Freud explains why there aren't more women entrepreneurs

http://bpang.posterous.com/freud-explains-why-there-arent-more-women-ent

by bpang • 16 years ago

26 36 16 years ago

bpang.posterous.com

Fred Wilson wrote a blog a few weeks ago called "XX Combinator," commenting on Teresa's earlier blog which proposes the founding of "XX Combinator" to support women entrepreneurs. The answer is very obvious. Freud is right, sex is the ultimate driver to explain most human behaviors.

satishmreddy• 16 years ago

I don't think guys do startups to get girls. There are much easier paths to get there. :)

houseabsolute• 16 years ago

Considering Freud's theories have never been proven to have a basis in reality, and considering this woman is an entrepreneur and has no apparent expertise in the field she's commenting on, I'd advise you not to give her conjecture much weight.

Groxx• 16 years ago

How about the unconscious mind? Psychiatric therapy?

Freud wasn't just "sexsexsexsexsex".

_delirium• 16 years ago

Yeah, especially given the common conceptions of mind at the time he wrote, I see one of his main enduring contributions being the idea that the mind is not something we have full, transparent, introspective access to. A few other philosophers around the time were getting at similar ideas (Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were both interested in the hidden influences that caused people to think and want what they thought and wanted), but the mainstream view was that the mind was fully accessible to itself, i.e. that all thought was conscious.

Of course, that isn't necessarily an endorsement of his much more specific views on male and female gender roles.

ZeroGravitas• 16 years ago

The unconscious mind is a millenia old idea and psychiatric medicine is roughly as effective as having a chat with a random untrained person.

His work on curing heroin addiction was interesting, even took the remedy himself and found it really perked him up. Cocaine really is a wonder drug.

petercooper2• 16 years ago

I listen to a BBC medical podcast (Medical Matters - it's really good) and recently they were at a critical injuries unit in London. The reporter asked the head of the unit why 90% of the patients there were men. The blunt answer given was that men take more extreme risks and are, therefore, more likely to need emergency medical attention. I could hear the PC brigade warming up their pens to correct that observation as sexist and not based in reality, though.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

If the same number of women engaged in the same kind of risky activities as the men injured in this specific hospital, the lack of women could be explained by men being less competent in these risky activities. It would be as sexist as the above answer. Could also be that men are more fragile.

petercooper2• 16 years ago

I agree it could be any of those things. Observationally, though, I concur with the doctor based merely on the lack of women I see running across the road in front of my car, skateboarding, BMX biking, base jumping, or generally pratting about in public compared to men.

sprout2• 16 years ago

Curious that xkcd commented on this sort of thinking just Wednesday: http://www.xkcd.com/775/

Though most of the article remains very relevant when you take it out of the "this is the way it has been for thousands of years" mold which doesn't really have incredibly ironclad evidence and recognize that our present society does present these barriers for women.

But I do think that overcoming our perceptions is not a matter of overcoming hardwired notions, but societally reinforced norms which can seem awfully hardwired.

hakl2• 16 years ago

A Freudian explanation isn't the same as an based on "evolutionary histories". Her last paragraph is about changing perceptions of attractiveness.

sprout2• 16 years ago

I realize her argument was not a cut-and-dry evo-psych narrative, but she came close, and this paragraph in particular felt suspect:

>For thousands of years, men look for beautiful and young-looking women to bear their children and women look for powerful men who can well protect themselves and their children. Such an instinct has been imprinted into our unconsciousness.

elbrodeur2• 16 years ago

Interesting take on things, especially from a woman. Typically, this stance:

"How can we make more women successful? Without fundamental changes in how men and women perceive attractiveness, it will be difficult to change the status quo. ... what about making the next "Carrie Bradshaw" a hardworking tech entrepreneur?"

is taken by men.

I think that the "reason" that there are fewer female entrepreneurs and hackers than men is because of this psuedo-sexist ideology.

Why must it be attractive for a female to be powerful in order for her to succeed? Screw how good you look. Do what you love and you'll be surrounded by people who appreciate you and what you do.

Personally, I believe the disparity lies not in social overtones of popularity, attractiveness and potential as a mate; I believe that the disparity is primarily due to lack of mentorship, education and people telling women, specifically in this case, that they can excel as an entrepreneur if they choose.

My guess, though, is that this disparity is not going to last very long. Gender differences continue to grow smaller in other fields and instances; why not starting companies? Or, at least, it is my very sincere hope that this is the case. Partially because it makes me sad every time 100 guys on HN try and figure out what's wrong with women.

kiba2• 16 years ago

I will just say the politically incorrect things:

Women are in general more interested in having babies than men.

Women are also just different than men in some way, not just physically, but socially.

We should close gender gap where possible, but we shouldn't insist on equal gender balance if women really don't like to go into the same career that men goes into.

elbrodeur2• 16 years ago

What do you mean by "more interested in having babies than men"?

Do you mean that, because women are capable of carrying a child to term that they are more interested in copulating?

Do you mean to say that women want to have and raise children more than men?

I'm not sure I understand your point.

As to "Women are also just different than men in some way, not just physically, but socially", all I can say is this was much more true 50 years ago than it is today, but that doesn't mean that it's not true now. What I (as well as the author of the article) was trying to address is: Why?

