The Social Guy Network

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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Alyssa Royse

Aaron Sorkin is getting is getting a tongue-lashing in the feminist blog-o-sphere for his portrayal of women in The Social Network. As pointed out in New York Magazine, Salon Magazine is calling it misogynistic. Entertainment Weekly described it as “horrendous, like, ’50s-level sexist.” Even The Daily Beast thought the depiction of women as “props, buxom extras literally bussed in to fill the roles of doting groupies, vengeful sluts, or dumpy, feminist killjoys” was beastly.

Weird. As someone who considers herself a feminist, and spends more time than most in the tech-startup-boys-club, I didn’t feel any of that. I sat there and thought, “cool, now people will finally know what it’s like to be a woman in tech.” I don’t mean to be a vengeful, feminist killjoy, but it seemed pretty spot-on to me.

And maybe now we can finally, really, talk about why there aren’t more women in tech. Short answer – which may make more sense if you’ve seen the movie – because no one is rounding us up in busses and bringing us to the party. Long answer, it’s not a party most women would want to go to.

As Sorkin himself explains, on Ken Levine’s Blog:

I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people. These aren’t the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80’s. They’re very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men (boys) who are running the universe right now …

Pause. Sigh. Right.

Disclaimer. Some of my best friends in the world are men in the Seattle Tech Startup world. By in large, they are smart, kind, generous, funny and wonderful. However, there is a lot of truth in Sorkin’s explanation, and a lot of the guys  at the top of some of the tech companies ‘round these parts fit that bill exactly. It creates a toxic environment that oozes down through the ranks, and is just as troubling to many men as it is to women, but many men don’t feel they can stand up to it either.

The net result is an environment that is not easy for even the ballsiest amongst us to feel comfortable in. Given other options, why would anyone choose to be in an environment like that?

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, only 11% of venture backed tech companies have current or former female CEOs. Ycombinator has funded 208 companies, and only 14 of them were led by women. Why? This is a chicken-and-egg conundrum. There are not more women because there are too many men, and there are too many men because there aren’t more women.

But how does that manifest environmentally?

A recent case study in the New York Times tells the story of  Candace Fleming’s fundraising odyssey for a startup that she co-founded.

“…she recalls one venture capitalist telling her that it didn’t matter that she didn’t have business cards, because all they would say was “Mom.”
 
Another potential backer invited her for a weekend yachting excursion by showing her a picture of himself on the boat — without clothes. When a third financier discovered that her husband was also a biking enthusiast, she says, he spent more time asking if riding affected her husband’s reproductive capabilities than he did focusing on her business plan.
 
Ultimately, none of the 30 venture firms she pitched financed her company. She finally raised $1.8 million in March 2008 from angel investors including Golden Seeds, a fund that emphasizes investing in start-ups led by women.”
 
I shuddered reading this.  Here, in Seattle, when I was trying to raise money for JUST CAUSE, I had  similar experiences.
  • The first time I pitched publicly, I was told I was too sexy to be taken seriously. (By a woman who was older and more experienced than me. A vengeful, feminist killjoy?)
  • I had an advisor tell me never to say anything intelligent in the first 15 minutes of a meeting because it would take guys that long to think I was hot, figure out if they had a chance with me, realize they didn’t and then pay attention.
  • I was told to hire a male CEO in order to raise money, which was disastrous on every level. In our meetings, people would only talk to him, even though I was the founder.
  • There was one meeting in which a room full of men were all talking about sports and ignoring me altogether. I finally had to stand up and say, “I don’t know a thing about sports, so if you want to keep doing this we’re going to have to switch to sex metaphors, unless, of course, you’re ready to get busy.”
  • One of the first major investor meetings I had alone was with a male angel who managed to bring up Seattle’s uptight feelings about kinky sex in conversation. (Wow, I’ll show him, with my current startup.)
Like Fleming, I never raised the money I needed in order to make JUST CAUSE fly. I’ll not go so far as to say that’s the reason we didn’t fly, but it’d be foolish not to cite that as a major problem. And I can’t necessarily blame my fundraising difficulties on being a woman, but can’t ignore the possibility. I will also say, as others have, that we’ve all seen some serious lame-ducks funded just because the founders and funders were friends and had a shared work history. It’s not a complaint, but an observation.
 
When you add isolated experiences like this, to the general lack of women, you can see how women would just get worn down. Or at least woefully bored with having to prove ourselves to a bunch of guys who still don’t realize that this isn’t high school any more.
 
(I’ll spare you the details of parties with these guys, at which piles of agreeable young girls flock and faun about, because nothing says, “look, see, I really am cool,” quite like a rich geek buying the affection of a woman 15 or 20 years younger than him. It’s especially cool when he’s just being played and doesn’t know it.)
 
In regards to the complaints about the women in The Social Network, I don’t see the problem. They’re real. We call them gold-diggers in the real world, and they are as bad as the men. Maybe worse. I’m glad to see them called out and portrayed in such an un-flattering way. Nevermind the women who blatantly use their sexuality to manipulate men in to getting what they want. That’s just as toxic, and makes the workplace just as hostile for those of us who won’t.
 
Without throwing stones or being snarky, some of this is really simple.
  • People are, by nature, attracted to sameness and fearful of difference. It make sense that a bunch of guys would be more inclined to hire, work with, found with and fund a bunch of guys who remind them of themselves. Whether they do it consciously or not.
  • Given a choice, most people will not choose to stay in a situation in which they do not feel comfortable.
  • The only way this will change is if we’re honest about it. No punishing, name-calling, blaming, shaming or coddling. Just honest.
I try to imagine a movie like The Social Network being made about Carly Fiorina. She would, no doubt, be portrayed as a vengeful, feminist killjoy. And the feminist blog-o-sphere would be all over that too. But the truth is, trying to constantly either prove yourself or fend off advances will make anyone vengeful, and kill the joy in being feminine. Not at all unlike, I expect, being a geek constantly rebuffed by the hot girls will make you a misogynistic pig with a constant need to prove yourself.
 
Now that’s some twisted equality.
 
It’s not that women aren’t strong enough and smart enough and creative enough to bring home the bacon. It’s that we don’t want to get it by spending our days with pigs.
___________
Alyssa Royse would like to repeat that most of the men she knows in the Seattle startup scene are awesome in every way, and most of them complain about the same things she does. She would also like to add that she loves men, has a track record of dating geeks, and is not a vengeful killjoy, even though she is totally a feminist. She LOVED The Social Network, especially that line in the opening scene where Zuck was being dumped, and the girl said something like, “you’re gonna go through your whole life thinking girls didn’t like you because you’re a nerd, but I’m here to tell you, that’s not it, it’s that you’re an asshole.” Yup.
 
Oh, and if anyone knows Aaron Sorkin, I have a story for him. 3 kickass women entrepreneurs building a startup with the sole goal of launching the next sexual revolution, the one in which women have lots of great sex. 
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