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Women Founders Outpace Male Counterparts In Certain Types of Kickstarter Funding
Nerval's Lobster writes Women outpace men when it comes to raising money for technology projects through crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter, according to a new study by researchers at New York University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Jason Greenberg (NYC) and Ethan Mollick (Wharton/UPenn) chose 1,250 Kickstarter projects in five categories: games and technology, where founders were predominantly male; film, with an even gender distribution; and fashion and children's books, both populated with more female founders and backers. They analyzed additional factors such as "industry typing" (a theory in which people 'often hold conscious or unconscious biases about what gender is the archetype employee in a particular occupation or industry') and restricted the data set by geography and how much money each Kickstarter project wanted (a project aiming for less than $5,000 may attract an inordinate percentage of family and friends as funders, skewing results). After crunching the data, they found that female founders of technology projects were more likely than males to achieve their Kickstarter goals, a finding that didn't extend to the other four categories. "It appears female backers are responsible for helping female founders succeed in specific industry categories that women backers generally disfavor," they theorized, adding a little later: "The value of crowdfunding is that it enables access to a pool of potential female backers particularly inclined to support women in industry categories in which they believe women to be underrepresented."
It's not female solidarity. It's hot chicks taking men for chumps...kickstarter, no equity... requirements for supplying funding for nothing is chumpdum.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It could be that women are more cautious and risk-averse and will generally not attempt a project that has only a marginal chance of succeeding.
So the greater numbers of participating men make up for their lower success rates per man.
If only you could convice more women to participate, their success rates would drop to be as low as the men's...
If a quality project can't raise money elsewhere from more traditional fund-raising sources, might this indicate a subtle case of pre-selection quality bias instead of an indication of any anything to do with kickstarter campaign odds?
It could simply confirm that woman entrepreneurs often have less access to traditional funding sources because their industry contact lists are shorter in certain industries (which may or may not have anything to do with positive specific gender bias on kickstarter).
This is also consistent with the fact that in industries that tend to have more even female representation, they apparently lost the bias they were measuring...
I guess you can spin the results anyway you want...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Sarkeesian
She basically takes $150,000 and takes a year to produce videos, until people complain with kickstarter about it being a scam, which were largely appropriated gameplay from other people's youtube channels.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/9-year-old-kickstarter-campaign_n_2949294.html
millionaire mom goes onto kickstarter to give money to her daughter to make video games, using emotionally manipulative and (probably fake) family controversy.
I forgot nothing. An elephant never forgets.
As I read the article, the researchers couldn't determine the sex of the contributors to the Kickstarter projects. But they did notice that tech projects started by women had more success getting funding. Their laboratory experiment indicated some women are more likely to support other women. So they conclude that the Kickstarter projects have the same causation.
I kind of wonder about that conclusion though. The type of person who would fund a Kickstarter project comes from a much different population than the (I assume) students they used in their lab. That said, it is a reasonable hypothesis. Obama certainly gets virtually all of the black vote, Hillary gets a lot of her support from women.
Isnt it more sexist for women to intentionally fund women's projects instead of men's? If men didn't help fund women you KNOW they'd cry foul.
yeah that was my first thought, totally perverted. things involving webcams and internet are counted as startups
Reading TFA is seems by 'Kickstarter Goal' they mean getting funded.
Once you've got funded you have to actually do the thing you said you were going to do with the money.
If people are using gender to determine who they are funding, they are presumably displacing more rational metrics, like "does the project make any sense?", or "Does this person seem competent to do what they claim they can do?'.
Thus in those areas where gender bias is measurable in funding, I would assume the odds of eventual successful delivery to be reduced.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Am I the only one who looks at this and thinks, "Here's clear evidence that, contrary to popular rhetoric, there is a powerful pro-female bias in this society, and any underrepresentation and underfunding that exists can therefore be entirely attributed to, I won't say failings... attributed to the character, capabilities and choices of women"?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Whatever it is, it's not sexist if a woman does it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
thank you. a new "code" phrase i plan to use.
Sexist is discrimination based on gender that causes harm. Sexist is caring about something like this that does not affect you directly.
We should all be neutral about this. It is a fact, it is an observation and there is not necessarily a motive behind it (although for some there might be). Sex sells and the whole world is buying. If women earned more than men there would be no need for child support.
For the large part most feminists are as sexist as those they oppose, and in every walk of life (whether it be to do with race, gender, religion, politics or sport etc.) those that hold convictions are seeking dominance over others. If we look at the positive of every action, the outcome is more likely to be good for everyone.
We should marvel and cherish those who have been able to achieve greatness and hopefully with the winnings of their efforts they will realise that others have supported them, that others have helped them achieve and they will give back to others, whether in life or at death.
And while debate, free expression and constructive criticism are necessary and virtuous, rousing feelings of anger is not. Whether in yourself or others.
BOOBIES!!!
Might as well donate...
So it's ok for men to fund only projects founded by men, the traditional method that's been applied for centuries and is still ongoing?
Or are you the type of person that believes all of society can in one day say "we're no longer racist or sexist" and the problem is solved, with no need for any additional action necessary to redress past inequalities? Ie, status quo is fine as long as we apologize.
Does sexism one way correct for sexism the other. What your saying is "men were very sexist in the past and that's bad. But sexism is only bad when men do it so its okay for women to do it now."
"your ancestors treated them like shit" is not a good excuse.
If I understand the summary correctly, women would be investing into projects just because the leader is female?
So we free the slaves, then say "good luck"?
