What do Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Jack Dorsey all have in common? They’re men. They’re white. They’re heterosexual (AFAIK). They’re smart.
None of that counted for shit. Sorry, feminists. Whine your little guts out til the end of the freakin’ world. Being a straight, white male had nothing to do with why those men are famous and rich beyond measure. I’ll let you in on a little secret: there is one reason, and only one reason those men are the giants of the tech world.
A brilliant idea.
See, that’s the whole point of capitalism, and why it works the way it works. You see a problem (often when others don’t even realize it’s a problem yet) and you solve it in a way that is brilliant, efficient, user-friendly and reasonably easy to manufacture. You don’t need money to make your idea happen. At least, not your own money. You need venture capital.
Venture capital happens when someone has some extra money lying around they would like to turn into more money. Venture capitalists invest in new ventures in the hopes that the new venture will turn their money into more money. It’s really that simple.
Money creates more money when invested wisely.
How do you convince venture capitalists to give you money? That’s also pretty easy. Have a great idea and then sell it. Your great idea won’t get anywhere if you don’t know how to sell it. Mumble and stare at the floor and downplay how it works and you are not likely to find anyone throwing bags of cash at you. If you don’t think it’s a truly great idea, why the hell would anyone else?
Great idea + knowing how to sell = venture capital.
Get a load of this pity party for women in tech, in Newsweek. What Silicon Valley Thinks of Women is a giant sobbing, blathering mess that ignores our two key means of getting venture capital. The women in question have a shitty idea that won’t work, and they are mumbling, stammering simpletons who can’t express themselves. Two strikes and you’re out, ladies.
The gist of their idea is that women need to connect with other women in tech so they can help each other out professionally because vagina. Women should not cultivate relationships with other professionals in their areas of expertise because men are gross and might look at their asses. Their genius idea is called Glassbreakers. Oddly enough, venture capitalists are not throwing oodles of cash their way because misogyny and sexism, amirite?
Here are just a few reasons why Glassbreakers is a stupid idea that won’t work.
First of all, the answer to sexism is not more sexism. By creating an app that connects humans with vaginas to other humans with vaginas you are leaving out half your potential market. Really well thought out, ladies. Let’s assume that no men will assist colleagues with great ideas if those colleagues have vaginas and then exclude them from women’s networks based on that assumption.
Secondly, the idea that women are going to genuinely help other women is laughably naïve. Heaven help any woman in tech who is above average pretty, who thinks other women are going to help her. Virtually 100% of women will aggress against a peer they perceive as sexy. Women will not only refuse to help an attractive woman in tech, they will go out of their way to demean and harm her. Women who achieve power over others (#BanBossy!) are hated pretty much by everyone, but by other women in particular. Lady Bosses are often petty, mean-spirited drama queens and women are each other’s own worst enemies. Why would tech be any different? This story in particular makes me laugh: a feminist went to work for a feminist organization and ended up hating those bitches and quitting. Lol. Yeah, Glassbreakers is such a great idea! Let’s connect women professionally so they can actively destroy each other! That should work! Who wants to invest?
Thirdly, by their own admission, the developers are addressing a problem that doesn’t exist: sexual harassment and sexist behaviour. Eileen Carey, one of the devs, “claims she has only rarely experienced sexual harassment or even sexist behavior”, but in the next heartbeat claims “bias and harassment are endemic in her profession.” So which is it? Rare or endemic? And they wonder why venture capitalists are not chucking money at them?
And finally, both developers admit they are pathetic cowards when it comes to selling their ideas. After rambling and mumbling all over the place, one investor had to outright ask Carey if she wanted funding. Way to sell that concept! If women are incapable of the “swagger” and “confidence” of men, how are they going to be capable of mentoring each other? If women habitually understate their accomplishments, how are they going to convey anything the slightest bit useful to one another?
