Women found just TWO out of every HUNDRED US tech startups

Just 2 per cent of US technology startups and less than 1 per cent of UK startups are founded by a female entrepreneur, according to researchers. A study from the Global Entrepreneurship Development Institute (GEDI – which we're told is pronounced "Jedi") found that while gender inequality amongst entrepreneurs exists in all …

[The Mole]

"Aidis points to educational efforts to encourage female students to take an interest in and pursue STEM fields as having the potential to change the business climate and change the business climate and make the startup space more viable for women."

The whole article talks about the fact there are less woman managing startups, it just gives the numbers providing no evidence of why there may be such a disparity, then at the end implies that it is the business environment which is the reason (somehow it is unviable). Even the quote saying this seems to give the reason that (rightly or wrongly) woman aren't generally as interested in STEM fields or potentially the risky endeavor of starting a startup.

Perhaps their are valid reasons - maybe banks/investors are less likely to lend to female entrepreneurs? Or perhaps it is just that woman and men don't always (on average) want the same things?

[jonathanb]

How many women vs men start up in other business fields, such as fashion designing? That gives you an idea about whether or not the problem is with access to finance, or whether there is just a lack of suitably qualified women.

I've only ever seen one pair of women try to set up a technology business. They thought that a 10 week course in Frontpage Express at their local community college would equip them with the skills required to set up an internet business (back in 2000 when everyone was trying to get in on the dot.com boom). They weren't successful.

Having said that, around the same time, jellyworks.com plc (run by a couple of men) raised a huge amount of money on the stock market when they didn't even have a website and nothing more than some back-of-an-envelope plans to create one that didn't come to anything.

[There is a website at that domain today, but the domain is now in new ownership, and has nothing at all to do with Ed Gunian or Jonathan Rowland who floated the original jellyworks.com company.]

[dogged]

> How many women vs men start up in other business fields, such as fashion designing?

Oh, pick something neutral like bakeries or publishers, please. Fashion is not exactly a field with equal gender interest and you know it.

[Tom 13]

Re: Oh, pick something neutral like bakeries or publishers,

I don't have a problem with the counter-example. Picking an industry that if we were to assume stereotypes are 100% accurate ought to have a similar ratio but in the reverse direction can make the point quite well. To some extent it does. Regardless of what industry you pick, for the most part men have an easy time making it in the same field, as one of your proposed counter examples (bakeries) indicates.

The problem I have is essentially the one the first poster was pointing out. These studies are a lot like the ones that correlate say educational success with the latitude of your house and then say that if you live in the US there are educational advantages to living closer to the north pole. There's no proposed causal mechanism that can be examined to see if there is something that can be modified. I'll also point out something they haven't. Being a male on the support side of the house when I went to conventions for Service Desk Managers I noticed most of the attendees are female. During a discussion with one of them they said "Yeah, according to surveys about 80% (IIRC) of Service Desk Managers are women."

[Oninoshiko]

You are assuming that our industry has an equal gender interest. There are woman interested in technology, and there are men interested in fashion. Neither is within the (good or bad, your call) stereotype.

[Christopher E. Stith]

Expectations

With 40% of new firms started by women and 17% of technical degrees going to women, one might expect 7% or so of tech startups to be from women. Even with that low number, 2% is a significant departure from the raw numbers. Some sociology about what women and men value , statistically, in a career option might help make sense of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Women found just TWO out of every HUNDRED US tech startups

Where were the other ninety eight hiding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Women found just TWO out of every HUNDRED US tech startups

Doesn't matter where the other 98 were hiding, women are just lousy at hide-and-seek.

Anon. because, well, I'm hiding...

[Breen Whitman]

It isn't necessarily a negative thing that women arent in these sectors. Women may be starting other projects such as an HR business, marketing business, or other business that doesnt produce anything tangible.

Also, a startup is hard work, and produces future uncertainty. At any point in time a woman is preparing for child birth so it is understandable she may not wish to accept hard, or skilled work.

[Trevor_Pott]

"At any point in time a woman is preparing for child birth so it is understandable she may not wish to accept hard, or skilled work."

Wow. Just wow.

Look, I'm often accused of being the resident chauvanistic pig, but...that's not okay.

