Female Founders Conference 2015 applications are open

102 pointsby katmover 10 years ago

8 comments

d0mover 10 years ago

I understand where a lot of people commenting here come from, but I think Female only tech events are actually amazing.I believe the main reason why there's less women in tech is because there's less women in tech(!) It's really hard to jump in a new field where you're the extreme minority. Just as a crude example, imagine getting into nursing school as a guy. That would take a lot of guts. I know because I have a friend who did it and you can easily imagine the kind of comments he's getting all the time from families, strangers, administrators, etc. However, if there were more guys in nursing, it wouldn't be as hard.You can also think about being gay in San-Francisco right now vs 50 years ago. Yes, a lot of things changed, but part of the reason why it's getting much better is because there simply are more gays, you know you're not alone.I'm not sure if this was a good example. But women in tech are a bit similar. It's hard to jump in when you're the minority. It's much easier to take the easy route and get a profession where there's already a good ratio of men/women.Why am I saying all this? Because I think women-only events help girls looking to move into tech understand that there actually are women in tech. If we'd only have mixed-in events, the few women in the crowd would easily be missed by the overwhelming majority of guys.Someone also posted something about Black, Latino/Hispanic Founders. That's extremely related. A black friend of mine told me that one of the hardest thing about being black in the tech community is that he's almost always the only one. It takes a lot of guts to be the only different one in the room. Some people like that, but for lots of people it's hard. Personally, as an introvert, I'd hate to have everyone in the room looking at me the second I enter the room, all the time.

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zarothover 10 years ago

It will be interesting to see how they tailor the content to be most useful/motivating/supportive/educational for their target audience. There is plenty to founding a company which is entirely gender neutral, and yet, there's a morass of unique challenges (and benefits) that female founders in particular may face.Catering to a specific field of expertise is orthogonal to catering to a specific pool of genetics. I think the actual reason why it would make no sense at all to have a 'Male Founders Conference' versus the obvious appeal of a 'Female Founders Conference' is because male founders simply don't have to deal with their gender as part of their identity as a Founder. I don't ever stop and think, "Is X happening because of my gender?" I very rarely have to stop and think, "Do I need to approach this problem differently because I'm a man?"Whereas a female founder is almost certainly going to have their gender become a notable / discussion-worthy factor tied into their popular identity as a Founder (whether they want it to or not). They are going to be faced with situations, perhaps regularly, when they will question how much their gender played a role in a particular outcome. They will actually encounter discrimination with some regularity, and need the tools to deal with it, and the experience and support system to decide how they should best respond.The way I see it, when there's nothing left to talk about at a Female Founders conference, then we can happily stop having them.

benhamnerover 10 years ago

This is phenomenal & a huge thanks to YC for promoting this. The massive gender disparity in tech is painfully clear to anyone walking the halls of a SF startup, attending a team meeting at a large corporation, or observing . It is a multifaceted and highly complex challenge, but hopefully strong leadership on this issue from central players like YC will help things move in a positive trajectory.To those saying "what about an Latino/African American/etc. founders conference?": you can't be everything to everyone, and you have to start somewhere. Looking at this as a binary world view where "you can only have nonexclusive events" or "you need to have an exclusive event for every potentially underrepresented group" is counterproductive and gets us nowhere. Supporting one underrepresented group will hopefully have positive downstream effects across the board. If things like this are successful in moving one underrepresented group on a better trajectory, then that model can be more easily replicated.To those saying "why not a YC conference just for male founders?" or "this isn't necessary" or the like: you're being petty and this isn't for you. The tech industry has plenty of open opportunities for people to connect across the board, and stronger connections tend to be forged within smaller sub-communities. If this and events like this encourage more females to become founders, then that's a great outcome.

viiralvxover 10 years ago

When are we going to have the Black or Latino/Hispanic Founders Conference, YC?

sremaniover 10 years ago

I am not against conferences like these - women to women connection is different from women to mixed crowd. Actually, I would not mind men only conferences either if they improve the social environment for all the attendees.

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jcrover 10 years ago

Anyone can apply to attend the Female Founders Conference so it's not "female only" as some have mistakenly claimed. If you are notable in the given specialization and you want to speak at the conference, I'm sure you could contact them and ask if they need more speakers. Like most YC-related events and functions (e.g. funding batches, startup school, hack weekend, etc.), the main problem they face is most likely limited space/resources. If you know anything about YC, then you know they will optimize for quality and growth/scale. If you're unable to attend, YC does provide videos of the talks [1] so you can still learn from them.Though I'd definitely learn a lot at this conference, I'm not going to apply for an invitation because I'd rather see the limited invitations go to people who can make the most of them. I'm not founder material, so I should wait until the videos get released. If I was mistakenly given an invitation, I'd politely and humorously report it as a bug in their optimization algorithms. ;-)HN users tptacek and cpercival are known representatives of a specific minority in tech, namely, people with a reasonable grasp of crypto. If there was a specialized conference of this crypto-cogent minority, the people who would gain the most from the conference are either already crypto-cogent, or are considering becoming crypto-cogent. The rest of us crypto-ignorant people (myself included as an admitted crypto-failure) are much better off always trying to learn from the experiences they generously share. If the title of this story was, "Crypto Conference 2015 Applications Are Open," I'd like to believe people on HN would not be arguing whether specialized cryptography conferences should exist.All conferences are specialized in some sense. Learning from the unique perspectives and experiences of said specialization is one of the main reasons for going to any conference. The other reason is networking with your peers. The specialization can be a field, topic, group, or some other commonality. In this case, the specialization is Female Founders and the chance to learn from them is a fantastic but rare opportunity. The same is true for any specialized group of notable people speaking on topics where they have the benefit of experience and perspective.My challenge to you, the regular HN user, is can you tell me something interesting about the accomplishments of any of the speakers?I'll start. Jessica Livingston wrote a book called "Founders At Work" and it's one of my absolute favorites. I've nearly broken the binding on my copy with all the sticky-note page markers. Though my server will probably melt from the load, proof of my assertion is available [2].[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5PSIanlQ_x6FApB4cX84aKX" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5PSIanlQ_x6...</a>[2] <a href="http://designtools.org/pix/DSCN0022.JPG" rel="nofollow">http://designtools.org/pix/DSCN0022.JPG</a>

taprunover 10 years ago

I always wonder if these "female only" conferences, awards and events are beneficial for women.Many folks might (mistakenly) see them as an admission that women can't hack it on a level playing field. Such thoughts would only serve to harden their chauvinistic mental models and cause gender discrimination to be more (rather than less) likely in the future.

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ps4fanboyover 10 years ago

If women only conferences are good at helping women network and communicate safely, I really think we could apply the same argument to men, do we just disregard men who are to afraid or feel uncomfortable around women because we already have too many successful men who dont suffer from this problem?