[usmeteora]

I definitely agree with you there. I think what I was commenting more on, and I think I responded more adequately in some other responses below, is I feel like (and maybe I do just tend to notice it more) that this criticism has been there far before Yahoo officially failed, and since she has come to Yahoo .

I definitely agree with you about the survivorship bias, and echo somewhat below, then that with the independent fact that women are already a minority in tech, along with the independent trend that in tech or any industry, the community is going to always tend to notice extreme failures and successes in the tech industry, with the middle array of companies being a blur of comings and goings with some lasting over time and gaining a reputation over time, but not necessarily getting the headlines unicorns do, or the consistent focus that "one of the big ones" do, like Yahoo as we all know.

Therefore, with the few successes and failures we are idealizing or keeping up with (last year and the year before it was snapchat and it seemed impossible without even trying not to know what the most recent headlines were, and I dont even live near the valley, and there is always a unicorn and their weekly mishaps are huge focuses of steps forwards or backwards for the company, their leaders as individuals, and the direction of that niche in tech as a whole) so obviously in this situation its a big deal regardless of whether Mayer was at the helm, but yes being a minority regardless of whether theres any kind of bias just makes it stick out that she is a woman more.

I agree with you there. If I had to describe what I (and openly admit is not technically accumulated statistics) have (and maybe due to my own subconscious confirmation bias) noticed, by reading a ton on here for years and not just articles about females in tech, but also others, I get the vibe from the comments that there seems to be, not a desire, but almost a subconscious curiosity, almost eager expectation even if its not hoping, but a waiting for females to fail. The headlines and the comments always seem to be a tad preempetive in comparison to male CEOs who do receive alot of criticism but it seems only after a series of undeniable mistakes begin to pile up.

Again, I can't really prove it, and I'm not hating on anyone or accusing anyone of anything, it just seems like there are alot of people intensely keeping track of females, and I guess their minority status, along with the glass cliff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_cliff

concept another reader pointed out, just the likelihood female CEOs end up in the spotlight taking ownership when failure happens seems to be the majority of all female CEOs in tech I See (Im leaving out many female CEOs of startups doing well and killing it, and focusing on, as I described, kind of the big set of companies that consistently pop up in tech news).

Its very plausible that all this happens just based on the circumstances and no bias is needed for it to appear to be more pointed and intense.

That being said, I don't want anyone to take away that I'm accusing anyone or any community of being sexist or deliberately anything. I've read Sheryl Sandbergs book Lean In about being a female leader in tech, and I really appreciate her non victimizing philosophy of focusing how women can grow, and change in male dominated environments, and challenge their own perspectives, as opposed to writing a book about how awful everything is for women in tech and how its all a man's fault.

In general, I find despite the many comments I've received on this entire thread today, the community and our conversations on female related things to be very positive, and productive.

Unfortunately, the bad situations on the news do really suck, and the entire topic of sexism is approached with a "I dont want to be associated with anything related to that" reaction on both sides, so it makes it hard to enter any kind of commentary, even if its objective and feedback seeking, without it being polarizing or putting everyone on the defensive. Thats understandable since many examples are being made out of men in public, but I personally think it would be more productive if more males and females felt safe casually sharing their opinions, feeling and observations with an open mind to the other side. I feel like alot of it is subconscious and alot of it can be fixed if people just open up, but usually that is not how things can or need to go in a professional work environment, so this is actually a good place to have those conversations. I find a majority of the culture that reinforces sexism is unintentional and conditioned behavior and does not reach the threshold of being character defining and just an area of growth in perspective for both genders just like any other kind of growth, change and development in life where (in this case females in tech) there are diverse and new experiences you have to navigate and differences of backgrounds and opinions need to be considered.

I know from talking to my male friends in tech, alot of them are good guys, and kind of scared to approach these conversations because they have had experiences where women get really upset for them not understanding their perspective, and I relate to those women and understand how perpetual emotional isolation intentional or not can be frustrating to no end, but I also see alot of frustration boiled up and taken out on say the person who genuinely does not understand the womens perspective even if that females perspective is really based on non ideal previous experiences and the trauma from that makes it hard for these females to calibrate how to protect themselves from further hurt and devalidation going forward. From these experiences, and given my industry and college, the fact that 99% of my friends are male, I understand and value the male hesitation to enter these types of conversations when they have previous experiences of their own feelings of being devalued and their perspectives being invalidated and undermined.

I think everyone needs to try to be more understanding in most cases but I can't ever tell anyone the intensity of their feelings are unjustified. You really never know what someones been through, so its best to try to draw out common ground in a way thats non polarizing and nonjudgmental, but also safe for people to feel they can have validated emotions. I don't see that happening much in American society as a whole unfortunately.

In general, in politics, gender and otherwise, we kind of suck at that in America but I hope the polarizing judgment outside of a few crossing the line individuals can be separated from a broader and safer evolution of conversation about potentially sexist outlooks as constructive feedback just like any other type of debate or feedback.