I know exactly what you're talking about. I once worked for a software company where the female engineers/managers way outnumbered the male engineers. It became known as a friendly place for female engineers to work and that, in turn, attracted more female engineers.

But that's not my point. My point is, at that company, I would often go to engineering meetings (with five to seven other people) where I was the only man in attendance. And I can tell you without a doubt that it was hard to get my opinion heard and I felt isolated.

So, I completely agree with your argument. You don't know what it's like until you've been there.

I'm a man, and I've worked as an ER/ICU nurse for the past 15 years. Being a gender FOO in a gender BAZ dominated industry can be unpleasant and challenging at times.

Not to complain, but to make the point:

* I almost got expelled from nursing school because of what I believe was discrimination towards men. I've talked to other men who've had similar experiences.

* I worked on a unit where my charge nurse repeatedly called me a "boy nurse".

* I am frequently referred to as "one of those male nurses".

* Many patients have asked me, "are you going to go on to be a doctor". When I tell them that I'm not, I hear, "Oh." and get a surprised, concerned look.

* I've had my ass pinched/slapped by coworkers. (I'm married. It's not appreciated)

* I had a coworker ask me to help with her, "fertility problems" and don't I look just like her boyfriend.

* Last week, I had a coworker come behind me and start braiding my long hair. I had to tell my coworker that I don't like people messing with my hair. Can you imagine if I did that to a female coworker at Google, IBM or Ford?

* I'm frequently around when women trade child birthing stories, or hear coworkers talk about their menstrual cycles.

* I've had bosses talk to me about how men don't really do foo very well as nurses.

* I'm frequently asked to "be a big, strong man and help me move my patient". I have back problems from 15 years of being asked to do things because of my size and gender.

* I've often been asked to care for hostile, combative, drunk or otherwise chemically altered patients, because I'm a "big, strong man".

I could go on.

Let's just say that I'm happy to mentor any man that comes into this profession. There are certain tricks of the trade that will help a lot that I've picked up along the way. And, there are benefits to being a man in this profession as well.

If the gender FOO's want to get together and help each other out or talk about how to deal with being FOO around so much BAZ... More power to them.

I'm a bit confused about the last two points. If you were a big strong female would they not have asked you to help move patients or take care of hostile patients? Were you asked to help with physical tasks because you are a man or because you are strong?

I suppose that's a good point.

In thinking about it, however, I haven't noticed when working in an ICU that stronger women are asked to care for the 400+ lb patients more often.

It is a fairly common occurrence, however for men to be asked to care for certain patients because "men are stronger". I've also been told by women that they are glad to have more men in the industry because "men are stronger".

I could be wrong, but I struggle to think of an instance where it would be okay for me to to categorize female coworkers as being inherently better or worse because of a physical attribute, however.

Somehow, I've managed to have more women bosses than men bosses in my programming career. I've never had a problem communicating with them, or felt uncomfortable voicing my opinion. I suppose that's different, though, than having the coworkers mostly female, too.

Mind you, I am not saying that I have any complaints about my own experience. The women in question have been good bosses, and mostly have let me use my own judgment in deciding how to complete the tasks assigned to me. For those of us programming as an employee, for the most part I think this is all we really want.

Maybe this is why I have a hard time accepting programs that seek to pump indifferent women into computer science/programming fields. I can't relate to the idea that women are discriminated against in this field when, more often than not, it has been a woman telling me what to do. For what it's worth, most of these women seemed more than happy to let others do the implementation and make technical decisions, while they focused more on the parts of the work that require human interaction. This is not to say that they did not understand the technical questions or were incapable of doing the implementation, just that it did not seem to interest them as strongly as the inter-personal aspects.

Having said that, I don't have any objections to this program being offered to help women entrepreneurs. I agree with the sentiments expressed elsewhere that men in women dominated fields find the same need to talk to men who have "been there" and can relate to the minority experience.

OK, I'll bite. In college my minor was archaeology, a field completely dominated (at least at my school) by women. I've been the one guy in otherwise all-women classes.

Compared to my CS classes, it was like a breath of fresh air. (I actually double-booked my afternoons, and walked out of Operating Systems halfway through class to go study ancient Peruvian pottery. It was therapeutic.) I felt like a curiosity at first, but never trivialized or resented. As always, I gravitated towards a couple other people in the department as friends, but they didn't happen to be men.

The pattern I saw was not that men (or the dominant sex) are trivializing and resentment-laden, but that specific departments were. Even the women in the CS department were into the macho-geek BS, and a lot of us men hated it.

That's why we're offended by the suggestion that there should be special anything for women in CS. A lot of us men want computing to grow up, too, and we feel excluded by these women-only programs. There's your sex discrimination.

I took a course at Mt. Holyoke in college (I'm male, Mt. Holyoke is an all-women's college). I also spent quite a while in the Harry Potter fandom, which is literally 99% female.

In neither situation did I ever feel marginalized, or excluded, or ignored. Occasionally I felt like I was an object of curiosity, but I can deal with that.

It is a bit of a culture shock, and in both situations I was careful to observe first and talk later. I saw some guys who entered fandom, immediately started acting like...men, and had a rather unwelcome reception as a result. But that's social skills 101: being aware of existing culture and norms of a group.

That said, I don't have any problem with a group like this. It's not really a sex issue: it's connecting experienced entrepreneurs with like-minded people, which is kinda the point of mentoring. Arguably, PG started YCombinator because he wanted to mentor people like himself; I don't see any reason why a group of women should not be able to do the same thing.

