 VCs on the 2009 TheFunded list of top VCs was a woman. ... Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007, the proportion of funded female CEOs dropped to 3%."
firms founded in 2004, only 19% had women as primary owners. And only 3% of tech firms and 1% of high-tech firms (as in Silicon Valley) were founded by women.
Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007
Let's play a little game I like to play called "math is fun". in 2004 19% of firms were founded by women. This 19% says nothing about % of market but for fun let's say it's exactly 19% (a generous assumption). In 2007 women received less than 9% of venture capital. Let's say that 2007 was identical to 2004 and 19% of new market was from women. That means that you get 9% VC / 19% market for women and 91% VC / 71% market for men. This might not be good but it's certainly not as bad as the summary paints it to be.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Why don't we see articles about a lack of male nurses or male kindergarten teachers? I would bet there are far fewer male kindergarten teachers compared to female kindergarten teachers than there is male vs female VC.
Girls are fine at that age, it is when they start dating that their IQ drops to room temperature. But I got a cunning plan: I just forbid my daughter to date! That will work right? I mean teengirls do listen to their father right? Right???
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I mean that is like saying because the only female leader of britain turned out to be Margaret "Mad Cow" Tatcher... wait a minute... you might be on to something.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Unless you got some example were men are being stopped from becoming nurses, you are blowing smoke.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Whenever the subject of woman not being represented in a chose profession or field comes up, I can't help but notice something interesting.
The professions are programmer, CEO, the financial field, doctor, or some other high paying white-collar job. I'm pretty sure that women are underrepresented in coal mines, off shore oil rigs, Alaskan crab boats, and the like. All of those jobs are also high paying, but they're just not...ya know...glamorous or easy to do while still have long fingernails.
What a crock.
Before starting I'll violate the internet and give some personal backstory to show some perspective. I'm a man in a software development company. Our company is probably in the minority here, because we've got pretty close to 50% male / female ratio for developers / testers / DBA's / middle-managers. I'd say that probably only the upper level managers are almost entirely male. I've seen and worked in other companies where frankly a woman working in the company was a conversation point based on its rarity! Different companies foster different opinions which are rooted from their founders or powerful leaders there-after. Now that I've described my context, I can hopefully lay out what views are in this particular issue.
We see these types of studies and posts on Slashdot come and go every half a year, and it basically comes down to the same old crap. You have the groups:
1. I don't give a crap about women. If they had the balls to get ahead they would
2. I don't give a crap about the stat. Women aren't programmed to being in 'said role' so all is well in the world
3. I think this stat is really serious because it means that women are being discriminated against
4. I think this stat is really serious and we should change they way we raise our children, or the way our neighbors raise their children
Firstly, I'd like to ask this: There are women in the fields described in the review and they find a way to do their jobs day in and day out. If I had a fist full of grant money for a research project about this topic, I'd do a study on the lives of female executives, their world, and the challenges they face day in and out both professionally and personally. How can line item statistics grasp the truth of something so ? Why not:
Do high level executives face ongoing male ridicule?
Do female executives need to choose either reproduction or promotion?
Do women who leave 'said field' (either as executives or not quite there yet) because they felt pushed out, stressed out, underachieving, overachieving, not worth it, or did they just not want to pursue that type of life?
Speaking of 'that type of life', As a man speaking here, I want to live a long happy and content life where I hope money would not factor into any unhappiness. I think so far I'm doing a good job of that. I haven't had money supply worries since university, and I've been spending well below my means for around 5 years (even before investments, retirement savings, etc..). I'm not going to push myself into more pain to aspire to the greatest position in a company because of all the agony of in-fighting, politics, sucking up, and usually losing a few points of IQ just to make more money and/or to have power over people. If my managers promote me for my merit, then at least I know that I deserved it. I know the adage, you are never totally free in a company until you're on top, but I say what does it take to achieve that freedom, and who do you become from it?
Another little store about top executives since we're on topic. I knew the CFO of >100million company and was always constantly astounded to find at just how greedy his share holders were for money. These are people what could probably buy a small countries and live like kings, or have their families live hundreds of years without working a day of their lives in contentment.. They will always want more. I really can't say why because I'm just not that type of person. I think everyone should want to do good for their family and themselves, but at some point the acquisition of wealth becomes 'the' purpose of these peoples lives, and that just makes me feel sorry for them.
Bye!
Thank you.
Thank you so very much for discussing amongst yourselves whether I am or am not being held at a disadvantage, oppressed by society, taken/taking advantage by/of the system. Thanks for telling me what I want, how I want it, and when I should have it. I didn't know that the effect of my extra X chromosome was so far reaching that you think you can completely define me, even down to my potential interests. I really would not have known all this about myself if it weren't for this marvelous and absolutely enlightening conversation you boys are having over here.
I understand very well the problems inherent in society today. I've seen the glass ceilings, I've experienced the derision of being a woman in a male-dominated field. Yes it is a problem, yes we have made progress, yes it is complicated and there is no one answer, no simple solution, and perhaps no right solution either. On some level, I appreciate that this conversation is happening at all.