Glassbreakers hasn’t attracted funding because venture capitalists hate women. Nonsense. It has failed to attract funding because it’s a crappy idea the developers themselves can’t get behind. If women in tech want to improve their positions, they need to do two things: grow a set and have better ideas. Easy peasy. Sitting around whining and crying that teh menz are mean, casting about for someone to blame other than themselves, and looking for any excuse to avoid asking the tough questions are the things holding women back. Who wants to bet the majority of these mewling children identify as feminist? Funny that Marissa Meyer didn’t experience any of these terrible roadblocks, and thinks feminism is a crock of shit, too.
Hey women in tech who aren’t really killing it, if you’re looking for someone to blame, try a mirror.
And then get back to work.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
” there is one reason, and only one reason those men are the giants of the tech world.” Nah. There are a lot more reasons. Luck not being the least of them.
Another Reason is a healthy bit of power hunger. None of those guys would have built those megacorps without it. A good idea + funding gives you some chance of success, but to make it really big, you need to be power hungry.
LikeLike
This is key to just about everything, “Secondly, the idea that women are going to genuinely help other women is laughably naïve.” Oh yeah, women help other women? Absolutely laughable. I’d rather deal with a rabid misogynist. Less knives in your back.
There really are women in tech doing some wonderful things. Not long ago they were rendered completely invisible by some SJW’s who went after a scientist over his alleged sexist shirt. Not only did they attempt to erase his accomplishment with that diversion, but they erased the contributions of all the women that also work on that team.
LikeLike
Well, it doesn’t look like Glassbreakers will be causing any harm to men, at any rate.
I guess there will be increasing numbers of girls and women feeling some pressure to pursue STEM careers whether or not they even have any interest in those fields, because that’s the current Big Thing.
And I understand that all of those jobs are integral to the continuation of our society — but so are many other jobs like caregiving, teaching, administrative support (which is a heck of a lot more than paper-pushing), counseling, writing, acting, various kinds of art…
I’ll never really get why people with one set of skills feel so compelled to put down those with other skill-sets. It used to be the liberal arts crowd looking down their noses at the “nuts and bolts” crowd — and now it’s becoming the reverse.
When will we finally come full-circle and just be who we are without feeling a need to demean those who are different? I, for one, can fully understand why my skills with people and with the English language are never likely to bring in the same income as the skills of a brain surgeon, or even of a programmer, but I’d never want the life-and-death responsibility of operating on brains and I could never be as interested in learning code as I am in learning Spanish, so I’ll just earn what I can and make the best of it.
But I suppose it’s hard to free ourselves from the idea that people with modest incomes are somehow just less smart than billionaires. It’s like what one of my uncles used to tell me when I was a very opinionated teenager and young adult: “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” It’s really hard — but then again, not so hard once you get in the habit of doing it — to learn to view everyone we meet as a potentially very interesting person, and just listen to what they have to say, whether they’re young or old, homeless or rich, easy-on-the-eye or not.
But some would say, “What’s even the point in doing that — why listen to or respect anyone who doesn’t make as much money as you’d like to make?” — And if that’s really how they feel, then I have no idea how to help them see the value in every kind of person. I’m not saying they can never learn…but I guess it would come down to some kind of revolution occurring inside them. I just know that the happiest people are those who appreciate everyone.
LikeLike
“There really are women in tech doing some wonderful things. Not long ago they were rendered completely invisible by some SJW’s who went after a scientist over his alleged sexist shirt. Not only did they attempt to erase his accomplishment with that diversion, but they erased the contributions of all the women that also work on that team”
Why on earth would that erase the contributions of any women working on the team? Are you saying that men in science can’t see anyone as an individual — i.e., if even one man’s a murderer or embezzler, no man can be trusted, if one black person’s a drug dealer, no black can be trusted, if one woman creates a petty “shirtstorm,” no female scientist can be trusted or taken seriously?
I think too highly of the majority of male scientists to ever believe that! I’m sure those scientists still value everyone on their team, whether male or female.
LikeLike
It erased the evidence of those contributions because the media actually cut away from the story to cover the story of the sexist shirt. That guy was all over the TV tearfully apologizing, so not only was his achievement erased from the public consciousness, so were the achievements of anyone working with him.
And like it or not, but when women act like some of the whiny ones in tech are doing right now, yes, it taints the accomplishments of other women.
