Green Dot was an interesting company to me. I knew a lot of people in poor and working class communities that benefited from it. Its proposition was simple with straight-forward benefit and small, easy-to-understand cost. No chance of getting in endless spiral of debt either that hit many impulse buyers. eBay friendly. Got big or dominant. Hard to tell as outsider given every company has cards these days.
Sharon, is there a good write-up on how they showed up, marketed themselves, and expanded to get to their level of success? I think lessons learned might help in many other ventures, including YC's payment investments.
I don't think anyone has ever asked for face pics when they have hired men. On the one hand, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to provide pics of the entire staff/all new hires. On the other, this comment strikes me as an expression of sexism.
That impression crossed my mind. I'm not sure, though. Remember that a lot of people are visual thinkers that prefer to have a face and/or voice associated with a name. I'm one of them. I know what most YC people referenced in these articles look like given they have pics. The key men, esp sama or pg, usually had pics in many articles or stories so no need to ask for them. I'm interested in what she looks like for image-on-name even if not having one is ultimately inconsequential.
That said, I'd be more interested in seeing how she looks, sounds, and approaches doing a marketing presentation or sales pitch. Given her track record, it would more accurately portray her in her YC role and I might even learn something. :)
One of the problems is that you can never be sure. I seem to be the highest karma woman on HN. I have had someone high on the leaderboard tell me he just does not see women treated differently here. I am clear I have been treated differently and I have worked extremely hard to shut down problematic kinds of attention, as well as bad habits on my end that I did not realize were a problem when I first showed up.
Sexism usually presents itself not as some blatant and obvious different standard, but as a subtler pattern of behaviors. It ends up being maddeningly difficult to get other people to see it.
In fact, it took me an extremely long time to conclude that my gender was a problem on HN because it is a remarkably well-behaved environment. I am only able to recognize certain issues because of experiencing the pattern more blatantly elsewhere.
Yet, the reality is that I am a very prominent woman on HN and I remain extremely poor. The connection between my gender and my poverty seems blatantly obvious to me. I have extremely good reason to believe that if I were male, I would be taken far more seriously and people would promote my work. I would have more traffic, and that would result in more income and I would find it easier to get useful feedback.
Of course, no one owes me any of that. But it is, nonetheless, a source of enormous frustration for me. Thus, I feel it matters that I speak out. No one seems to even notice the glaring example that the highest ranked woman here is desperately poor and homeless while the highest ranked men are all quite comfortable and I am reasonably confident that at least two of them are self-made millionaires.
When there are as many self made millionaire women on the leaderboard as there are self made millionaire men, then you can tell me that remarks like the one above -- which is, happily, currently flagged to death-- are not an expression of sexism.
> It ends up being maddeningly difficult to get other people to see it.
Have you got some specific examples? I'm interested if it's simply that there are people who are sexist (that seems fairly obvious every few days, although it seems to be called out here more than in other places), or something you see on HN overall. (which I can't say I'm really aware of (apart from the technical work with woman's name on it always gets pointed out as something that a woman did))
> The connection between my gender and my poverty seems blatantly obvious to me.
Have you ever tried/would you try using a gender-less persona behind what you're doing? (it's an actual question, not a suggestion) Assuming that's possible in your work - I don't think I ever read what it is that you do.
I am not willing to give specific examples of things on HN. That would involve talking about people here and that leads to all kinds of drama. I do blog about it sometimes. I try to do so in more general terms, to the best of my ability. On at least one occasion that I gave a specific example on my blog, it did turn into minor drama on HN.
I did try doing the genderless persona thing when I first arrived. That doesn't work for me. I also think the suggestion amounts to admitting that there is no hope that women will ever get a fair shake, so just give up. Men are not told to hide their gender. Needing to hide my gender is also a de facto barrier to equal treatment. Do I need to change my legal name and try to disguise my gender if I meet someone in person for business reasons? A genderless online persona only works online. I can't reasonably present as genderless in person or even online if someone pays me for anything.
I also am too well known at this point. I have multiple blogs. If I wish to go incognito, I would have to abandon all prior works and start from scratch on entirely unrelated projects. Furthermore, the details of my life are fairly unique. It would be enormously challenging to hide who I am. Anyone who recognizes me would pretty readily recognize me under a new handle.
I have thought about it, quite a lot in fact. I believe that is a non-starter. Furthermore, I see progress on gender parity on HN. So, I think that's the way to bet: On further promoting gender parity here.
This is going to sound harsh, but I really mean it to be constructive: have you considered the possibility that you are treated differently not because you are a woman, but because you go out of your way to draw attention to the huge chip on your shoulder? There's a big difference between "Being a woman is a handicap in the tech world" and "I am a very prominent woman on HN and I remain extremely poor. The connection between my gender and my poverty seems blatantly obvious to me." (which to me reads like: I am poor because I am a woman, a position that is debunked by the very post to which this comment thread is attached). I think you will find a lot of sympathy for the former position, not so much for the latter, particularly when you say things like:
> I am not willing to give specific examples of things on HN.
This really makes it hard to be sympathetic. If you're going to fight this fight, then you have to fight it, and you have to make your peace with the fact that fighting the good fight can sometimes be very unpleasant. When you complain but then refuse to back up your assertions with facts, you sound more like a whiner than the defender of a righteous cause. Please note that I said sound more like, not are. I believe you are in fact the defender of a righteous cause. But you aren't helping your cause when you back away from the fight like that.
you have to make your peace with the fact that fighting the good fight can sometimes be very unpleasant.
I'd like to suggest that "unpleasant" doesn't cut it. Rape threats, people posting your address online and encouraging others to visit you and do you harm, threats to your family, damaging your job prospects both directly and indirectly, causing you to live in a state of constant tension and fear (which is truly corrosive). These are real things that happen and they go beyond "unpleasant".
> I'd like to suggest that "unpleasant" doesn't cut it. Rape threats...
The reason Mz gave for choosing not to give examples of the "subtler pattern of behaviors" which she is lamenting was that this would lead to "all kinds of drama". To my mind, rape threats aren't "drama", they're crimes.
But I don't really want to quibble over terminology. If you like, you can consider "unpleasant" to be a deliberately ironic understatement. Fighting civil rights battles can exact a heavy price. Sometimes people actually get killed. I get it.
But let's not lose sight of the actual point here: at least part of the reason for the situation that Mz laments -- that people do not see the "subtler pattern of behaviors" that characterize sexism -- is that Mz refuses to point them out because she doesn't want to deal with the "drama". Again, I sympathize. It should not be the case that people have to suffer to advocate for just causes. It sucks. But alas, that is the world we live in. And Mz's unwillingness to take this fact on board tells me something about the content of her character, and also suggests an alternative explanation for her financial woes that I humbly submit she ought to at least consider.
Things that sometimes happen to people, male or female, that aggravate people on the Internet. Interestingly, most falls under the category of talking trash. Ignoring that is the solution. The next worst thing that happens is them leaking nude photos or personal information. One can immunize against a lot of that by simply not putting it out there. The last thing they might do is call people to disrupt your life. One essentially has to make some calls themselves to explain the situation. That part is still quite disruptive but rarely happens.
All in all, your counterpoint is a combination of uncommon stuff that's easy to ignore and rare stuff that shouldn't dictate the rule. The most likely outcome is a heated discussion between two parties on the forum that ends on the forum or spills onto some later comments. Strange you left that one off.
They're not common results, but they're still real, and every woman who dares to get uppity online has them in the back of her mind. The fact that they're not common isn't relevant; the chilling effect is very common.
I note that you turned the subject around and with a passive-aggressive overtone made it about me. No comment.
I don't keep a "hackernews.txt" file of all the terrible things people say here, but as a cishet white dude I can assure you all you have to do to see them is "pay attention."
You have completely missed the point. I do not deny that people say terrible things. I don't even deny that men say terrible things to women more often than other gender combinations, or that women in tech get discriminated against. It is still a very long leap from there to "the principal cause for my chronic poverty is my gender."
Stating that I see a connection is not remotely the same thing as asserting it is the principal cause.
This is a huge derail from a discussion that should be about congratulating Sharon Pope and welcoming her. Largely for that reason, I don't plan to comment further here. If I have anything more to say about any of this, it will wind up on my blog instead.
> Stating that I see a connection is not remotely the same thing as asserting it is the principal cause.
That's true, and I'm sorry if I over-extrapolated. But here is what you said:
"...if I were male, I would be taken far more seriously and people would promote my work. I would have more traffic, and that would result in more income..."
Can you see how someone might conclude that you meant it the way I interpreted it?
> This is a huge derail from a discussion that should be about congratulating Sharon Pope and welcoming her.
As a courtesy to Sharon Pope, please do not continue the discussion here. Either leave comments on the blog or, if you just absolutely need to discuss it on HN, post the blog as a separate post and have the discussion there.
> while the highest ranked men are all quite comfortable
After 2010 I spent some time homeless. Using some of the UK definition for poor I count as poor. I currently rank between 40 and 30 in https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
Others on that list have their own experiences - I think Gwern might have some stuff to add.
You might want to stop making assumptions about people you've never met.
"I have had someone high on the leaderboard tell me he just does not see women treated differently here. I am clear I have been treated differently"
I noticed. Women, if name indicates a woman, are definitely treated differently here. I can't assess how much as most comments seem to focus just on what they say. What they should focus on. I pick up on changes occasionally, even in my own posts. I try to force myself to be unbiased in how I respond to anyone here.
" It ends up being maddeningly difficult to get other people to see it."
Your blog post on how men react to women entering a tech forum was a nice start. I immediately remembered instances of what you described. Your name might also bias how they perceive you but you already know & wrote on that.
"Yet, the reality is that I am a very prominent woman on HN and I remain extremely poor."
This is sad. It just has nothing to do with being a woman online. That you learned to get upvotes on a tech site takes a different set of skills than real-world success. In the real world, it's usually who you know, how you're perceived, what you can do, and hustling for more. How you present yourself vs what those in the locale expect is one of biggest criteria in whether you'll get desired or hired. Sexism certainly becomes a factor, esp if a woman has a strong, independent personality.
"No one seems to even notice the glaring example that the highest ranked woman here is desperately poor and homeless while the highest ranked men are all quite comfortable and I am reasonably confident that at least two of them are self-made millionaires.'
I'm highly-ranked, white, male, and very poor. Few opportunities in my area close to family. Under or esp overqualified for most roles. I know a lot of people in my situation because I spend more time around real-world people than online. Similar effect where expectations of appearance, social circles, "right" experience, and so on are used to discriminate. They all do it regardless of what their race or gender is. It's the baseline with sexism, etc layering on top of that.
"then you can tell me that remarks like the one above -- which is, happily, currently flagged to death-- are not an expression of sexism."
I've read online forums and dealt with the general public for years. All kinds of women have made similar comments. Sometimes it was looking for a date but other times (most?) they just wondered what someone looked like. I didn't accuse them of sexism because that alternative, common explanation exists. The main problem I saw with comment you referenced is it added nothing to the discussion and led to a big tangent unrelated to new hire. So, I'm done with it at this point.
> No one seems to even notice the glaring example that the highest ranked woman here is desperately poor and homeless while the highest ranked men are all quite comfortable and I am reasonably confident that at least two of them are self-made millionaires.
Getting upvotes from sheeple isn't a good proxy for economically valuable skills IMO.
The fact you spend so long adding free content to a network owned by a company is indicative of poor resource management. Something that self-made millionaires excel at (from my experience).
[0]: https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-continuity-fund