"We should close gender gap where possible, but we shouldn't insist on equal gender balance if women really don't like to go into the same career that men goes into."

Who is advocating forcing people to do things?

chisophugis2• 16 years ago

>Why must it be attractive for a female to be powerful in order for her to succeed?

There is an undeniable biological tendency to want to attract a partner. Hence, any human's behavior will tend (in varying amounts) toward striving to be attractive to a partner. This foments a tendency for men to seek "Success, wealth and power" while fomenting a tendency for women to seek "beauty and femininity" (to use the article's wording).

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

Just to complete you, these are the attributes that enable men to be more supportive and women to produce healthier offspring.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

> what's wrong with women.

Nothing is wrong. There is no wrong. People are different. I like to say I was born an engineer, that's some neurological condition I can't escape. Is there something wrong with me? Of course not!

ScotterC2• 16 years ago

I feel that this it ignores the greater purpose that mankind has. Greater then finding a mate. Creating and building. That is universal and is gender neutral.

chisophugis2• 16 years ago

It ignores it only as much as the average person does.

philwelch• 16 years ago

Finding a mate is a means to an end, namely making more of mankind--which is the important, recursive step in the human purpose of creating and building. You can create and build the most by creating and building more creators and builders.

anamax• 16 years ago

> I feel that this it ignores the greater purpose that mankind has. Greater then finding a mate. Creating and building. That is universal and is gender neutral.

Mankind doesn't have that purpose and may not even have any purposes. Many people value certain things, but that's very different.

Don't confuse what survival often selects for with purpose.

ScotterC2• 16 years ago

Looks like we're headed down a path that reflects our philosophical outlook more then anything else. To each his own.

hakl2• 16 years ago

Good article. But I have to admit I was a little disappointed: with Freud in the title I was expecting, at the very least, something involving penises.

dtf• 16 years ago

This is (pop) evolutionary psychology, not psychoanalysis. Freud's reasoning on why men are driven to become entrepreneurs, magnates, architects, artists is that the boy, sensing that he has been robbed of the organs required to procreate internally, is driven to create externally to assuage his loss. It's the male equivalent of Freud's theory of "penis envy".

rtomayko• 16 years ago

That's fucking ridiculous and the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in my life.

dmor• 16 years ago

I don't ever want to take funding from something like XX Combinator, its just insulting to think I'd be getting money because of something I have no control over like my gender.

I want to earn my success because of the things I can control and what I create with my own mind and hands and hard work.

Btw ladies, there are men out there who admire a woman who is strong and successful - and they're worth searching for. Some of them even work for startups, too

alanh• 16 years ago

Would love to have the company of such a lady.

saulhoward• 16 years ago

Perhaps it's worth pointing out that Americans receiving funding are already "getting money because of something [they] have no control over", like their nationality.

I am assuming here that an investor would be more likely to invest in an entrepreneur with a green card. They would certainly be saving money by doing so.

DaniFong• 16 years ago

It wasn't genetic change that prompted the development of civilization from our ancestors. It was memetic change. Culture and the spread of ideas is what makes us human.

The drive to have and raising children is a powerful force in the human psyche. Yet surely the desire to shape and guide those children, or to spread out thoughts and feelings and philosophies among family, friends and foes alike, must be at least as strong -- and sometimes more so.

How else might one explain the all too common act of disowning, shaming, beating, or even killing one's children for disobeying religious precepts, cultural taboos against who to love or marry, for failing to fit cultural or gender norms. Or the vast religious wars that have waged across our continents. Or this very debate?

---

For what it is worth, from my vantage point the number of women founding venture backed clean/green tech companies is rapidly growing.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

I don't see much of a drive for more firewomen, female dock workers or, BTW, more male kindergarten teachers. Let's close those gaps too...

Or we can face the fact we are different and cherish it.

Mz• 16 years ago

I think it boils down to the economics of having children: Most women (about 90%) have them sooner or later. It helps to have two parents to provide for the kid(s). Lots of other stuff grows out of this basic fact, including the typical female emphasis on "attractiveness" -- because that is (theoretically) how you get a man.

Short version of a lot of reading I have done over the years: European women put a lot of emphasis on getting assistance from society and government with the burden of bearing and rearing children. This has helped narrow the gender-gap on income, generally without pushing up the divorce rate to American levels. But in America, women generally have taken the political position of "Don't tread on me" and "Get the fuck out my way and I will show you what I can do, damnit!", which is a historical American political position dating back to the American Revolution. This works fairly well -- until you have kids. Women who are unmarried and childless make about 98% of what men make, given similar experience and education. But, overall, American women make about 2/3 what men make, the same figure listed somewhere in the bible as their difference in value (ie from about 2000 years or so ago).

Some of the most frustrated, baffled women I have known are women who thought they could make it on a man's terms in a man's world and did quite well for themselves -- that is until they had children. Then it all fell apart and they couldn't figure out wtf happened or how the hell to fix it. I think I am still alive and doing better than I "should" be because I never tried to make it in a man's world on a man's terms. I followed a female path of success. So having kids unexpectedly early derailed my immediate career plans but did not derail my life unrecoverably.

abalashov• 16 years ago

For the most part, overly serious psychological inquiry into this question misses the point. At the end of the day, this kind of anecdotal testament is the most valuable insight of all.

Freud explains why there aren't more women entrepreneurs

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