LikeLike
> A great idea.
Interestingly enough, some female entrepreneurs with great ideas have had success in well-known internet startups: Pinterest, Flickr, Bingocardcreator. (If you know more, leave a comment). This is not to say that women have it easier… whether there is a glass ceiling or not, it can be broken. If you want representation in silicon valley, make it happen.
LikeLike
I’m a guy so it doesn’t even apply to me but the feminist notion that women are owed help from other women just because they have the same junk in between their legs freaks me out. The Madeline Albright quote “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” has always come across as extremely sexist to me. It’s like they’re saying if you don’t hep team XX defeat team XY than you’re a terrible woman and you deserve to burn.
I guess feminists not only want to vilify men but eliminate any vestige of individuality in women as well.
LikeLike
Absolutely. Individuality threatens the herd mentality.
A woman who succeeds in high tech and/or creates innovations that are imitated by others attracts bitter, feminist naysayers on one hand and pandering backstabbers on the other. Ask me how I know this.
LikeLike
Two responses:
1. As JB has pointed out before, a particular skill of women is to care for others, and not just in the physical sense. So I think some of the inability of ideologues in this debate to show respect for different industries comes down to masculinity v femininity. Men are much more blunt and practical in their value judgments, and since they’re usually expected to be primary earners, pay is much more significant indicator of value for them. Plus, I’ve heard it said (and I agree) that men identify themselves much more by their profession than women do.
So why do we get female feminists talking shit about anything non-STEM? Because they reject actual femininity, and have decided that they can only have value by competing on male terms (but not really, of course).
2. I think the real impetus behind everyone talking shit on everyone else’s position is because of class warfare and political favoritism. If there were no subsidies, programs, or other goodies on the line for whoever is the ‘smartest’ or most ‘socially necessary’, there’d be no incentive for people to climb over each other for those statuses. I think plain old vanity plays a big part too, since mainstream culture seems to have abandoned the idea of earning respect, in favor of identity politics.
Also, to JB: When are you getting back on twitter?
LikeLike
How do you know this?
LikeLike
Twenty years in high tech. (Retired.) 🙂
LikeLike
A brilliant idea is seldom the key factor. Luck is probably more important. Take Facebook. There were dozens of competing social networks already in existence when Facebook entered the market. For some reason it won the race although it was far from the best.
LikeLike
I would guess that is because the idea of a social network IS brilliant, and Zuckerberg had the best sales pitch, so he won.
LikeLike
What’s gonna be the summer hit 2015? Not the best song but the most liked. And people like what others like . And what others like is somewhat random. It’s a snowball effect. But what puts the snowball rolling is probably more luck than brilliance.
One of my all time favorites is Time of the Season by Zombies. A brilliant song. But it was close of not being a hit at all. Two years after its publishing a DJ started to play it and it caught on. Luck? Probably more than brilliance.
LikeLike
The danger of any gender war is that men have more munitions. I don’t mean bullets or guns, I mean money and independence. If you start a women for women only campaign, you could easily also get a men for men only response. Male venture capitalists funding male only developers. Do you really want to see that? Is this how it’s going to shake out?
Women are already complaining about how they are being cut off from marriage by the marriage strike. Do they also want to be cut off from the economic system as well? The marriage strike should be a warning that men can, independently, take action that has a collective effect. You can no longer count on getting married. It’s no longer the guarantee it used to be.
If you start a women for women only gender war in business, the same thing can happen in economics.
LikeLike
Did anybody else read that linked article in xoJane “IT HAPPENED TO ME: I’m A Feminist And I Hated Working For A Feminist Organization”? What struck me is this woman admits — admits!! — what she wanted was to be a PROFESSIONAL FEMINIST!! How is this in any way, shape or form a marketable skill? What miseducation got it into her head that other humans would part with things they value, be it money or goods, because they need someone to fight for women’s rights, because it’s some sort of valued and rare ability not everyone possesses. Why should someone be PAID to be, and I quote “fighting for women’s and LGBTQ rights my career.” No WONDER women don’t get ahead, how can we possibly think being a “professional feminist” is an economic activity???
