zlacker

>>femfos+(OP)
A female founder acquaintance of mine (who's quite smart and capable) went on a Twitter screed a couple weeks ago. As it turns out, someone else had copied her idea, and her startup now had a competitor. The competitor was also able to raise a solid amount of money despite her being first to market and her having more relevant knowledge of the problem space (by her own estimation).

So, this scenario isn't exactly uncommon in the startup world. It happens all the time. But because she's a minority female and her competitor is a white man, it suddenly becomes an example of white supremacy and the patriarchy conspiring to oppress her. The VCs who funded the competitor? Obviously racists and sexists, and she called them out explicitly as that on Twitter.

I considered reaching out to her to offer some perspective, but ultimately demurred. Why? I didn't want to be caught in the wurlitzer. Better to let her make more problems for herself than offer a sense of perspective that could get me cancelled.

>>scarmi+6O

  So, this scenario isn't exactly uncommon in the startup world. It happens all the time. But because she's a minority female and her competitor is a white man, it suddenly becomes an example of white supremacy and the patriarchy conspiring to oppress her.

Doesn't this sort of thinking basically make these notions into a conspiracy theory? Every piece of evidence interpreted in a way that it supports the chosen narrative.

One consequence is so many opportunities for insight and thoughtful constructive reflection are lost. It's funny to me that under the guise of narratives that supposedly empower women (narratives which have also, as in the above example, been abused beyond their true purpose of calling out actual unfair bias), women are instead holding themselves back and getting in their own way mightily... and they don't seem to realize it? How can so many smart women have such a whopping blindspot to be duped into acting this way and think this is "power"?

I think it has something to do with how compelling and self-satisfying these stories are. You know, the ability to blame everyone else rather than face yourself and take personal responsibility. So, sadly i think, many people just get addicted to this as a short circuit substitute for actually doing the hard work of processing experiences and cultivating useful insights out of them. They just short circuit to feeling good temporarily, sadly prioritizing these fake stories and reasons over getting results.

It seems if a movement was really interested in empowering women it would try to address this glaring structural weakness of the current approach rather getting them hooked on these fake payoffs that don't get them anywhere :(

>>gadf+7T
In some ways, it reminds me of incel-style thinking. You pick up on some signals that you're facing discrimination. Some or many of them are real. But then you elevate that discrimination into the primary component of your identity: you're a victim, and all your failures have nothing to do with things you have agency over and everything to do with how society is out to get you. Entirely unrelated things get pigeonholed into the paradigm you view the world through. And as a result you never recognize that you can potentially get better results by self improvement and assuming the people you meet are operating in good faith.

>>scarmi+CU
That's an interesting parallel. It's self-victimisation, and as a result, it's also self-sabotage.

Incels badly want attention from women, but the way they act basically guarantees they will never have what they want. No self-respecting woman would ever want someone who blames them for all their suffering.

Radical, toxic feminists badly want success, but the toxic behavior they display will ensure that anyone successful and smart will do their best to stay away. No self-respecting businessperson would want to do business with someone who, given criticism they don't like, might turn on a dime and call them a horrible, sexist, patriarchal monster.

You can't have it both ways IMO. You can't say I'm a strong, independent woman, in control of my life, but any time things don't turn out the way I want, it's the fault of sexist cis-white-men. The world is not a fair place, you don't always get what you want when you want it, and sometimes, that's nobody's fault.