It leaves them as a statistical someone with an objectively poor resume.
If you want more women founded companies, you need more women engineers. If you want more women engineers, you need more women cs majors. If you want more women cs majors, you need more women interested in and excelling at math in high school.
It may not be 'fair' that the statistical woman has a 'worse' resume, nor is it 'fair' that the statistical rich kid has a 'better' one, but its asinine to address fairness at the narrow end of the funnel.
There are a lot more meaningful and effective actions that can be implemented now, which would correct things in a shorter length of time. I do think that the 'pipeline' is the fundamental way to fix the issue -- but I think that the best way of creating that interest is to present those under-represented groups in our society now, rather than later.
Where is the evidence that she didn't get one? A fair chance is not a guarantee of funding.
It baffles me that people constantly make this low-effort "read the article" remark as if (A) it's not explicitly against the rules here, and (B) it's impossible for two people to read the same article and draw different conclusions from it.
But I digress. I can put myself in the shoes of a VC for a second and know that based on a quick glance at the app's website and app store page, I wouldn't invest in it either. It's unoriginal, unlikely to be profitable, and the reviews are suspicious at best. No need to download it to see that.
Not reading or responding isn't unfair. VCs get inundated with proposals like hers. I'm a white guy who used to do freelance work. I've sent out hundreds of personalized cold emails to businesses looking for work, and got responses to maybe 5 of them, all of which were negative or "we'll keep your information on file". Maybe my sales pitch sucks. Maybe my portfolio sucks. Or maybe they just weren't interested in what I was offering. Maybe that's the case for her, too. Where's the evidence that either of us were treated unfairly? I am not entitled to anyone's time or money and neither is she.
Have we reached the point where not responding to a cold email is an act of bigotry? I myself get inundated with messages from recruiters. I respond only to the tiny fraction that are actually interesting and relevant to my skillset. It never even occurred to me to respond or not based on the gender or race of the recruiter. Does that make me a bigot?
Interest in running a company or technology is not at issue. You have a bunch of founders in this thread with demonstrable (as in: they have founded companies) interest in doing these things, and they're having trouble getting over the line because of bias.
Perhaps the VCs they pitched to read the same paper, and jumped to the same conclusions you did. If so, that's super fucked up.
The Wikipedia article on Damore's memo lists a number of substantive criticisms[0]. For convenience, I'll list them here:
This Vox article[1] gives a brief background of Damore's argument from biological essentialism. It references the general consensus that the premise (that cultural and sociological gender roles result from innate and immutable differences in gender biology and neurology) has been discredited[2,3], as well as a Stanford research paper[4] which concludes “Through a rather constructivist approach most studies show that no scientific experiment has proved the existence of systematic and/or significant biological sex differences in most cognitive functions.”
This BBC article[5] mentions a criticism by a cognitive scientist, This Intelligencer article[6] lists numerous criticisms and rebuttals by scientists, referencing this Quora article by an evolutionary scientist[7], and another criticism from studies of gender and STEM[8].
Now, that's as many as I've been willing to list because I'm now thoroughly bored of hunting down sources, but there are many others I haven't listed if you want to do the research yourself. Now granted, wikipedia also lists a number of counter-criticisms, but that alone doesn't render the criticism invalid, it merely demonstrates the existence of a controversy.
I'm leaving this comment here for future reference, and referring to it every time I notice someone bringing up the myth that Damore's memo is based on rock-solid, unassailable science, or that no "substantive" criticisms have or can been made.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
[1]https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/8/16106728/google-fire...
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2016/may/...
[3]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/silico...
[4]http://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/images/TR3_Stereotyp...
[5]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-40865261
[6]https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/08/some-scientific-argu...
[7]https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
[8]https://www.vox.com/2017/8/11/16127992/google-engineer-memo-...
> He uses primarily stereotyped misconceptions about men and women to argue that “gender gaps [do not always] imply sexism,” and declares that “discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech” is “misguided and biased” as well as “unfair, divisive, and bad for business.”
The question of stereotyping is addressed in the memo itself:
> I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can't have an honest discussion about this,then we can never truly solve the problem.
Can you point to where in Damore's memo he relies on stereotyped misconceptions? I've read it many times and I didn't see anything fitting that characterization.
Specificity would be helpful.
Where people have made scientific claims I've asked them for the source of their information. This is a reasonable question - not a "demand".
When someone replies to you citing another argument, it's reasonable to read that argument and to point out any flaws in it if you see them. That's what I did here. Was I not supposed to read it?
My argument doesn't rely on any citation other than Damore's memo itself, since it is the topic of discussion. I've already provided a link to that but here it is again for convenience: [1]
I followed the witch hunt against Damore very closely both at the time and since.
Without exception, every single critique I've read of Damore's memo is either a straw man, ad hominem, or a combination of both.
If you know of any counterexamples I'm happy to review them, but please pick the strongest argument rather than a long list[2]
[1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
Hope I'm not speaking too soon, but it seems like actual liberals on the left are finally waking up to this Kafkaesque ideology they've been making excuses for [1]
[1] https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
That's why I asked to see the track record. You won't get anywhere in this business without a track record. Moreover, if you do have a track record being a woman is an advantage these days, not a disadvantage. There are a lot of VCs chomping at the bit to invest into women- and minority-led startups. But they won't give you money if they don't have some degree of certainty that you can do what you're promising to do.
She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.