LikeLike
What else are you going to do with your master’s degree in Women’s Studies? There should be limits on degrees when there is federal student loan money involved. “They” know how many grads there are with degrees in Medieval English literature and how many of them are working using that degree or not.
The flip side is, can you imagine a man studying men and expecting a job? There’s a reason women can’t make much of a dent in a lot of fields, and it isn’t all about STEM ones.
LikeLike
Best way to get more women into STEM: make life harder for women. No alimony, no compulsory child support, no socially acceptable housewifery; no special government funding for single mothers or women’s issues. When as women have to claw their way through the competition to stay out of the unemployment line or homeless shelter, they will be as competitive (and as ruthless) as men and also more pragmatic, as a matter of necessity. Giving women free stuff only deters them from making the sacrifices necessary to accomplish great things.
Also, it’s worth noting that their are lots of women in STEM fields and a growing population: foreign women. If there’s a dearth of American women in STEM in this country it isn’t gender that’s keeping them out. These fields bend over backwards to accommodate women. But it certainly doesn’t help my attitude toward this demographic when even in my fairly small professional circle I know of at least three white American women (all from wealthy families incidentally) who are feminists and have a chip on their shoulder. They spend more time complaining about their co-workers or politics than talking about actual science; this makes a person positively unpleasant to converse with. The Asian women on the other hand are impeccably professional.
LikeLike
There is a practical side to their choices though: a woman can obtain more power and influence while doing far less actual work and being far less intelligent by positioning herself as a lobbyist or activist (for women’s issues, or other ‘issues’ groups) than by the more conventional routes to power and influence.
Look at the major feminist academics and activists. How many of them have the intellect or hardiness to get a decent LSAT score, survive a quality law school, make in a high power firm, and win an election? Why put oneself through that when one can be a lobbyist or activist and be arguably just as influential by having the ear of major politicians?
Similar situation in science. Notice how many science writers at major papers are women? Perhaps even a majority. Well, if you have a BA in a science, if you want name recognition and a well-paying, secure job, what do you A) devote 70 hours a week for decades of your life to painstaking, often gruelingly difficult competitive research, having to understand and practice advanced mathematics and/or chemistry, only to know that you will still most likely end up another anonymous faculty member? Or B) get a job at a liberal newspaper that gives women hiring preference and live a leisurely life writing about other people’s research, while getting a better salary and more fame than the scientists whose work one summarizes, and getting to use your job as a ‘science’ writer to shove your idiotic politics down your readers’ throats, as an increasing number of science writers do these days?
As long as a disproportionate share of women choose option B, you can’t expect there to be as many female Nobel laureates.
LikeLike
Nonsense! If you are in the vicinity of a rattlesnake, then you’ve got to be really watching and listening. Feminists are snakes lying in the grass. If you believe that a man will trust a female scientist, you’re delusional. He can hear the rattles. Women will pay the freight for shirt gate for a long time. Too irrational to be trusted by sane, logical scientists. That doesn’t include women. There will be hidden ways to deal with problematic women. A lot of investor money comes from offshore. From places where they have no regard at all for a woman’s well being. For example, if a woman was to seriously disrespect a leading scientist in China, her family would pay the price with her. If it was serious enough, they would literally have to pay for the bullet used to execute her. My, the horrors of unrestrained Patriarchy! Feminism will only last as long as men put up with it. Bring on a hard reset to society, you know, civil war, Islamic war or the like. Then men will decide who to protect. And, yes, men have always let problematic women get killed.
LikeLike
Small quibble, I don’t think option “A” is really viable for someone with a BA, whether there are still BA programs in science available, or if it was a typo and you meant BS I think it’s unrealistic to think a bachelors degree would get one in the door as a research scientist. I suspect you really need a Masters just to get a lab assistant job any more.
However, I recall an old aphorism “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”. I wonder if journalism hasn’t moved into the same realm of triviality or uselessness that whoever coined that aphorism believed teaching belonged in.
