The Sexism of Startup Land
Last year, an anonymous entrepreneur detailed on Forbes.com the many obstacles—and sometimes outright harassment—she faced when trying to raise money from venture capitalists while female. There were unwanted back massages and a pitch meeting at which she was asked, “Did your daddy give you money?”
It's not just the old guard doing the discriminating, she wrote:
Justin Mateen ... stated [allegedly] that having a young female cofounder at Tinder “makes the company seem like a joke” and “devalues” it. Or the comments of the male 20-something Twitter employee, who told me, “You should really hire a nerdy looking dude to represent your company publicly. You know, to make up for your looks.”
Women are now the majority of college students and about in the broader workforce, but in the startup world, they number comparatively few. According to the , they account for only about 16 percent of employers, and they make up only 10 percent of founders of so-called “high-growth” firms—startups that quickly add workers rather than fizzling out. Overall, women of all small businesses.
