She posted a comment on her social media focusing on this feedback as "criticism" that came from a sexist guy "of course". It was pretty easy to draw the line to the three panelists, one of whom was a guy. Ouch.
In a previous life, I'd worked in a awesome (female led!) product company. While I had no experience prior to this, I quickly realized that the product itself and its quality etc was almost irrelevant to success, the X and Y mentioned by the male panelist was unfortunately everything, which you'd only know if you were in the space itself. The female led company I worked for was bought out by a (male led) competitor, who then using much strong x and y skills - cleaned up. Company I worked for got basically nothing.
Fast forward - my friends business not doing so great, she asks me for feedback. I said nothing other than enthusiasm. Partly because I was really enthusiastic - she'd put her heart into this project. But her comment on social was in my mind - I had no desire to be next sexist guy "shooting down" an idea
She's out of the business I think mostly. Anyways, this parallels the take of the article.
Background - I'm actually on the left a fair bit. So one issue - you are not supposed to really ask minorities / women to explain / teach you / help you deal with these issues because it in fairness burdens them. I'm not looking for that either.
In terms of my colleague who I'd mentored in past (before things had gotten more extreme). I think others have made good suggestions - do you want some suggestions that may have already been made (it's never truth really - just another persons guess) or comfort.
Thank you for pointing this out. You’re absolutely right on this one, and I would retract my suggestion if HN allowed me to edit the previous comment.