LikeLike
I actually have a BA, and I am in a science PhD program, doing research in bioinformatics. I know others who do as well, some even with BAs in non-science disciplines (my major wasn’t a natural science, honestly). Granted, in those cases, it probably helps to have great GRE scores and to come from a highly ranked university.
Also, ironically (because I’m a ‘cishet’ white male), I and others in my position may have benefited from the modern obsession with ‘diversity.’ That is, science programs often like taking a few students from non-science fields to foster intellectual diversity. I guess they think we’re exotic. Though I think having a solid math background helped me a bit, especially given the specific research area I chose.
LikeLike
“The gist of their idea is that women need to connect with other women in tech so they can help each other out professionally because vagina. ”
Because vagina what? I hope there arent sentence fragments like this in your novels.
LikeLike
they could do a lot better if they adjusted their target demographic as mentioned above. the ability for professionals to connect and network with other professionals outside of who they know in the business could be invaluable and may lead to more women getting investments due to people hearing about the ideas and getting interested in them. as it is, it’s such a waste, and i’m not sure if it’s the creators or the market that’s gonna receive most of it
LikeLike
Luck is nice, no doubt. Take Bill Gates: he was lucky enough to be a computer whiz when computers were about to become big business. He still worked his tail off, though.
LikeLike
I didn’t read it but I’m going to. It sounds hilarious!
LikeLike
as it is, that fragment works a lot better than adding in a more clear reason. this whole thing is off the basis that people with vaginas are more capable of helping other people with vaginas because they both have vaginas. it’s quite ridiculous.
LikeLike
Keep up the fine goodness Canadiagirl…….love your work…..
LikeLike
JB, you are going to be hated deeply for this article. Not for remarking that Gates and co. are “men” but by saying they are “white” and “heterosexual”.
LikeLike
Your body is high tech.
LikeLike
“Eileen Carey, one of the devs, “claims she has only rarely experienced sexual harassment or even sexist behavior”, but in the next heartbeat claims “bias and harassment are endemic in her profession.””
This is someone who doesn’t know what the word “endemic” means.
LikeLike
Wait – what?
LikeLike
Bill Gates is mainly a legal genius in the field of IP. MS-DOS was a hacked-up version of QDDos, and Bill-o managed to retain rights to the software because IBM saw itself as a hardware company.
LikeLike
The novel is basically just an endless series of fragments because art. 😛
LikeLike
“Because _________” has become a very popular figure of speech.
My agnostic daughter has occasionally had fun razzing her more religious friends by answering various questions by saying, “Because God!” or “Because Jesus!” It’s all the rage right now.
Knowing how to use popular sentence fragments really well — as JB does — will make her books that much more relevant to popular society, which I’m pretty sure is her chosen demographic.
LikeLike
I think he means that women need to be wiling to suffer for shirtstorm in the same way that many feminists expect a man to accept it when a woman he has to work with, or deal with in some other way, has a huge chip on her shoulder against all men because of previous bad treatment by one or a few men. That we just all need to learn to compassionately deal with one another’s baggage, and women need to accept that just as some women are angry at or wary of men, so some men are angry at or wary of women.
It makes perfect sense, actually.
LikeLike
You really nailed that one because bitch!
LikeLike
It’s not impossible for “rare” and “endemic” to occupy the same space. Raccoons are endemic to the open space by my house, but they are a small population (potentially rare), and it is absolutely rare to ever see them.
I suspect you are right that she doesn’t know what endemic means, and even if she does that leaves her open to the criticism, that a solution to a rare endemic condition, is a solution in search of a problem.
LikeLike
I never hear it put this way, but isn’t it likely women complain the most about the grueling tech and venture capital worlds because these are the worlds that differ more than most others from the very female-friendly environments they grew up in?
They receive excessive support compared to men in college. From pre-school through high school the environment favors them. They are not required to do the more difficult chores around the house. Their sports practices are usually less arduous. They are favored for entry level jobs.
Then, suddenly, women find themselves being treated very much like males have been treated all their lives. They were the favorites until then, and now they’re faced with just how rough life can get. It’s not that they’re suddenly being discriminated against, it’s that they’re suddenly NOT receiving favorable treatment.
