Startups and Gender Equality

Panel discussion with Holly Harrington, Karen Yu and John Fan




PicCollage is...


Fun, Creative, International




cofounders



software developer
product manager and UIUX designer


team activities





User feedback

At PicCollage, we always get user feedback on our product... 
so let's get some feedback on this topic from startup founders.
http://tinyurl.com/taiwan-startup-survey

I sent the survey to prominent members of the startup community in Taipei, and quickly got 38 responses (68% female).


75% were startup founders, and the rest were 
investors, company employees, or in related organizations.







 Women thought much more about the issue than men.

Women gave an average rating of 3.25 (out of 5)
Men gave an average rating of 2.4 (out of 5)


Lower inequality in startup ecosystem than in Taiwan society overall.


Comments on gender equality in Taiwan:


"I think it is really important to have gender equal in tech space as a start to change everything."


"Taiwan is one of the most gender-friendly countries I know. My past employers, from Yahoo to TrendMicro, were all led by women. I never saw an issue with "women inequality" or discrimination at work."





Men focused on "gender stereotypes" as a problem.


But women thought that "unequal opportunities, unequal rewards, lack of role models, investor bias" were bigger problems.


"我是一個女性創辦人，我在第一間公司（十年）以及現在的StyleUp online Magazine app因為我的積極與熱情沒有任何創業問題。但是身邊有許多亞洲女性，不相信自己是可以創業，多數原因是因為 創業環境，政府，社會觀感反對。 
I am a female founder, In my the first company (for ten years) and now the StyleUp online Magazine app , because of my positive and enthusiasm without any entrepreneurial problems. But there are many Asian women around me , do not believe that they can start a business, most of the reason is because the entrepreneurial environment, government, social perception against."



"Lack of startup mentors and role models is a big problem for Taiwan startup ecosystem in general. For this issue, there's no distinct difference between female and male."


"In my last two startup, there were no women in the decision making circle. All male. I think that's a huge problem. Therefore my new startup has a very strict rule that there must be equal gender on decision role."





Comment: 

Surprisingly, women rated their significant others as more supportive (4.3) than men did (3.3).  Here are some possible explanations:

- There may be some selection bias in that I mostly selected established startups for this survey, so perhaps only people who had supportive partners could end up keeping their startups going.

- Another theory that someone brought up is that women have lower expectations, so they gave higher ratings...


Significant Other


"He push me to lead the whole team."
"He shows his respect for my work. He also takes care of the baby when I have to work in the weekends."
"He believes that I should spend my time in doing something I believe in, especially something that can make a difference in society."
"Supportive but still gave the comment that sometimes working time is too long."

Family

"我的父母教導我對自己負責任。與亞洲父母不同."
"They offer to give us seed funding."
"They respect my need to spend all my time on it."
"My parents always help out taking care of my baby when I have to work."
"It took a few years to get my parents on board but now they are very supportive."
"They don't really understand what I do. Also, they are concerned that I have no income."
"Sometimes still asked to go find a job in government or big corps."

Imbalance at Tech conferences

Technical teams are imbalanced, but overall teams are more balanced.





Most people thought improving gender equality was important for startup success, but more women thought so than men did.

Gender Equality for Startup Success?

"Women are talented! More talent."
"It's about perspective. Female has completely different view on things which is important."
"Generally it's good to have a healthy male/female ratio in a team to make the work dynamics and ideas more balanced."
"Diverse perspectives are beneficial."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Don't bother thinking about it before you're successful."
"Skill set is way more important than gender balance."
"I believe start-ups should hire capable people in the right positions. The issue is not about gender."

Solutions?


How can government help?

"Highlight female entrepreneurs, show women doing stereotypically male jobs."
"台灣政府鼓勵新創事業多數都雇用太多年紀稍長的官員，顧問。我認為完全沒有幫助。"
"More gender balance within the group could possibly lead better creativity."

 


"The government should look at its own gender diversity problem. We have a female president now but the people in power are still predominantly male."

"Anything involving the government would be a bad idea."

How to improve education?

"Education system should be changed to support innovation in general, but also to provide equal opportunities for women to excel in leadership roles."
"亞洲女性長期教導『三從四德，只要嫁人聽男人的話』我認為，女性應該被教導有良好教育，有個人意見，懂得運用女性特質，良好溝通，尊重另一半...非常適用在職場."
"Gender roles and expectations need to be changed."


"Actively recruiting more women or men into various fields that trend toward on gender would be helpful."
"The education system needs to be changed indeed, but not to improve gender equality but to flourish more creative thinking."
"Encourage all students and teachers to take STEM seriously."
"The whole education system is wrong."




Female Tech Groups?

"Girls feel safe in a girl-only environment."
"In female-only context, yes, you get to fully appreciate the extent to which women are just as amazing as men."
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"I actually don't think that we need tech groups that targeted women only.  We can try to invite more women to speak or attend conferences or tech events." 

Ideas


Encourage more female speakers at tech conferences (69%)

Invite prominent women from Silicon Valley to visit Taiwan (46%)

Allow students to more easily change majors in college (42%)

Provide free tickets to female devs at tech conferences (33%)

Gender-blind resume screening (33%)

Military (or alternate) service for women (18%)

[The number is the % of respondents who were in favor of each idea.]







Final Comments

"One idea could be that television/media could have a healthier way of portraying gender roles."
"The lack of women in tech is more on the leadership side, so more work is needed to get women to take the plunge as CEOs."
"As long as women are confident and assertive, we are just as capable as men, even tougher in my mind..."



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