Commence eye-rolling
On a Seattle startups mailing list, someone started a discussion about what to look for in a co-founder. Amidst items like "launched at least one product for a previous company," there was:
* Does not set off 'creep' detector in female co-workers.
* Interacts with female co-workers in a social setting in a non-asshole way.
A few people then asked why the original poster was assuming his co-founder would be male, and why not just say that the co-founder should not be a creep/asshole with all coworkers, regardless of gender.
Um...really? First, because most co-founders are male. Nothing about the original post gave me the feeling that the author would mind having a female co-founder, just that most (everyone?) applying is male. That's not exactly surprising in the software industry. Second, because tech culture has a problem specifically with women, not with all genders. Silicon Valley has the Uber CEO making jokes about "Boober" and inspiring articles like "Uber’s boys club is what’s wrong with Silicon Valley", there's sexual harassment at Github, etc. In Seattle, we have Microsoft's CEO saying women's secret power is to not ask for raises, and Amazon's culture inspiring articles like "Broverwhelmed: Gender Disparity in Seattle". And then we have Gamergate happening all over the Internet.
So yeah, it's unfortunate, but I think in 2014 we need to say specifically, "Not a creep/asshole with women."
* Does not set off 'creep' detector in female co-workers.
* Interacts with female co-workers in a social setting in a non-asshole way.
A few people then asked why the original poster was assuming his co-founder would be male, and why not just say that the co-founder should not be a creep/asshole with all coworkers, regardless of gender.
Um...really? First, because most co-founders are male. Nothing about the original post gave me the feeling that the author would mind having a female co-founder, just that most (everyone?) applying is male. That's not exactly surprising in the software industry. Second, because tech culture has a problem specifically with women, not with all genders. Silicon Valley has the Uber CEO making jokes about "Boober" and inspiring articles like "Uber’s boys club is what’s wrong with Silicon Valley", there's sexual harassment at Github, etc. In Seattle, we have Microsoft's CEO saying women's secret power is to not ask for raises, and Amazon's culture inspiring articles like "Broverwhelmed: Gender Disparity in Seattle". And then we have Gamergate happening all over the Internet.
So yeah, it's unfortunate, but I think in 2014 we need to say specifically, "Not a creep/asshole with women."