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by catone
5823 days ago
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If 7 female founder is reflective of the Y Combinator applicant pool, and the only thing YC is doing to structurally to "keep women out" is to favor founders who have coding skills, then the issue appears to be that there aren't enough competent female coders. Rather than a band-aid solution (e.g., creating a separate model of startup incubator that plays the types of jobs women currently do), if we want true gender equality in the tech space we should hit at the root: getting more women interested in tech. So instead of "XX Combinator," how about more programs designed to get young girls interested in science, math, coding, and entrepreneurism -- the supposed ingredients of a successful YC applicant. That is, it seems to me that funding a whole bunch of startups run by people who may not be technically qualified to succeed simply because they're women isn't a great idea. Instead, the better solution is to devise ways to get more women interested in the things necessary to succeed (in this case coding and design skills+) and help them develop those skills. +If you believe the apparent YC philosophy that technically adept founders are better positioned to succeed. |
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On a more abstract level, I think what needs to be addressed is the cultural idea that $FOO or $BAR are a $GENDER thing, especially considering what we're discovering about gender and sexuality. There's plenty of examples of women being pressured to not do X and men being pressured to not do Y because X or Y fall out of what are considered to be normal social behavior for their respective gender or sex.
How to address it? I don't know exactly, other than stressing the point, and making a point of not performing that type of implied discrimination yourself.
I'm a big fan of meritocracy in this regards -- if I'm looking for coders (or dancers, or drivers, or artists, or bakers, or whatever), I care about what they can and have accomplished, not what they look like or what their sex is. If I ever start my own company, I very well might make the application process (as) entirely anonymous (as possible) to enforce this.