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Google Hosts Special Demo Day For Female Entrepreneurs (thenewstack.io)
An anonymous reader writes: Wednesday Google hosted a special edition of their annual "Demo Day" event featuring 11 early-stage startup companies founded by women from eight different countries. More than 450 women from 40 different counties applied for a spot, and the winner of the competition was Bridgit, a fast-growing Canadian company which provides a mobile communications platform for construction teams. Online voters also awarded the "Game Changer" title to KiChing, a startup that's actively addressing Mexico's unique e-commerce challenges. But all of the startups at Wednesday's event were already actively raising series-A funding, and "We aim to help connect them to mentors, access to capital, and shine a spotlight on their efforts," said Mary Grove, the director of Google for Entrepreneurs, addressing the Demo Day audience in San Francisco.
It's always been clear why women aren't competitive with men at the 100-meter dash, but it's not clear why women aren't competitive with men at professional poker.
So now that women have their own safe space we can expect some amazing innovation to follow. But if we don't, I wonder what the next excuse will be?
How long have you been here?
The general consensus on Slashdot is that:
1. Men have no advantage over women; quite the opposite, a significant set of disadvantages;
2. Women are under-represented in higher-earning professions because "they just don't feel like it"
3. Anything aimed at women only is end-of-the-word discrimination.
How long have you been here?
The general consensus on Slashdot is that:
1. Men have no advantage over women; quite the opposite, a significant set of disadvantages;
2. Women are under-represented in higher-earning professions because "they just don't feel like it"
3. Anything aimed at women only is end-of-the-word discrimination.
I'm trying to shift that consensus.
Mostly when I read a thread on /. I see similar opinions to those I see in the industry as a whole.
But whenever an article about feminism comes up the comment threads become absolutely toxic. I normally brag to people about the high quality of comments on /., but I don't want any association with the views I see expressed in threads like these.
These threads aren't going to get any better until those those of us who disagree with this consensus speak up and make our case.
I stole this Sig
"Tech entrepreneurs" of whatever gender are mostly just rich/connected people with an idea for an app and either are personal friends with or hire someone to actually make the beast.
90% of "tech startups" are "apps" of some time or have them as a major part of what they do.
It was different back in the day.
In the US, typically the person with the money wanted to be the "investor" and the "entrepreneur" was the same as the inventor or coder.
Old-school rich people showed off by being able to choose the right person to invest in, nowadays the new-school rich show off by *being* the person at the top of the investment, at least publicly.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Being barely 1/3rd of college graduates is an advantage? Having virtually no special programs, aid, funding, or mentorship available to you is an advantage? Being utterly excluded from virtually the entire social safety net in case you go broke trying is an advantage?
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
The majority of Slashdotters are, to put it simply, against discrimination. If there was discrimination against women as blatant as the discrimination against men in this story, I assure you, it would be condemned just as strongly.
Essentially, there are three groups, with different beliefs:
A: Discrimination against women is more acceptable than discrimination against men.
B: Discrimination against men and women are equally unacceptable.
C: Discrimination against men is more acceptable than discrimination against women.
Groups A and C are sexist. The majority of Slashdotters are in group B. You, and a substantial minority, are in group C. No one is in group A.
More special privileges for women -- as if they didn't have enough already -- and more discrimination against men. I'm getting really, really tired of this, especially when I see my son excluded from one educational opportunity after another solely because of his sex.
So, in this case, men are not actually being hurt in any way....I'm looking forward to the tortured logic that tires to claim it is though.
No tortured logic required, just a reversal of roles. Suppose the event had been organized such that women were excluded? This would be regarded by almost everyone to be sexist discrimination that denied women a fair opportunity to demonstrate their talents to Google and thus it harms them. If this is true for women if then, by symmetry it applies to men when they are excluded. To argue otherwise would be to claim the sexism does not harm those it is biased against.
There may be a more subtle bias elsewhere which harms women but surely the society we want to strive for is where nobody's chances of success are harmed by their gender not one where we strive to harm everyone equally? The solution to sexism is to identify it and fix it not to be equally sexist in reverse. As the old saying goes "two wrongs do not make a right".