But, you're right, it has been an issue at some conferences. So it's worth clarifying.
The Ada Initiative does not represent all women in tech, but they do help organizers with codes of conduct and other policies for female-friendly conferences. It might be good for jl and YC to consult with them. Their policies are inclusive: http://adainitiative.org/faq/#how-does-the-ada-initiative-de...
Really. That's interesting. I know... a few feminists 'round these parts who might be characterized "radical." Can't think of anyone getting their hate on against trans women. And I don't know why you would raise such a specter of exclusion with no basis.
Edit: dug up a few pointer links:
http://www.transadvocate.com/unpacking-transphobia-in-femini...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia#Transphobia_in_fem...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_views_on_transgenderi...
Thanks for discussing this issue and offering links, too.
> self-identified feminist
It seems logically inconsistent.
The best way out of that hole is to describe things literally, with as little interpretation as possible.
For example, if you interview a hypothetical person Alex, and Alex claims to be a feminist, then you could write: "Alex, a self-described feminist, ..." but should perhaps avoid writing "Alex, a feminist, ..."
The first only relies on you, the audience, and Alex agreeing on the very basics of the English language. The second implies some sort of agreement between you and Alex on what it is to be a feminist; basically you are injecting your assessment of Alex's beliefs. In the first, the audience may disagree with Alex, but they should have very little room to disagree with you. In the second, the audience disagreeing with Alex pulls you into the fray as well.
Sex: Assigned biological category -- male or female: designated at birth by visual assessment of anatomy based upon presumption of reproductive role.
Sexual Orientation: Term for an individual's physical and/or emotional attraction relative to their own sex such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or straight.
Gender: The social meaning given to biological sex.
Gender Expression: External characteristics and behaviors associated with gender that are socially defined and associated with masculine or feminine. For transgender people, their gender expression doesn't match their biological sex.
Transgender: People who identify with a gender that is different from their biologically assigned gender.
Intersexed: Describes people who are born with external genitalia, chromosomes, or internal reproductive systems that are not traditionally associated with either a "standard" male or female.
Cis-gender: People who identify with the sex or gender they were assigned at birth.
Gender is generally assumed to be defined as that part of 'sexual identity' which is a social construct and hence changeable.
http://againstallevidence.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/cant-we-a...
http://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/the-on...
http://radfemriseup.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/30-women-meet-f...
http://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/shared...
I do have to say that as a person somewhere on the trans* spectrum some of those posts do feel rather hateful towards 'my kind' though.
If you think I'm saying bigoted things (or trans*-spectrum-phobic), I'd appreciate knowing where I've done that so I can learn not to.
I didn't intend to make any statement concerning exclusion or condemnation of transwomen from conferences; although it seems like you did jump to that conclusion. Neither did I explicitly mention 'radical feminism.'
As for feedback; the part that's hurtful here is that while the article I posted seems to take great care to attempt to perform a level-headed in-depth deconstruction of transphobia in the feminist community and painstakingly ensuring to criticise specific behaviour by specific people rather than the feminist community as a whole.
Many of the articles you linked invoke a variety of ad-hominems, strawmen and generally mostly seem aimed at eliciting a certain emotional response towards the trans community.
But it's a very complex and interesting issue, not worth bringing up here, as you note. It's brought up here to stir the pot, I seriously doubt GP actually cares about transpeople at all.
[Edited later: for what it's worth, I regret choosing the word "typically" above. "Sometimes" or "often" would have been more appropriate word choices]
>I seriously doubt GP actually cares about transpeople at all.
That's very offending.
1. http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/05/23/radfem2012-excludi...
I'm fairly sure Jessica will just apply common sense though and would put me somewhere below full (trans-)women but above cisgendered men as far as priority goes, which would make sense.
Not that I'd be able to attend either way though; even though I would very much love to.
Why? If anything, a heterosexual man would be more likely to benefit from a conference for female founders because his SO is a founder or wants to start a company.
(Not trying to start a flame war — I just can't see the difference between a bisexual man, a homosexual man and a heterosexual man in this context.)
That basically means that while I don't feel like I'm in the wrong body, I do prefer (to some degree) to socially act and be treated as a woman.
Thanks for your help disambiguating.
In this context discrimination refers to a systemic tendency to undervalue a particular class of people for reasons unrelated to their ability to contribute. That is a situation worth reversing. Don't deliberately interpret words in the wrong context just to be a pedant.
Yes. And gender separated sports leagues. I believe people shouldn't be defined by their gender, which is a problematic term in the first place.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discrimination
This conference is about the first definition, not the third.
Segregation is treating people differently by the axis on which segregation occurs.
How is that discriminatory? You can't argue that women are widely represented in entrepreneurship (heck, it's an even smaller percentage than in development.) Startup School has always been 99% men. I'm personally super excited about a conference with women who've dealt with the issues I have as a female founder.
Just because something is for one subject does not mean it's against the opposite.
Do you believe that no gender discrimination in favour of men occurs in the rest of the industry? Are you against any particular act of discrimination that you happen to witness, or are you stating a preference for a system in which no discrimination occurs?
(I, too, am against gender discrimination, which is why I am for these.)
It is in your interests to have a government that is representative and understands your difficulties as a woman in this society, that understands these biases and is highly motivated to undo them. You would also like your daughter and the daughters of others to one day look at that poster on the classroom wall with a solid block of 44 male presidents in a row and finally see a woman among them, because you know it has an impact on their psychology and dreams and perceptions of gender, even if only one woman among 44, even if it takes decades for that poster to change enough to erase its impact. You directly experience on a day to day basis how much women are limited by society simply due to their gender. It is also obvious that despite the ever increasing number of men who are sensitive to women's issues, it is fare easier for other women to share your understanding simply because they've lived it and have been pained by it. It is not just a abstract principle of equality for them.
