Why the 'Women in Tech' Problem May Actually Be a Silicon Valley Problem

http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/women-tech-problem-silicon-valley.html?cid=sy01304

by ForHackernews • 11 years ago

10 6 11 years ago

I wonder if the Silicon Valley model of VC-funded startups is particularly hostile to women?

MollyR2• 11 years ago

I've thought about this a lot. I don't actually think its a tech issue. I think it's a finance issue ? The finance sector is known for being an old money boys club driven by highly competitive people. The finance's sector honed in to Silicon Valley. I would argue Silicon Valley's Women problem is due to Finance/Business Culture leaking heavily into Silicon Valley for last decade.

balls2you• 11 years ago

Disagree with that since New York is filled with finance and financial tech companies too. Clearly, they're doing something right there and not in Silicon Valley.

It is more likely to be an SV power thing where the nerds finally get to talk to women and only see them as objects.

Women have always been in finance (not limited to Wall St.) as even though trading is glamorous but commercial/retail banking employs a very large number of developers for boring CRUD jobs, as customer service personnel, backoffice and middle-back-office type work.

So women being treated better in the finance sector is more not less likely.

MollyR2• 11 years ago

I would respectfully disagree. I understand there are women in finance industry, but how many women are wall street traders, investors, brokers ? It seems like not enough http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sasha-galbraith/to-profit-f... . Not many women are at the top of the finance sector in the it's specialty, and not many women are at the top of software development which is silicon valley's specialty.

skinnylatte• 11 years ago

I'm a woman in tech who has only been on the periphery of the Valley (mostly working out of Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, etc).

The sexism is everywhere. However, the brogrammer culture which has made an art of condescending to women PLUS all that PUA bs, is quite specific to SV and may even be an SV export (when I have seen it outside SV, it tends to a derivative).

In some other places they just treat women like shit outright without writing long articles about it :) (Like the founder who told me he was going to have a wet dream about me, after I kicked him out of a startup competition he sucked at.)

plikan13• 11 years ago

Attitudes towards women in Tech would be a little more relaxed if a fair number of developers would have the courage to face the truth and come out of their closets.

Why the 'Women in Tech' Problem May Actually Be a Silicon Valley Problem

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