LikeLike
Also the successful men in tech don’t care what you call them. “BanBossy” was stupid because the assumption was that women break down like delicate flowers whenever someone calls them, heaven forbid, “bossy”.
On the other hand if I had a penny for every time someone called Mark Zuckerberg (or Jobs or Gates) an asshole, I’d be as rich as those guys. They get called mean things ALL THE TIME. THEY DON’T CARE. They’re rolling in money. Because they earned it, by being, well, assholes.
LikeLike
When it came to tech Gates was far luckier (and sleazier) than he was good, but it’s the nature of the capitalist beast that someone always gets lucky.
It also helps to be unempathic, since profits have a great deal with brutalizing your workforce. Every credible study shows sociopathic personalities are overrepresented among corporate officers.
LikeLike
“have a great deal to do with…”
LikeLike
You made some good points but you lost me on chores, I guess because families are so varied in terms of how they assign chores to their children — with some kids having no responsibilities and others being treated like adults.
But if you mean to say that the traditional divisions of men’s work and women’s work land the males in the home with tougher chores — I guess it’s a matter of opinion. I mean, some might find it easier to do the dishes and other in-house chores like vacuuming, mopping, and laundry, rather than be responsible for all the yard work — mowing during the summer, raking leaves in the fall, shoveling snow in the winter, as well as taking out the trash, whereas some would rather get out of the house (but this may depend on how big the family is and how many dishes there are to wash, how often it snows or how fast the grass grows in your region, and so on).
Also, traditionally, for parents who have large families and believe in making older siblings take over some of the parenting responsibilities like changing diapers and keeping an eye on younger siblings, those responsibilities have tended to fall more heavily on girls than on boys — but of course, there are always exceptions.
LikeLike
What I really love is when women like JB beat everyone to the punch by just calling themselves a bitch, or bossy, or a fat chick, or whatever. When you can come right out and say it, you knock the wind right out the ass of anyone hoping to knock you down a few pegs by expressing how much they don’t wike you or your photograph. All they can do is agree with you, which was the last thing they ever wanted to do.
LikeLike
I do all the chores in my house right now, and I hate doing the dishes with a passion, I have to do them three times a day everyday, and come dinner time, I’m willing to relent a little on my “OCD” and let someone else do them. However, I also know that 70% of the dishes are washed by an automated machine, which does most of the work. Cleaning up after the pets in the yard or shoveling the walk is still all me, and I can tell the difference, I’d still rather do the daily chores which are mostly automated, and only aggravating because of their tedium and redundancy. As to which chores are divided by sex, I can’t say, I grew up in a house with only a brother and all of my friends only had same sex siblings as well (with one exception). Makes comparison difficult, especially when children of said friends only have same sex siblings as well.
LikeLike
Amen.
LikeLike
Willingness has little or nothing to do with it. You see, a woman was quite willing to ruin a man’s career for NOTHING! So, women will be pushed to the side. As for foreign investors, that scenario isn’t far fetched at all. True talent is rare, and a mindless feminist ain’t bullet proof. Feminism counts on masculine protection. It’s not worth the trouble anymore. Unrestrained hypergamous behavior has ruined marriage. You see, men understand that feminism means to destroy them. Even genius level engineering types are getting the message. Imagine this……A guy is being recruited by a foreign concern….they really want him…..A rabid feminist is trying to ruin him……she has a bad car wreck and perishes. That’s what men do when they have to. Men no longer have a reason to protect women. We are second class citizens in this country. We are repeatedly raped in Family Courts. So, we’re developing a deep hatred for feminists. Literally. So, you will see more cases of men refusing to help or protect women. Feminists have managed to alienate several generations of men. This isn’t reversible. So, let them defend themselves. Any woman in the USA benefits from the theft of our civil rights. And it’s getting worse. Let women suffer the foolishness of their actions. Is that clear enough? Nope, I’ll never help the enemy. Any woman can have a bad day and accuse a man of rape. He doesn’t get to defend himself. He’s automatically guilty. Young guys have been paying attention. They see what happens. They are ready for MGTOW and the red pill. What that means is that we know that we’re hated and are withdrawing. This will take some time. But once a man understands the real nature of women, that’s all she wrote.