First: "At any point in time a woman is preparing for child birth." <-- What? What? Do you have any idea what fertility rates are like in western nations? Even with massive fertility amongst immigrant populations, the US is at 2.01 children per woman, the UK is at 1.90, Australia is at 1.77 and Canada is at a whopping 1.59! Fertility rates need to be at 2.2 children per woman to achieve flat replacement of the population.

This means that there are a heckofalot of women that are choosing not to have children. Like, for example, my wife. At no point was she every "preparing for child birth" nor does she have any plans to ever do so. What the hell kind of outmoded, retrograde, chauvinistic asshattery assumes that all women are at all times nesting and getting ready to fire the vagina cannon?

Secondly: so what if women are preparing to have a kid? That's what parental leave is for. If a woman can't have a kid and return to the workforce then that is society's problem, and an indication we fucked up somewhere along the line.

Also note that I said "parental leave". That means maternity and paternity leave. If the woman is the high earner than it might make sense for the man to take the responsibility of child-rearing on. It doesn't take long to push a larva out, and if the lady wants to breast feed she can either have the brat brought to work or use the machine to put the milk in the bottle.

We have technological and sociological advances that mean child birth doesn't need to interfere with work. If it does, then that - right there - is a women's rights issue.

I may be hugely against bullshit like "affirmative action", but not being able to work due to squeezing out a larva is absolutely, 100% the sort of thing that our societies should have solved by now.

[Barbarian At the Gates]

Maybe...

There aren't very many women starting up tech businesses because they are smarter than that.

Given the "bro" culture, the propensity to build high pressure work environments built more on bull-pucky and egotistical posturing and just flat out mysogyny in tech culture...most women can find better things to do with their time.

[Craigness]

Re: Maybe...

If there was really a "Bro" culture, wouldn't women want to set up on their own to get away from it?

[Don Jefe]

Duck & Cover - Generalizations Follow

As a rule, women find absolutely no joy in startups. I've been in a few, and our group fully funds 13 endeavors in various fields, and only one of those has a woman as a member of senior management at the founding. We get several 'dreamers' in the pile every year that appoint their wife with a different name, or their girlfriend, as an executive, but no actual 'real' startups. You know why I think that is?

Startups are appealing to guys the same way 'hunting' women is appealing. It's fast, there's zero discipline in 98% of successful startups, no organization, little logic and just shitloads of hyper aggressive behavior. No matter what the title on the overpriced business card says, or what they'd have you believe, nobody gets to do 'just their job'. If there are any startups in your area start watching. If the CEO isn't taking out the garbage while the rest of the management team is cleaning the office then something's bad wrong. You do what has to be done, when it has to be done or you fail. Somebody who is willing to sacrifice a decent family life, or nights out with friends/partners is going to come along and have the same skills as you, and they'll take your business away from you.

Playing startup is a young mans game. It will suck the fucking life out of you and if you manage to make it fly it's highly unlikely you'll have the same people in your life as when you started. No sane person wants that. In all honesty, most people who make startups work are unhinged to some degree. That's why they can make the business work. If you do what logic, or the resident MBA, says I'll just be selling your IP to cover part of my losses when the crying is all over. Women suck at thinking like that, and I'm glad. I would just hate it if my wife was insanely aggressive.

But you know what women are good at (in business)? They can manage 15 simultaneous problems, stave off internal conflicts and see everything as it relates to everything else. Very few guys can truly do any of that well, no matter what they tell you. From a purely financial standpoint, once we decided to let women learn letters and cipher it was a big mistake not to have them in senior roles in a lot more companies. Hilariously, the more actively opposed a company is to women in senior roles, the more that company will likely benefit from women in senior roles.

All this study 'reveals' is that the hyper aggressive, oversimplified and moderately unstable attitudes most startups need to get past startup aren't very prevalent in women because it's an awful fucking attitude. As I've said before, if a woman isn't doing something it's probably because she doesn't want to, not that she can't. The authors of this study should go out and study, not sit around in front of spreadsheet that reflect zero useful information.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Duck & Cover - Generalizations Follow

I was with you until I realised you were applying all negative stereotypes to men and all the positive stereotypes to women. In my industry over the past ten years I have met zero women in a technical role. I look forward to the day I meet one but they just don't seem to exist.