But aside from the larger issue of dealing with women as a collective, I am also an individual. Keep that in mind. You might not have intended to sound condescending, but a lot of you have. You might protest that you have a wife and daughters, female co-workers, friends, etc, so you know the female mind. That is not true. It means you know your wife, your daughter, your friend and from there you have extrapolated certain things about women. You have read articles about gender issues, maybe you study the gender divide, and from that basis, you've written your opinion. I understand that in a discussion as broad as this one, it's impossible to avoid certain stereotypes.
Still, take a step back. Because this collective you're speculating about is composed of individuals who, despite the fact that they share an extra X, are as diverse in their personalities as men.
Don't simplify the issue, and don't needlessly complicate it. Acknowledge that society and biology play a role in shaping our thoughts and our lives, but they do not completely control it.
Jane Austen wrote in Pride & Prejudice: "Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking truth from her heart."
I ask the same of you.
It takes balls (not just anatomical: read zero appreciation of risk/reward) to start a business. A person with similar capability can probably make a better living (risk-adjusted). Women understand this. It is also the reason you do not find them in science/engg academia. A person with the required intellectual ability can make a better living outside academia.
That's my point. They don't truly want an equal representation in the workforce. They want an "equal" representation in the fields that they choose.
Which, in case you're not paying attention, is not the same thing or quite as noble as the advocacy groups would have you believe.
? You will note that I do NOT advocate that women should be kept barefoot and pregnant
Why not? I mean, what kind of a man are you?
Come on dude, the Romans are laughing at you.
This is my sig.
What I just love on these is that almost no women are posting. /. really doesn't have a large female audience. As for daughters, I have two, both over 10, neither codes, both do what the fuck they want.
One only needs to think in terms of how evolution performs.
Do you really think nature would favor the skills of risk-taking,
strategy and tool-making for a mother caring for a helpless newborn?
And why wouldn't nature give to males a strong propensity to
provide, by using strategy, calculated risk-taking, and tool use to
bring home the sustenance (animal flesh).
I have no apologies for nature, testosterone and estrogen have
profound affects on how are brains individually developed . Life
is about reproductive advantage, we had to specialize, or we
would be here. Of course there are exceptions.
"Life is an excise in exceptions" (JLP, StarTrek).
We are all curious about the rarity of everything!
"Nature is not absolute regarding boundaries" (That's me right now!),
there will always be exceptions! That's why "statistics" is "thee most"
value tool to science.
The bigger question is: Why does society expect both sexes to preform
equally in everything? I would be inclined to think that if anyone is
insulted by a disparity in gender business ownership, STATISTICALLY,
should read some peer reviewed science. The data supporting this
opinion has been available for many decades.
Out of curiosity, can any of the people claiming that women simply don't want high-power jobs name a single high pay/high prestige profession in which women would NOT be underrepresented? somehow all the female-dominated professions are NOT high pay/high prestige. how does it work exactly? are women genetically predisposed NOT to choose high pay / high prestige professions, you think?
There is sexual discrimination, but some of it is indirect. For example, a woman who takes maternity leave will lose that many months of seniority and experience when she comes back relative to those who worked through that time, and will lose even more if she comes back part time. Now, you could argue that men should take time off to raise their children, but that is a question for the families, and for the biologists and psychologists, and you can't blame a business for promoting the person with more experience.
Then there is the question of career choices. For example, where I am, university entrance is based on high school results (this is over-simplifying, but the subjects where this isn't true are >50% female anyway), and girls have been getting higher scores than boys for the last 10 years at least, so there is nothing stopping girls choosing made-dominated fields if they want to. Nonetheless, the physics department at my university was doing well with about 1/4 female students, with about the same in chem, slightly fewer in Mech eng, and chem eng, even fewer in EE and still fewer in CS (about 1/10 of lecture attendees, even less of enrolled students). The female-dominated faculties were primarily humanities, soft and social sciences, and nursing, with approximately equal numbers in law, finance, and business courses. The same appeared to be true at the lesser universities, although less noticeably. This means that girls are choosing poorly-paid career paths at the end of high school. Now, I'm unlikely ever to become wealthy without a major career shift, but my school did at least include that sort of information in their career guidance, for all pupils, and I assume others did so as well.
In short, yes women do tend to earn less than men, and, yes, ou can argue that that's wrong, but it isn't really anyone's fault.
VC's hard to get. But it should be equally hard to get. Right now it doesn't seem like it is.
Does it? I mean, do we really have data that says that it is?
Because this isn't it:
"Additionally, it is harder for women to obtain funding than for men. ... historically, women-led companies have received less than 9% of venture capital investments; in 2007, the proportion of funded female CEOs dropped to 3%."
What you'd want to know isn't the gender breakdown of companies that receive funding -- that number isn't going to give you any meaningful picture of potential VC bias. Rather, you'd want to know what fraction of female-led companies get funding vs a similar fraction male-led companies.