LikeLike
It’s already happening. If a man doesn’t have a wife and family, he doesn’t need to work so hard for ingrates. When my ex frivorced me, the well dried up. See, once a young guy understands the true nature of women, he ain’t gonna be into all that.
LikeLike
That doesn’t even make sense.
LikeLike
A different (in my opinion, lesser) kind of brilliance: the ability to discern what people want and how to sell it to them. A person who can find a way to get people to buy pure shit is going to be a lot richer that the person creates a genuine masterpiece, not so much because of luck, but a different, more cynical and utilitarian kind of genius,
Steve Jobs is a case in point. There are probably a hundred engineers and innovators who actually deserve more credit for creating what he sold. But he got rich and famous not because he could create anything, but because he could make things look pretty and market them. He wasn’t just lucky. He was a very clever salesman. Part of the reason why so many people idolize him today instead of, say, Steve Wozniak, who actually did far more valuable work and probably deserves much much much more credit than jobs for the progress Apple contributed..
LikeLike
Just looked it up – turns out that “endemic” has a couple of meanings, one of them being the sense in which the OP used it, so ok.
I’d still like to know how “sharing stories” is not the same thing as “gossip”.
LikeLike
In that case though, saying sexual harassment is ‘endemic’ to the tech industry would imply it is particularly present there. Something may be endemic to a place, and rare, if it is even rarer elsewhere. It’s basically a comparative term as I understand it (saying that something happen here that doesn’t happen elsewhere, or happens more here than elsewhere).And in reality, there are probably few industries in which women are less likely to be sexually harassed than in tech.
Now ‘epidemic’ is certainly a word many feminists clearly do not understand.
LikeLike
I would note that you may be right about ‘tougher’ chores, ambiguous a word though that may be. But one area in which Jack is definitely right is regarding dangerous chores. Boys’ chores are on average far more dangerous. Why do boys make up nearly all juvenile amputations? A major contributing factor is because boys are far more likely assigned the chore of mowing the lawn than girls, and lawn mower accidents or malfunctions are a major cause of injuries requiring amputation in the US. Another reason why I don’t understand how feminists can call male disposability a myth.
In any case, I think his point is actually quite right. There’s a paradox involved: the more exposed one is to some kind of inconvenience, the less one notices it and the more comfortable one is with it. Males are undeniably more exposed to violence, injury, and competition than girls, from contact sports, schoolyard fights, more dangerous jobs, etc. This i think is why men are less afraid of violence than women and more risk-taking than women, not because they are coddled by privilege, but because they are exposed to things like that more and at a younger age.
So protecting women from the harshness of the world may get them one more step up the latter, but it makes each step after that even more difficult. It’s like keeping a kid in a sterile environment his whole childhood to protect him from germs, then when he’s let out, he has virtually no immune system and is more vulnerable than he ever would have been.
LikeLike
Operating under the assumption, that Eileen Carrey doesn’t know what endemic means, the context leads me to believe she meant epidemic, which is mutually contrary with rare. To be fair I had glossed over the quote until I read Pauls comment, now I can’t come up with a reasonable and charitable interpretation of it at all.
LikeLike
So this post put me in mind of a popular story (which I can’t confirm the truth of) about a Swedish produced chainsaw with a warning on the box that reads “do not attempt to stop blade with hands or genitals”. After having a quick laugh at the thought of certain feminists riding a running chainsaw like a broomstick (the witches that they are), it occurs to me that your argument doesn’t so much illustrate that boys are bolder or are given more dangerous tasks, but rather that it highlights that more boys than girls inhabit BOTH extremes of the intelligence continuum. I’ve done some really boneheaded things as a child to get out of yard work, but never anything that could have permanently damaged me. I can’t conceive of a way in which I could have ever done anything to really injure myself in the way you describe, without intentionally doing something dangerously stupid. People who stop chainsaw blades with their genitals, or lose fingers or toes to the lawn mower, doesn’t convince me yard work is dangerous, it makes me hope they do those things before they can reproduce.