[Don Jefe]

Re: Duck & Cover - Generalizations Follow

Technical fields/roles and founders/management of companies aren't necessarily the same thing. There are next to no women in my field doing technical work, but plenty in management roles in post-startup companies.

For non management roles I think some of the other commenters nailed it: The different genders have different proclivities. Some roles are highly unlikely to ever exhibit gender distribution inline with the gender distribution among the general population. To expect different is just silliness and guarantees that for every 'gender affirmation hire' you've got at least two people shoehorned into roles they can't fulfill at the highest levels because they're simply in the wrong place. But that's not what the article was about.

The article focused on women in founding roles at startups. Startups represent everything most women can't stand and that's not going to change, especially if the startup is funded with outside investment.

The most important parts of successful startups have almost nothing to do with the product or service being sold, and almost everything to do with pushing everything as fast and hard as possible. When it goes over the edge of the cliff, if it doesn't fly, then so be it. You turn around and try again. Just everything about that is extremely unattractive to most women.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Duck & Cover - Generalizations Follow

Dear AC,

I was downsized out of financial sector, did 18 months general IT contracting around the M25 and 2 years ago set up my own consultant biz in computer security. I'll skip the stereotypical comments about just being eye candy and the token blonde on the team photos. If you got da skillz and the motivation then there is a whole world of opportunity out there. The croissants are better over here too.

[SisterClamp]

Re: Duck & Cover - Generalizations Follow

"I have met zero women in a technical role."

My first degree was technical, in Computer Science, back in the 80s and I'll put my knowledge of software (and a bit of hardware) up against anyone. None of this modern Informatics, Business Technology shite, but real bloody PDPs with assembly languages (note the plural), LISP, hands-on electronics, and microprocessor control systems. Imo, you can't even find a knowledgeable MALE in a technical role nowadays, present El Reg reader generation excluded. ;) The young men, particularly those not in OSS development, have got a fine line on the bullshit, but not much else.

As for female entrepreneurs, it's culture. I'm seeing it here in s-e Asia. The weekend papers keep blaring about "encouraging" women to "start businesses", but if you don't give them basic respect and equality to begin with (societal expectations of the way women should dress, learn, talk and behave), then you aren't going to get a lot of females poking their heads above the battlements. Sometimes guys, it's just too damn exhausting merely reading the newspaper.

PS Note the latest book on Ada Lovelace. "A Female Genius". OMFG!

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Duck & Cover - Generalizations Follow

Wait...Lovelace was a genius? I thought she was just a mathematician and programmer. That doesn't mean "genius". Now, the Admiral, her I'm pretty sure was a genius...what am I missing about Lovelace?

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Duck & Cover - Generalizations Follow

I can introduce you to many. And they are all better at tech than any man I've ever met.

[DN4]

I wonder what will be next. Women are underrepresented among world dictators?

Is it really necessary to make gender-balanced every bloody definable group of people, no matter how good, bad or odd the group is?

[pompurin]

Seemingly so yes. Every board must be 50% men and 50% women and reflect the ethnic makeup of the country to an exact percentage point. I wonder how many Jedi police officers there are in Brighton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on figures from thereg passim http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/28/brighton_tops_uk_jedi_league/ and the uk ONI (2001, so a little dated but close enough for govt work 307 plods per 100k , brighton pop 150k) http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/policemen-declare-that-their-religion-is-jedi/ teh answer is less than 12. probably a whole lot less

[Trevor_Pott]

I thought every board had to be 75% women, 25% men, "to make up for the sins of other people's grandfathers and how they repressed women" or somesuch.

[dan1980]

"Aidis points to educational efforts to encourage female students to take an interest in and pursue STEM fields as having the potential to change the business climate and make the startup space more viable for women."

So, is the problem that there are some societal factors preventing women who WANT to found tech startups doing so or simply that they do not "take an interest in" those areas?

If the latter, why must this be changed?

Two things always seem to be assumed: that 'under-representation' of women is due to <insert sexism here> and that having a higher percentage of women in a job (regardless to what job) is a good thing.

Neither of these ever get adequately explained and are just taken as fact.

