[DoreenMichele]

Since the offer is actually open to "anyone", I will suggest the title of the piece is more intended to say something like "Yes, even you women! The word anyone is not code for any white male with SV connections. Honest!"

A lot of underrepresented people know that generic invitations don't really mean they are also invited. It's really only open to the existing in-crowd. As a woman who gets a lot of reactions that suggest to me that women are not supposed to so much as initiate conversations with men, I can kind of understand the logic here.

Having been burned by an extremely toxic classist group where, no, the rules absolutely are not the same for "the wrong kind of people" -- by which we mean poor people (in this case, though they also do really shitty things to anyone who can't somehow establish in-group standing) -- I can understand why a lot of members of underprivileged groups err on the side of "They don't really mean me when they say anyone/everyone."

My mind doesn't work that way. I generally take folks at their word, even when I know they may not really mean it -- and recently got banned from a forum for doing so because they were full of shit and didn't mean any of the high minded BS that came out of their lying mouths. I'm willing to live with that.

But I'm also very well aware that if you get that result often enough, shunning can mean you de facto have no income at all, there is no place for you to go, etc. It can be essentially a death sentence, and I don't mean metaphorically. I mean literally.

I don't know what the fix is. I'm not really all that crazy about the framing of this promo. But my suspicion is that is the real impetus here -- to make sure women don't feel that the subtext is "Not really you, though we say anyone."

And, honestly, I don't have a better answer, so I'm not going to dog them for it.

[18pfsmt]

>A lot of underrepresented people know that generic invitations don't really mean they are also invited.

This is kind of interesting and in stark contrast to much of the hacker mentality that doesn't really care "what they really mean" when "they" make rules. In fact, the hacker mentality is usually to twist interpretations and tease out any technical loophole. It goes along with "ask for forgiveness, not permission." Certainly, something to think about.

[panic]

Thank you for sharing your perspective. It's sad (but somewhat unsurprising at this point) that in a discussion about gender, the only post recognizably written by a woman is at the bottom of the page.

[lucozade]

Those could be the reasons but it's probably more likely that it's just a tie-in to the events Stripe just had for female founders.

I guess it would be a bit less confusing if they'd just made the offer to folks that attended the events but it seems quite nice that they didn't.

[DoreenMichele]

I didn't know they had an event. That makes your comment one of the more substantive comments here.

But what is your explanation for them having an event specifically for female founders if not the logic I outlined above that some groups need to be clearly signaled that they are equally welcome too?

[lucozade]

I can’t say for sure but it’s possibly related to [0] and [1]. It appears that Aylin has a passion for fostering leadership in women. Can’t think of any reason not to take this at face value.

[0] https://stripe.com/blog/international-womens-day [1] https://www.missceo.org/aylin/

[DoreenMichele]

Thank you.

From your links:

[1] she saw firsthand the importance of fostering leadership skills and self-confidence for young women at an early age.

[0] We built Stripe Atlas to help entrepreneurs from all over the globe start and run an internet business, no matter which industry they're in, where they're based, or their gender or ethnicity. However, women are still not starting companies or raising money at nearly the same rate as men—women made up only 7% of founders whose companies received more than $20M in VC funding between 2009 and 2015.

Which fits with my description of recognizing a need to actively reach out to women because (reasons).

That in no way questions her genuine passion, etc.

[drharby]

This struck me too close to my bones