Yes there may be some validity to your larger point that bold, exploratory risk taking in childhood has pay offs as an adult, but lets not confuse intrepid with stupid.
LikeLike
She is hot.
LikeLike
I don’t think any “start ups” should be considered easy. Problem is the people who think men have it easier because of some innate privilege.
Most men who get rich does it because they are ruthless and willing to work extremely hard to get what they want. Some more than others of course.
But of course some women have the same drive, and are able to create great products.
But in the end, of all the great online products we know, how many names of creators do you really know? Most likely you know the out-ringers and eccentrics, but there are many many more creators out there.
LikeLike
There is an issue with the word “idea”. Ideas are stupid, what you want is a brilliant solution at the right time.
Take Blizzard Entertainment, they have never had an original concept ever, all of their games are “clones” of preexisting game archetypes. But what Blizzard knows how to do is take a concept/idea and make it brilliant.
Just look at the success of World of Warcraft, MMORPGs existed before it, but they became the benchmark that to this day everyone want’s to imitate
Same with facebook, sure other’s had the ideas, but Zuckerberg was able to create something that worked and that people wanted to use. And he launched at the right time. And Facebook has for a long time was the benchmark to beat. (It’s popularity fading slightly with the younger crowd.)
LikeLike
The surest way to be labelled a misogynist is to treat women the same way you treat men.
LikeLike
Here’s something Jobs actually said about Apple’s success: “We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, to be able to get the best of both, to make extremely advanced products from a technology point of view, but also have them be intuitive, easy to use, fun to use, so that they really fit the users – the users don’t have to come to them, they come to the user.”
Speaking of clever salesmen — have you heard of Dennis Hope — “the man who sells the moon?”
LikeLike
love it love love it! Can’t wait to read more of your posts. Truth, reality, and amazingness all in one post. Thank you!
LikeLike
That’s a great point about the exposure to more dangerous chores and more violence at an earlier age. Roger C. Schank, in his book “Coloring Outside The Lines,” advocates having both boys and girls play on sports teams because of the sink-or-swim-very-quickly kind of intelligence, and thick skin, it cultivates (I’m broadly paraphrasing, not having looked at the book since I read it about ten years ago).
I think it’s true that men and women bring very different things to the table in any job and any workplace, and the differences are probably due to a combination of both biology and environment. For example, it’s possible that more girls would go out for competitive contact sports if they were encouraged to do so — but it’s also highly probable that there will always be fewer girls than boys actually choosing to do so. In some ways, our biology shapes our attraction to certain sorts of environments, and conversely, the environments we choose to surround ourselves with turn right back around and shape our biological brain development — but of course, the existence of women who love contact sports and men who don’t is proof that sex chromosomes are only one part of what makes up each individual’s personality.
I’ve just re-watched a video about the growth of men in traditionally female fields like nursing, and I’m very excited about the ways that the interactions between masculine and feminine energy can totally transform these fields. I think the increase of women in traditionally male fields can be just as exciting, if both women and men are willing to adapt to each other.
About adaptation — the longtime nurse in the video I’ve linked to below talked about how different the culture of nursing was when he first started — he said it used to be expected that when doctors walked into a nurse’s station, the nurses automatically got up and gave the doctors their seats, and this was a tough thing for him to adapt to as a man who wasn’t used to deferring to anyone. But apparently, that aspect of medical culture has changed. The video doesn’t say whether the increase in male nurses catalyzed this particular change, but I’m sure that men’s presence in the field has changed the field in at least some very positive ways. Hopefully, the growing presence of women in STEM will positively affect the evolution of those fields, too.
LikeLike
I just found this blog. A freaking breath of fresh air. There is hope yet. Thanks so much for putting forth the effort.
LikeLike
Yeah came to say something about this also. There were multiple Facebook type sites started before thefacebook.
The idea is not why Zuckerberg is on top, his execution on that idea is. Same with Bill Gates, execution.
“Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does.”
The late Felix Dennis.
LikeLiked by 1 person