Female networking groups

Posted by Brian Milnes on November 12, 2008 under Miscellaneous | Be the First to Comment

If I understand, the perspective is that “blokes
stereotype women”?

e.g. A woman going into a bar feels intimidated because all the
blokes think “ah, there’s a lone women and _ _ _ _ _ _“

          (as
opposed to a lone bloke going into a bar and all the blokes thinking “_ _
_ _ _ _”)

e.g. At a tech ventures event, women are not perceived as likely
to be technically savvy, or have any business nous, so they are unfairly discriminated
against?

e.g. In business, in life, women are still the subject of
discrimination, bigotry and prejudice, and therefore feel the need to congregate
together in order to further their goals?

So to develop an analogy, would the best way to counter such stereotyping
and prejudice among non-whites be to create a “Blacks in Business”
networking group, or an “Asians in Technology” event?

Or would some other way of countering those antiquated
prejudices be more useful? How could we create a more gender-neutral entrepreneurial/business/technocratic
environment?

Brian

 

 

From: [address removed]
[mailto:[address removed]] On Behalf Of Simone
Sent: 12 November 2008 15:24
To: [address removed]
Subject: Re: [entrepreneur-1056] Female networking groups

 

Martine,

 

Wow, I have been away for couple of hours and so much
discussion on the topic.

 

We have started http://www.thenextwomen.com
in order to profile women led, founded or invested companies in the internet
industry. At the FT, Techcrunch, or Red it just not happens. Also, on a lot of
internet industry events, camps, or bars women won’t pitch, speak or show up.
 In VC only 3% of the $$$$ is picked up by women, in venture debt none. So
there is a gap. We started the female internet heroes database, brainstorm
events, breakfast meeting in reaction to this.

 

Men are allowed to come to the Female Internet Heroes Event
on December 3, 2008. Also on their own. You are welcome! Listen to women
speakers, pitches and feedback.

 

regards,

 

Simone Brummelhuis

 

 

Op 12-nov-2008, om 12:24 heeft Martine het volgende geschreven:

Just
afew personal thoughts here:

 

Women
are capable of holding their own in normal mixed company socially and in the
main professionally.

 

The
only issue – and a major one at that – that I come up against all of the time
is that people think that because I am a woman I must be simply a
communications expert. In fact I have been in deep technology for many years of
the 22 I’ve been in industry – what I mean by that is AI, intelligent
networking, telco billing, software development, tools etc etc and mostly from
a market and business development perspective into challenging projects and
requirements – so I know my onions.

 

However,
I have had one man roll his eyes (and add the qualifier – ‘well,
if you can understand .. ‘) when I asked him to give more depth about what
his needs were involving queueing theory (in defence sims) .. an IBM guy a good
number of years ago tell me that IBM didn’t emply women in business development
.. and many such examples.

 

So,
my point is that it is useful to have women-only networking for women to find a
forum where people (hopefully) won’t roll their eyes and pre-judge based on
gender. There is also the opportunity for women who have been through the mill
like me to help younger execs who undoubtedly will still encounter this
behaviour if they are working in sectors that men don’t expect women to be in,
doing jobs that men don’t expect women to do.

 

Hope
that is of some help. Martine

 

 

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style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>—–Original Message—–
From: [address removed] [mailto:[address removed]]
On Behalf Of Brian Milnes
Sent: 12 November 2008 11:58
To: [address removed]
Subject: [!! SPAM] [entrepreneur-1056] Female networking groups lang=EN-US>

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Dear
all,

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>This
thread of conversations regarding Female-only networking groups reflects a
frequent conversation between my wife and I.

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>•
What value do such groups provide?

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>•
Are women incapable of “holding their own” in mixed or
predominantly male groups?

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>•
Is it not discriminatory? (& would a male only networking group be
perceived as so?)

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Are
examples of questions I’m interested to hear your views on.

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Regards

style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Brian

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