The truth is that men and women are different, as a whole. If you don't accept that then, well, best of luck to you. Being different, there are different focusses and different values - different outlooks and different priorities. Women and men have, overall, different mindsets and emotional makeups.

My stance is, and has always been, that when taken as a generalisation (and there is no other way to do it) this amounts to certain jobs and careers being better suited to one gender or another. It's not a hard rule and it's not across the board. Further, it doesn't even mean that a woman will do better in job X and a man will do better in job Y so much as that job X will be more appealing to women where job Y will be more appealing to men.

Yes, it's all a massive generalisation, but so are these studies.

Yes, some jobs and sectors could benefit from additional female involvement but that is because men and women are different, meaning that women can bring something different to the table!

[Mark 85]

Well said, Don.

Have an upvote.

The day for political correctness in these studies has long since passed. Same for the race studies or any other that come up. If they really want to know why, take the time to study the culture/family type the person was raised in and what actually goes on in the brain with thought processes and emotion. It's really not about bigotry.

I've met a few women over the years who did well in a combat (military) situation. But not all. Some will scream I'm being sexist but no, there's differences just as a proportion of men won't do well in the same situation.

It hasn't a damn thing to do with prejudice as most study authors would have us believe.

[Goat Jam]

What a load of bollocks

FACT: Women are risk averse and prefer to follow the path that promises the most security.

FACT: Women are just not that interested in "computers" or tech in general.

It really is as simple as that. Trying to sheet the blame onto nasty men and their evil "business environment" is so mind numbingly stupid that it would take a gibbering feminist to come up with the idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What a load of bollocks

Yes, I agree that

" Trying to sheet the blame onto nasty men and their evil "business environment" is so mind numbingly stupid"

However, so is your generalization about "Women" in this and probably other topics too. That's like me suggesting just because I know of a gay guy, all men are therefore gay, yourself included.

have a nice day.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: What a load of bollocks

"Women are risk averse and prefer to follow the path that promises the most security."

You and I meet very different women.

"Women are just not that interested in "computers" or tech in general."

Lolwut? Women love tech. Women don't like tech support. And really, who can blame them? There isn't much chance to socialize (something I am given to understand their gender has a greater predisposition towards) and people are - in general - really dickish to techies.

Now, there certainly are some hard-boiled introverts amongst the ladies, and I find that a lot of these are easily tempted to the dark side of IT. But there are, on the whole, fewer hard-core introverts amongst the fairer sex and that leads to less interest in spending one's career solely amongst the things that go "ping".

Now, give the average non-introverted lady a chance to use proper high tech in a social setting and she's all over it. Not only that, the ladies seem to have an easier grasp of applied technology, at least according to the profs at the local polytechnic. Dentistry? Vet tech? Surveying? Oilfield work? The ladies grok the machines in half the time as the lads. Personally, I believe it's because when they don't know what's going on they summon another lady and ask for help. Macho culture sort of prevents this amongst the young sirs.

"Men are more technically oriented" is a myth. Men are more socially isolated, and so they cope with - and seek out - jobs that are less social. It's as simple as that.

Make development or systems administration a social activity and watch the ladies flock to it. Of course, then you'll chase away the men (and women) who chose the job specifically because it was isolated. Oh well, it's all about which lobby group is the loudest...

[Goat Jam]

Re: What a load of bollocks

Mr Potts said: "Women love tech"

My response is that that may be so, but they don't give a shit about understanding how it works.

Mr Potts again: "Now, give the average non-introverted lady a chance to use proper high tech in a social setting and she's all over it"

See my comment above.

The truth is that human beings are evolutionary creatures. Men have evolved to take risks (hunting, warfare) and women have evolved to seek security (align herself with the strongest warrior/hunter in order to secure the survival of herself and her offspring).

No amount of feminist indoctrination is going to change that fact. Casting yourself in the role of White Knight and rushing to the defence of da wimmins won't change it either.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: What a load of bollocks

Dude, you're completely full of shit. You're simply cloaking steaming misogyny in a false understanding of evolutionary biology. "Women" aren't a homogenous group. Neither are men. The last bottlenecks in our genome were far enough back that we've diversified a great deal and you must take people as individuals, not some stereotype that makes you feel good because it conforms to your extant biases.