"Your ancestors treated them like shit" is a good excuse if those ancestors are still alive. If the ancestors paid no compensation then who does? If you just wait it out long enough then the slate is wiped clean even though inequality still exists? Ya, so Native Americans got a raw deal and have to live on infertile dirt patches, but it'd be a violation of someone else's rights if they got some extra scholarships and preferences for college admissions.
The status quo has nothing about it worth defending and yet people keep trying to defend it.
No no no! It's a communal/national bias? belief? also held by Google , the NSF, and other organizations, that there is a value in increasing women's participation in STEM and therefore gives money to projects that preferentially train/enable women in the sciences.
I don't believe Google and the NSF are run by women, and yet they share the bias. Also, at least for NSF, you don't have to submit a photo, so it's not just hot chicks . . .
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
At the same time, the idea that persons A are made to suffer as recompense for their ancestors' actions, over which they had (literally) zero control so that persons B may benefit seems harsh.
Although, I guess suffering is relative when persons A have benefited greatly from the compound interest on the value of stolen land over the last few hundred years.
Requiem for the American Dream
Am I the only one who looks at this and thinks, "Here's clear evidence that, contrary to popular rhetoric, there is a powerful pro-female bias in this society, and any underrepresentation and underfunding that exists can therefore be entirely attributed to, I won't say failings... attributed to the character, capabilities and choices of women"?
Women receive more sympathy from society than men, it's called the gender empathy gap. It also contributes to why the vast majority of homeless are men, lack of battered men's shelters despite spousal abuse being split 50/50 between the sexes, significantly higher suicide rate in men, etc. Anyone who hasn't noticed this is brainwashed by feminism.
One of the side effects happens to be that often all a woman has to do in order to generate a substantial amount of money is cry a little on the internet and people will send her money even if they don't expect her kickstarter project to succeed.
Who said anything about suffering? I don't think feminists are making anyone suffer.
If you are a man and your have a women in your team, put her in front, whoever is the actual leader. Or maybe at least let your wife/GF/sister/whatever do the advertizing.
I believe it should better if she is hot (but not slutty) as it should work on both men and women.
This is assuming of course that the study is unbiased and that gender really matters (i.e. : causation, not simple correlation).
Women receive more sympathy from society than men, it's called the gender empathy gap. It also contributes to why the vast majority of homeless are men, lack of battered men's shelters despite spousal abuse being split 50/50 between the sexes, significantly higher suicide rate in men, etc.
Yes this is all true.
Anyone who hasn't noticed this is brainwashed by feminism,
Actually feminism is about equality for men and women. If we become truly equal then that will no longer be a problem (along with a whole bunch of other shit). There are plenty of equally damaging beliefs about men and women.
Mostly there's a dichotomy of men are ATTRIBUTE_X and women are -ATTRIBUTE_X.
So men are seen as "tough" and women as "delicate" which is fundementally sexist. It also happens to hurt men as well as women because not all men are in fact "tough" and as you pointed out men need help too.
But that's actually not the root cause.
The assumption behind sexist things is that women are somehow lesser. This means that a man with attributes (e.g. what you said) which are seen as "traditionally female" is assumed to be a "lesser man" because he's more like a woman. And people don't like helping a lesser man because why bother, right?
That's the flip side of the same sexism that feminists don't like. If women are no longer seen as lesser, then men in those situations are no longer seen as lesser men. At that point they'll just become "people in need of help", not lady-men in need of scorn.
In other words, fighting sexism is win-win.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The assumption behind sexist things is that women are somehow lesser. This means that a man with attributes (e.g. what you said) which are seen as "traditionally female" is assumed to be a "lesser man" because he's more like a woman. And people don't like helping a lesser man because why bother, right?
You don't need a hierarchy to explain the difference, stereotypes will do. Men are not expected to need help, so we don't help them.
If it was a hierarchy, we would expect either "manly" women (better women) or "womanly" men (lesser men) to be preferred, which is not what we observe: Both genders are expected to conform to the stereotype, and are punished for not doing so.
Both genders are expected to conform to the stereotype, and are punished for not doing so.
Yes I 100% agree. This is essentially what I was driving at.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"Actually feminism is about equality for men and women"
baaaaaaaloney. If that was the case then while women were championing the concept of DV shelters, they would have gone ahead and created shelters for men. They did not. While they were chamioning alternatives to prison sentencing for women with extenutating circumstances, they would have done the same for men. They did not. While they were holding their walks and fundraisers for breast cancer, they would have done the same for prostate cancer. They did not.
As another poster has said, the equality that feminists seek is the retention of all rights AND privileges accrued to females to date PLUS the rights tor privileges any male might have without, of course, the prerequisite responsibilities and sacrifices that men have traditionally had to make to get those rights.
Okay. So naturally feminists are working hard to set up those shelters for men who suffer from domestic abuse which you confirmed are currently missing?
The thing is, you can claim you are about equality, and even believe so from the bottom of your heart, but if you only ever adress inequalities that go one way, you aren't. You're a lobbyist promoting special interests, perhaps fair-mindledly, but a lobbyist still.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Have you ever noticed how a hot chick will get frustrated and momentarily stand up on her toes then lets her heals drop to the ground. Making her boobs giggle.
I like that and don't want them to stop!
But do you think they are aware of what they are doing? (In general, I don't) Do you think mothers teach their daughters this trick? (No) Yet, many, many big boobed women display this body language.
Why? Because it has gotten them what they want in the past! Human interaction is subtle and hot chickness can be inferred one or two degrees of separation away, just by how horny men/bitchy women act when discussing the woman.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Or, given lots of the responses when that comes up, we need to conclude that women are just genetically superior at Kickstarter projects.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes