{"id":1576,"date":"2010-08-31T20:20:35","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T03:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talesfromthe.net\/jon\/?p=1576"},"modified":"2010-08-31T20:20:35","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T03:20:35","slug":"women-in-technology-startups-a-few-things-you-can-do-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2010\/08\/31\/women-in-technology-startups-a-few-things-you-can-do-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in technology startups: a few things each of us can do (DRAFT)"},"content":{"rendered":"

DRAFT!\u00c2\u00a0 Work in progress, feedback welcome!
\nrevised version intended as a two-part series on NWEN’s blog<\/a><\/span>
\n
\n\"WWII<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a numbers game. There are far fewer women in tech than men. So anyone genuinely interested in changing the ratio and evening out the balance, has to more than meet women halfway …<\/p>\n

— Cindy Gallop in No One’s Blaming Anyone<\/a> on WIMN’s Voices<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shira Ovide\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Wall Street Journal<\/em> article Addressing the Lack of Women Running Tech Startups<\/a> kicked off the latest women-in-technology firestorm, and Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch <\/em>rant\u00c2\u00a0 <\/em>Too Few Women In Tech? Stop Blaming The Men.\u00c2\u00a0 Or at least stop blaming me<\/a> sent it into overdrive.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The list of 30+ links on Liminal States<\/em><\/a> includes views from the Seattle area community in Sasha Pasulka’s excellent Stop Telling People How They Should Feel About It<\/a> on Seattle 2.0<\/em>, Cameron Sorden’s Women in Tech, Men in Tech, and the Blame Game<\/a> and my own \u00c2\u00a0Fretting, Asking, and Begging Isn’t a Plan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Good stuff!<\/p>\n

One consistent theme in the responses to Arrington’s post is that blame isn’t helpful.\u00c2\u00a0 The underlying causes of gender inequity and other diversity problems in the tech industry are complex, including education, cultural norms, the advantages of the “old boys club”, and sexism.*\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 Most people I talk to, no matter what their gender, agree that it would be a better if the industry and their organization were more balanced.**<\/p>\n

So how to make progress?\u00c2\u00a0 Here are a few things each of us can do:<\/p>\n