[shoo]

I'll run with your thought experiment.

The article's very first example of unconscious gender bias suggests that ~2/3rds of investors prefer the same pitch delivered by a man than by a woman.

So there's one example of women following your proposed approach needing to overcome structural disadvantage in order to obtain investment. The article goes on to enumerate more examples of this disadvantage, etc.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even if there is a pool of amazing talent (which I'm confident that there would be) then the playing field is NOT at all level.

edit: which was roughly the whole point of the article... ?

[LoSboccacc]

now this will sound sexist. believe me I am not - I'm just a dev and I wish we had more women in the field for reason I won't articulate here - take this as 'seen from vc eyes':

on a big enterprise, the kind of which people work for more than ten years, maternity leave pay is just a fraction of the whole worker working life - say you work at a company ten years, it's just about 10% of productivity lost. less if you factor days instead of months and account for not giving out bonuses nor vacation in that period)

this of course should not justify a 10% pay reduction, however it is what it is, I'm not deciding it, I'm just telling it.

in the VC worlds, a company they invest on should have a return in three years or even less. in that context, a maternity leave is a 50% productivity loss - three years is too short to absorb a leave and too long for not being at risk of being impacted by it

is this sexist? of course it is. is it fair? of course it isn't.

are there any solutions to this? well, since VC is currently male dominated and they tend not to understand the potential of a woman energy, I can't see many.

[barsonme]

I had a similar conversation with some (female) coworkers a while back.

One, who's on her way to her JD, remarked how it upset her that she'd always have extra baggage because she's a woman -- that no matter what the people hiring her would always factor in the chance she could become pregnant once, twice, or even more times.

Before I get off on the wrong foot, I think that maternity leave is a small price to pay if you have a good employee and anybody who turns down a woman for a petty reason like that should rethink how they're running their company.

That said, is it really sexist or is it just life? By that I mean is factoring in all potential issues the same as a hiring manager who thinks women are, by default, worse at X than men?

I almost want to liken it to my car insurance, as weird as it sounds. I have to pay a fair amount more simply because I'm a male and in my 20s. Sure, it's a form of discrimination, but it's also just life. A high enough percentage of us do cost the companies more money, so they charge us more.

A job is more important than car insurance, but my point isn't to compare the two and say they're of the same importance or argue in favor of discrimination.

It's late and I don't think I'm making my point clearly enough, but I kind of wanted to get it down on paper.

Sometimes I feel there are parts of life that you can't really change or blame people for taking into consideration. Whether the fact that women produce babies is something that should be taken into consideration, that's (obviously) something we as a society need to figure out.

[DanBC]

Your post mentions women leaving for maternity leave, but makes no mention of men leaving for paternity leave. It's probably a problem for society that we assume men are not interested in childcare and won't take much time off.

> I almost want to liken it to my car insurance, as weird as it sounds.

It's a little bit weird because we have so much information telling us that young men are much more likely to be involved in an accident. I don't think you're saying that we have a lot of evidence to show that women are going to be terribly costly hires. And in some places (the EU) insurance companies can't use gender.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12608777

[barsonme]

> I don't think you're saying that we have a lot of evidence to show that women are going to be terribly costly hires.

No, you're right, I'm not. But biologically they are the only sex able to have babies, and paternity is still very far from catching on.

I should note I support paternity leave and hopefully will be taking it someday when I have children of my own.

[anon4]

Why do you assume that a female VC won't do the exact same calculation and still refuse funding? Women aren't some secret cabal that looks out for each other. They are literally normal people and just as nasty on average as everyone else.

[LoSboccacc]

I assume that male VC are worse at balancing the maternity calculation with the additional energy, motivation and intellectual skills a woman could bring to the team. Well that's a weak assumption and I have no data to back it, but I'm not at all naive enough to think they are in a secret cabal looking for each other.

[killface]

I bet we would be surprised that women are more vicious towards other women in this regard -- a bit of the "I did it (or didn't do it), and I'm fine -- what's your excuse?" kind of thinking.

[lawnchair_larry]

What if the man was Billy Mays and the woman was Roseanne Barr? What if we change it so the man is Jim Gaffigan and the woman is Ivanka Trump? I think your bias would be upside down. It's probably a true statement that the man's pitch is preferred, but that experiment Does nothing to demonstrate it.