Tweet, tweet.
sometimes they're as innocuous as writers for sitcoms and television showing that women should play the subservient role in any relationship or else it will fall apart
Seriously? Have you watched any sitcom newer than The Brady Bunch?
Today the men are drooling idiots. The women are always right. TV writers know their audience: women. TV writers also know that it isn't politically correct to show the women in a negative light, but plots still require somebody to fill that role.
You will note that I do NOT advocate that women should be kept barefoot and pregnant, and kept out of any field of work.
Without smart mothers, where is our future? Smart kids (future adults to form our society) come from smart parents. Women who work outside the family don't have many kids. Any nerd should realize that evolution is real, and it doesn't always lead to greater intelligence.
Being barefoot and pregnant is a privilege. It needs to be deeply respected, at least for women who produce better-than-average kids.
Shoes are not really good for you. They change your stride to be heal-first and they promote fungal growth.
Pregnancy and breastfeeding greatly reduces the risk of breast cancer. Women are genuinely made to birth and nurse lots of babies. Given proper support and appreciation, this is naturally very satisfying.
The problems come when people demean the job with words like "just a housewife" or "not working" or "not doing anything with her life". Wipe those foul words from your thoughts and give the mothers some respect!
sit is up to you to ensure that said progeny have equal support from you to pursue desires in sports and technology
Support their true desires should it be technology, sports or hair dressing.
Sports and hair dressing are both crap. Multiply the expected income with the probability of success, and you'll see that neither pays off.
As for the girls I have, I hope to send them off to a very male-dominated engineering school... to find nice husbands. In the EE department at a place like Worchester Polytechnic, even an unattractive girl can catch a nice one. Completing the degree and working some damn office job is plan B, a tragedy but still better than sports or hair dressing.
BTW, I wish I knew where my sons could find smart women to have children with. :-( There isn't an easy hunting ground for them. For the girls, simply being in an engineering class does the job.
Back in 200x 1. I stumbled upon a "WOMEN ONLY" position in CS department at some Canadian university. MEN need not apply. 2. There was a study of director-level positions pay. Women receive about 10% more than man for the same work. According to my personal experience, most women are smart and selfish. They perform cost-benefit analysis, and if it is not worth, they do not pursue it. I am talking about Software Engineering positions. Recent study has shown that student switch from CS to other majors as soon as they understand what's ahead. It's not worth it, and won't go there, unless you are an altruist. Sure, if you give a competitive advantage for one half of the population over another, they will use it. The question is why would you do it. So, the lenders must relax their requirements for women, than for men ? Is it what this article is about ?
What's "getting much done"? You ask yourself, "is this working, am I employed doing something worthwhile that I enjoy, am I making enough to live on OK"? If all three answers are "yes", that qualifies as "getting much done", it's enough. Anything beyond that point is just gravy. It might be fun or more lucrative, but it isn't necessary either.
Women aren't as likely to be unethical scumbags like most of the "dirty VC". They are the ultimate "necessary" evil. Anyone with integrity who cares about their company would never get in bed with a VC. Unfortunately, since the new trend seems to be: create a startup, get some buzz about it, then sell as fast as you can, they are going to be around for a while.
Every year, the results are the same. The young ladies don't want to be Engineers. There might be one or two out of several hundred, but they wanted to be an engineer long before we talked to them. They are the exception that proves the rule.
So what to do? Do we force young ladies to become Engineers? Not allow them to be what they want to be?
It seemed that a lot of these young women want to be Lawyers or Doctors. A smattering of social type occupations, but precious few Engineers.
Is it possible that there are just some differences between the majority of men and women that might affect the decision of what we might do as a vocation? Otherwise, how do we change this, if it needs changed? Nature, nurture?
Why is this even on SlashDot?... Why is this even on Slashdot?...Why is this even on Slashdot?
Also have some visits with wives. I know of one manager who was forbidden by his wife from placing women in certain positions. While this was +30 years ago, today I listen to my SO and her sister and this class of bias is not gone.
"Dunn" is an old UK clothes shop, long deceased.
(yes, the article got it wrong too - obviously no editor would check the linked PDF, where it was correct)
Look now the comments section in that website is all fucked. And that way the womans behind the Tech are going to win the battle jajajaja. how is that manipulating opinions and coming with the stupid funding theory. Hey ladies. Face it we man are better at doing this. Doesn't matters how hard you try. Why? Is simple. Our brains are designed to see things in a whole while you put your eyes in details. Therefore we are better at management and over thousands of years you have selected us for being better or more successful. We don't select by that, you do. So we evolved to be better in that ;). As a matter of fact we males express more ADN diseases. I remember the womans at the class used to laugh at us because of that. Then i used my head and replied. - Ohh then great we show our problems. That means since i do not have them then my DNA is OK but we'll never know about all of you. Jajaja.- Is our role. Or what do you want? Replace us also in that? sorry that theory of the funding is bullshit. I have never got funding and got a zillion projects about to be out. Is like that you wait for funding, we don't, we do even without funding ;). Besides sometimes you try to get a funding comparable to the size of a part tf the body :D. And well many times the ppl giving the money are not willing to buy it ;).