Also: I don't know where you get this "white knight" bullshit from. I'm an egalitarian masculist that has all sorts of problems with the modern feminist movement. Most people who talk about things like "women in tech" would simply outright call me a chauvinist.

You're so full of shit your eyes are brown. Lots of women are interested in how tech works. Many of them who read this magazine and a few that write for it from time to time. I know at least a dozen techs that I would stake my life are better than you will ever be, and have a passion for understanding the guts of the gizmo that you will never begin to comprehend.

There is fuckloads wrong with the gender-warmongering feminist movement...but on this matter, sir, you are absolutely in the wrong.

[Goat Jam]

Re: What a load of bollocks

Trevor says: "Dude, you're completely full of shit"

My response is, well, that is possible I reckon. So?

More from Trevor: "Women" aren't a homogenous group"

Ah yes, the infamous "not all women" fallacy, I've never dealt with that before.

I don't know why it is that you consider an opinion that essentially states that women have different motivations/interests than men is the equivalent of "steaming misogyny" but whatever.

Each to his own etc,

Keep morale high Trevor.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Yet another Picketty-style retardation (YAPSR)

WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM?

Why should "percentage of tech startups founded by women" be an interesting number?

Why should it be a more important number than "percentage of houses painted in green"?

Why not consider "number of techs startups still alive after a year that were founded by women"? How about two years? Are the numbers better then or worse? Is there signal in the noise? Is the color of the front door more strongly correlated with startup survival?

How about "percentage of women not stupid enough get a slave to their work, the vagaries of the taxman and random business-unfriendly 'soak the nail that stands out' legislation"?

Why should it "tuned" somehow?

Is tuning it any more realistic than tuning the cosmic microwave background?

etc. etc. etc.

NEXT.

[Gordon 10]

Re: Yet another Picketty-style retardation (YAPSR)

"Why should "percentage of tech startups founded by women" be an interesting number?

Why should it be a more important number than "percentage of houses painted in green"?

Coz you dont get grant/corporate sponsorship money for studying green houses?

[John 156]

Why not look at the GEDI website before deciding whether to take this seriously?

http://globalgie.com/

[Anonymous Coward]

I looked at the Jedi site. http://www.templeofthejediorder.org Decided not to take them seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

discrimination

pure and simple and UTTERLY DISGUSTING!

sigh, I might have got to the wrong forum...

[dervheid]

Maybe...

They're just NOT FUCKING INTERESTED.

It's time that this sort of pointless statistic (they're ALL pointless IMO) was given the attention it truly deserves: NONE.

[Grenou]

We are too busy cleaning up after men to get time to start anything!

[Don Jefe]

The Philosophy of Messes

Ah. So you're choosing to prioritize your desires to see a mess cleaned up as opposed to making a mess of your own. That's enabling behavior :)

In seriousness, all civilization is built on the premise that an unattended mess will eventually become a big enough problem that someone will figure out a way to disappear that mess and get paid for doing so. Alternatively, the resource burden associated with having the mess dealt with becomes too great and the mess maker stops making the mess. But the latter is pansy behavior.

That's why regulatory measures don't tend to work very well. Any mess worth making is worth making big, and making a lot of money by not dealing with the mess. You can't fine people into not making messes. Someone fining you for making a mess is them acknowledging there is a mess and if they want it cleaned up they can do it themselves. The maker of the mess passes on the costs and goes right on making what someone else deems as a mess.

It's all down to a matter of will really. Somebody will blink and that makes the mess the blinker's problem.

[Sirius Lee]

Wrong focus

Earlier this week there was an article on Channel 4 (UK) in which Guru-Murthy interviewed some young woman who had been the recipient of an award for women in IT. The point of the article, of course, was gender inequality in Google. At no point did the article stop to examine other imbalances such as that 90% of nurses in UK NHS hospitals are women. Or that by 2017 60% of doctors will be women who almost exclusively will enter general practice not obstetrics, or geriatrics or general surgery.

Role on a day and there's an article on the BBC about young women creating 'tech' companies to promote beauty products. They were each (and there are many apparently) making shed loads of cash. Funny enough, there were no blokes selling these products. But that's alright.