Is it not rational, in fact extremely smart, to have a preference toward electing women into office, when all other factors are more or less equal or less important? As a preference, a factor in your choice, not the sole decider, you would of course vote for a man sensitive to women's issues over a traditionalist women, or a man with unknown sensitivity to women's issues over a woman who was significantly less competent or more disagreeable with you on other important issues.
Is this gender discrimination? Is it gender discrimination if said preference only lasted as long as the stilted status quo existed? Would you not be a naive idealist to stick to the notion that despite the deeply ingrained sexism in society, one should not take any active action against it other than not be sexist yourself?
If one assumes falsehoods, many irrational decisions becomes rational. For example, like the assumption that a male politician doesn't care about women's issues. In fact, I live in a country with 40% of the parliament being women, even though 60% of the voters are women. Women decide the outcome of the election, which might be one reason that men are used in forced labour but women are not.
Anyways, if the choice is between a male and a female politician who are completely identical in every respect other than gender, then it's a roll of dice - but such a situation is not realistic.
You haven't experienced the problems personally, and you probably haven't even seen them locally. But they're real.
It's not a football team. It's a conference that someone else organizes. Leave it alone if you don't like it.
2. If we assume that an imbalance in a system is self-enforcing, then it is unlikely to remedy itself - even if we remove what initially caused the imbalance, because it is self-enforcing.
3. I don't think you brought up the transgender issue in good faith. The organizers of this event have given no indication that they align themselves such a fringe group.
Yes, it does. Think on that more deeply.
If in the future, women and men are equally represented in STEM fields, then we can have a discussion about whether such conferences have outlived their purpose. But since that is not the case today, I think that trying to rectify the imbalances in a reasonable, non-confrontational way that doesn't harm anyone is laudable.
I am not for or against such a conference, though ideally they're not needed - however if there's enough of a specific interest then business-minded people will try to create a conference to leverage that interest and try to make profits from that common interest - nothing wrong with that - just stating it for the point of that conferences for X,Y,Z group will always end up existing.
I think the solution is to shift the power structures that have been sustained, and are perpetuated, by most of our culture's current societal structures - and so everyone - poorer women and men, any minority, have the same chance of making their way into "power." Unfortunately I have to get back to work before I start writing a mini-essay going into more depth..
A part of me feels pity for them, after all, they're fighting a doomed fight, but it doesn't excuse their behavior.
Women (and some men) tend to be very suspicious of male-only spaces because they think that said men are plotting to reestablish the Patriarchy. Not really, though.
Sometimes it's nice to have a safe space where you don't have to police yourself for the opposite sex and risk being misunderstood by them. I don't begrudge women their own space, and I would hope that women, feminist and otherwise, would not begrudge men theirs.
hahahaha you have no idea what I'm talking about or what you're talking about
To me, saying "some men" is being precise with language and not falling into generalization. "Men", in common usage, refers to individuals that are male, not a "political class".
As a society, we accept discrimination in order to build a better and more equitable future.
SV prides itself on being a meritocracy, but it isn't a perfect one. People were born with money and connections have it much easier than the average schmo off the street. But certain minorities in our field* also have the added burden of having to battle pervasive stereotypes that sometimes borders on downright hostility on top of a near complete lack of a support network.
In order to become a more perfect meritocracy, we should strive to level the playground for everyone, but we can't easily tilt the playground such that average schmo's are on equal standing with people born into SV royalty, but we can make some minor shifts to help overcome the burden of being stereotyped because of what you look like.
So we accept some discrimination. And we benefit from it. The fact of the matter is that having diversity in startups is A Good Thing and increases the odds of success (unless your plan is to only sell your product to people who look/act/think just like you).
* Yes, women are the majority in the world, but for this and all discussions, it is important to limit ourselves to a field; in this case, tech startups. I would be just as supportive of a conference/support group/etc. for promoting and helping male child care workers (95% female) to overcome the stereotype of men being unfit for child care.
> Some radical feminists only accept 'born as women' to their conferences.
This may be true in some rare, extreme cases, but is frankly hard to imagine. Can you cite any sources on this? My experience (though I am neither trans nor a woman) is that people involved in the feminist movement or gender-queer community try to treat a trans person as much as possible as any other person of that gender.
I don't think it's too far-fetched to claim that conference organizers try to tailor their conference to the demographic who attends. While the vast majority of topics apply equally to men and women, there may be some topics that women will be more interested in, given their minority status in the tech world. I'm saying that it is laudable to create a conference where such topics can more easily be discussed.
One common argument is that conferences that are organized predominantly by men also tend to target men, even without conscious intent, because their planning, structure, and communication reflects the different ways that men are socialized in our society.
I'm not necessarily against a conference aimed at women, I'm against a conference which is only for women (which this seems to be according to it's homepage). (The rules for this conference apparently are not available at this moment).
>This may be true in some rare, extreme cases, but is frankly hard to imagine. Can you cite any sources on this? My experience (though I am neither trans nor a woman) is that people involved in the feminist movement or gender-queer community try to treat a trans person as much as possible as any other person of that gender.
Sure: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/05/23/radfem2012-excludi...
It's also interesting to know whether transwomen will be allowed. Some radical feminists only accept 'born as women' to their conferences. And if transwomen are accepted, what's their definition of that.