Female founders: what can be done?

Bullshit. I'm a female founder and <em>all</em> the startup/tech/VC men who talked or acted inappropriately around me recently have been young (40 and under). Reality is, this issue is widespread and as bad as ever.

"If she was a nerdy looking female founder she wouldn’t get as much sexual harassment..."

And no amount of sexual harassment is acceptable; even 1 incident is one too many.

Fair enough. I haven't experienced what you've experienced since I'm a guy so I can't say how bad it is for you. We men often mistake kindness and politeness from women as a sign of interest; not saying I do but just men in general.

But, if women act stern and grumpy they're labeled as bit**es, so they can't win either way. Men can be tough and men can be nice without suffering consequences either way.

Same here, haven't experienced what it's like to be a female in tech/it/startup world, so can't really compare. But then that goes both ways.

I think the name calling, and outright bullying, happens to both sexes (though clearly not the sexual discrimination). I've worked at a lab where the best researcher was female. She spent her time getting down to work. I think that's the key. Not to be dismissive of situations I don't understand, nor have experienced, but I think the best researchers, male or female, were the ones who just get on with their work.

Of course, this isn't an argument to stick your head in the sand and not try change the world to be a little bit better. I guess i'm just responding to your point of women acting a certain way getting called bitches. All people get called names for all reasons, and there are work environments that can be toxic for all.

Anyway, i hope i've qualified this post to not seem insensitive, but rather try and put the point across that being a man, you can still face problems. Ironically, the weakest researchers were the ones who complained the most, and attributed problems all had as being personal.

My only advice is, whatever your sex, if you feel uncomfortable working somewhere, is to move elsewhere. Not all places are toxic to work at, again I don't know and can't know the numbers, but if you're good, the company you've left have just shot themselves in the foot. And no good company wants to lose a good employee just because of their sex.

I think it's hard; when you see something wrong, you want to shout about it. But then, people seem to dislike members of both sex who complain. Tough situation, one i'm not really how is best handled. I think it comes down to working your hardest and smartest, while at the same time pointing out for others the bad things/workplaces/people you experience. Which I guess is what is happening.

Your reply is bullocks. I am not that attractive and still get hit on all the time and it has always been young men. The pure and simple fact that there are few money and a lot of guys makes men more forward to the few women there.

Older men seem to dismiss or talk down to me and the younger guys are just out right inappropriate.

I'm not the OP but if you read the bottom of the article, the journalist clarifies that he's the one who initially wrote the African villages comment and attributed it to the female founder.

He apologized and instead replaced that statement with one that was closer to what she originally said. That comment was offensive to me as well, especially since I'm black, but it seems that the journalist is the racist, not the female founder, or maybe he's just covering for her.

I agree with you though that her app idea might not be that good, and she definitely shouldn't have agreed to meet up with an investor in his home at night; that's a clear signal that the meeting is for romantic reasons, not business reasons.

Also, a female commentator said that she should have clearly said no to those advances, which I agree with. Instead she tried to avoid offending those investors by not making it clear that she wasn't interested in their sexual advances.

I apologize about the African Villages thing then. I didn't notice that the author added it. Although I'm neither black nor African peradventure I do have an Uncle that was born in Africa.

Not only does the Anonymous female writer appear to be sending mixed signals she also appears as being entitled, insecure, and naive (if not clueless).

She goes to a mans house at night to pitch her business plan and is surprised when the man has things other than business on his mind. Not only that, she bemoans having to work on the weekend to make ends meet. Which is what I and many others do happily. I know many people who have had to work weekends since they were like 15.

She attempts to put herself off as being some sort of a hustler yet drinks lattes all day and seems to believe that an Android app with a small user base and small revenue stream is a bonafide business. I know highschool kids that are Android app developers, actually some of the top developers iOS and Android platform are teenagers and their not raising VC cash.

She always seems to be worried about how people view her, her appearance and expects people to be able to read her "signals" and is aghast when she learns that outside of the corporate world businessmen don't live by corporate HR regulations.

"She goes to a mans house at night..." this is the exact argument that infuriates a female founder. A man would go to a man's house at any hour without hesitating. Trying to sleep with entrepreneurs pitching a business is the same as the old Hollywood casting couch.

She shouldn't have to expect that a man is going to use her pitch as a pretense to sleep with her.

She "shouldn't" but thats reality. Its like we shouldn't have to fear walking in crime ridden neighborhoods at night, but getting mugged is a reality.

If she had said, "I went to his place at night even though I know men may construe this as interest just to shame him when he made a move on me", it would be fine.

Instead she acted as if this was such a surprise.

+1

Sorry- but this just doesn't cut it. Women get only 4% of funding and there is no way they can compete even if they are far better than their male counterparts.

Only having bootstrapping as an option, is NOT a solution