So it seems to me that there are women starting 'tech' companies and making money but just not the way men do it. It seems to me, then, is that the complaint is that women are not acting like men. And why would they? Only from the politically correct feminist perspective is this this the problem. Is it not more reasonable that women may want to do different things to men? Or, at least, in a different way. And, if so, surely this is a good thing.

My wife has started two companies and neither is directly in technology. Both USE a lot of tech and one is even a web based company. But what she enjoys is communicating. She's happy picking up the phone for a chat or making time to go see someone for a coffee. Sitting down for hour after hour writing code (or books or poetry) is an anathema to her.

So maybe instead of lambasting companies for not employing more women to create yet more browser technology or a new web server or operating system we should be celebrating that they create different enterprises that satisfy the needs of niches that have not been served and which men may be unable to see let alone appreciate.

Oh, and one last thought. The biggest impediment to my wife starting a company was not me or even finance. It was that it may not look good in the eyes of some of her friends. In my experience the views of the friends of women are more important to them than are the views of friends to men.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Wrong focus

I wonder how many women form waste disposal companies? Or work as garbagemen? Janitors? Clean up homicide/suicide scenes? Shipping and logistics? Road maintenance? Do we count these? Do women's groups care? If not, why not? Isn't it just as important to achieve gender parity in these areas of endeavor as well?

Or are we trying to create a society in which women occupy "at least 50%" of all the good jobs, but it's considered good - or at least "okay" - for the shite jobs to be predominantly male?

[d3rrial]

Don't let the German government hear of this

Don't let the German government hear of this. They will demand an "equality quota" so that at least 1/3 of all Start-ups are founded by women. If there aren't enough women to found start-ups, then they'd just prohibit male-founded start-ups until the quota is reached again.

Or maybe they wouldn't. But they sure would want to...

[Dinky Carter]

It's even more serious than that!

Why does nobody complain about the lack of females working as Kwik-Fit tyre fitters?

What a horrible, misogynistic industry tyre fitting must be!

And the kings of the misogynists must be the refuse/garbage collectors of the UK, as I've never seen a single female refuse collector!!!!!

Obviously, it can't be due to the fact that not many women *want* to be tyre fitters or refuse collectors can it? Nooooo.... banish that sexist thought, you bigoted male knuckle-dragger!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's even more serious than that!

I always wonder why there aren't more woman in the garbage and brick layer industries myself.

I see plenty of women in marketing and sales though and I have never encountered more toxic places (in real life) than a telesales floor, casual sexism and racism is the norm (probably all kinds of other nasty isms), not to mention terrible jokes, an awful lot of cocain and very little brains.

Then there's the whole male carers in general are not as common as female, hairdressers not so common, all kinds of careers where for one reason or another people from one sex or the other goes "I don't want to do that job"

[dan1980]

Re: It's even more serious than that!

@Dinky Carter

Right you are. Nor are there cries for more male nurses, seeing as that profession is strongly skewed.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: It's even more serious than that!

"Nor are there cries for more male nurses"

Um, I know Canada and the UK, at the very least, have some pretty massive programs to get more men into nursing. The problem is bigger than just "total % of nurses", however. Men are desperately needed in fields like geriatrics and mental health but generally avoid them. Young male nurses want to work ER or trauma wards.

This leads to situations where a growing population of elderly individuals has no choice but to have a female nurse, even if they are very uncomfortable being "assisted" in their daily routine by someone of the opposite gender. (Hence why there's such a big push, at least in Canada, to get more male nurses.)

You guys don't have those programs where you are?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's even more serious than that!

Like you said, we have programs but for some reason people of various sexes decide not to join them. I was reading how the number of women going to study degrees in tech were dropping by a significant percentage, so it would seem that will inevitably lead to the number of female tech employees dropping.

[Gannon (J.) Dick]

Hmmm ...

"Women found just TWO out of every HUNDRED US tech startups"

You know this is just plain silly because ...

Men never ask directions, and if Women found only two then the other 98 have stepped away from the known universe. Some may have left "will return in ___never____ minutes" signs but women could find those, so I don't think that' the full explanation. Maybe El Reg Authors charge extra for Past Participles.