"It's not really a sex issue:"

Nope. It's totally a sex issue.

I still think it's a fine thing to do. But this is just a ridiculous statement.

PG's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of intelligence and ability. Here we probably all agree. This woman's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of gender. If you don't have a problem with it, then would you also not have a problem with a society that excludes women?

It's not society that's excluding anyone, it's one particular mentoring group.

I have no problem with all-male groups like the Freemasons, Boy Scouts, or fraternities.

I meant a society, not the society. I should have used a different word.

The things you've listed are all-male for traditional reasons. If someone were to start an all-male group now (like, say, an all-male mentoring group), it would generally be frowned upon. I was just wondering if you'd frown upon it also.

I'd think it kinda pointless and wouldn't participate myself, but no, I wouldn't frown upon it in a "should this exist?" way. People have a right to associate with folks they choose.

Edit: actually - I can't say that I wouldn't participate myself. Mentoring is mentoring - if I liked the people involved, I'd get involved.

I had no qualms when students at my college started a new all-male acapella group, or when they started "The Men's Project" (which, somewhat ironically, spent a lot of time discussing how to prevent violence against women).

* Mentoring is mentoring - if I liked the people involved, I'd get involved*

Yeah, but if it's a 50 year old male executive privately mentoring a 22 year old female CS grad, it might get a little creepy. Same thing goes for a 50 year old female executive privately mentoring a 22 year old new grad.

That's not to say that it's wrong for older people to mentor young people of another gender. It's just that the potential for creepiness is higher.

Not really. There are groups that are men's only and nobody bats an eye about it. (Sport teams, dating/relationship support groups). They just have to be something unique to men.

If there is some functional reason why a group might be all one sex, then few people would argue against it. For example, the way men act, think, are expected to behave, etc, in a dating/relationship setting is different from how women do; and importantly the behaviours that lead to success differ depending on whether you are male or femaile. So in that setting it'd be entirely appropriate to have a all-male or all-female support group.

Is being a startup founder like that? I don't know, but it seems plausible that it might be.

The boy scouts allow women it's just rare that one wants to join and there are lots of co-ed fraternities.

Oh yeah? tell that twelve year old me, who was not allowed to become a Boy Scout. Both of my brothers were Eagle Scouts.

How far did you push it? I've met one or two female scouts. Maybe they were ventures wearing the wrong uniform. :)

In order to correct for a demographic imbalance, you have to put extra attention on minority recruitment and retention in the group.

She is clearly discriminating based on gender, but she's doing it because of an observed gender imbalance.

Why do you consider a 50-50 gender balance "correct"? Few extend this idea of "correctness" to apply to homeless rates or prison populations.

I said no such thing.

I recognize there may be a biological reason why the gender split in our field is the way it is, but I feel it is probably mostly cultural. I'm using lots of qualifying words because I just don't know. It may be a combination of biological and cultural. But since I think there is a cultural component to the disparity, I'm sympathetic to people who make attempts to address it.

Indeed. Now add a bunch of chest-pounding chicks writing self-described "controversial rants" about the utter ridiculousness of having a group just for men to feel good about themselves.

Hell, the tone of the parent article alone is enough to justify this group. Guys: we already dominate the industry, and will for the rest of our careers. There's no need to be jerks about it. If you don't see the need for a group to which you'll never belong, just keep quiet.

I find your reply objectionable.

I believe you mischaracterised my argument or completely misjudged my tone. At no point did I suggest the original author's point-of-view was "utterly ridiculous", just that I found it frustrating and to try and emphatically explain the reasons why. There is a world of difference there. The introductory comments about it being a "controversial rant" have been mischaracterised - the idea was to try and minimise any offence to the original author, that I knew it was slightly hijacking the thread, that it may be a fringe viewpoint and that the author would probably disagree with my point-of-view. At no point was I aiming for "chest-beating", nor do I believe that was the tone of the post, but I do apologise if it came across as such. I do believe, however, that had the roles been reversed that I would not be offended if someone put their arguments forward as I did to support their point of view.

I also quite obviously disagree that I'm a "jerk", and I firmly believe that my opinion still matters despite apparently being the "wrong sex" to be able to have one on this matter and that this sort of discussion is not and should not be out of bounds.

> Guys: we already dominate the industry, and will for the rest of our careers.

What do you mean "we"? The fact that some other guys dominate "the industry" does absolutely nothing for me.

If this is like other similar efforts, it's an attempt to help connected women compete with connected men. Meanwhile, "unconnected" women and men remain left out.

Excuse me for not seeing that as a significant improvement.

> If you don't see the need for a group to which you'll never belong, just keep quiet.

Would you say that to anyone other than unconnected white men?

I'll admit that I haven't personally taken such a class - sadly it's very unlikely I'll be able to do so.

I would find it very sad if that you described happened, though. I think a male point of view would be valuable on a discussion of an issue like proto-feminism, for example. The idea that someone would get shouted down from a discussion for having a dissenting point of view to me seems bizarre assuming they facilitate the discussion, but perhaps that's just me.

I doubt you'd get 'shouted down.' The poster you're responding to never said anything like that. He (I'm assuming) suggested that you'd feel isolated, and have difficulty communicating your ideas in a way that makes you feel you're being understood.

This could happen (to a man in such a class, or to a woman in a male-dominated workplace) with no one shouting at anyone, or expressing any kind of hostility, or even really doing anything wrong. These are difficult problems.

I would place that responsibility on the person to get better at communicating. People of the opposite sex aren't aliens. It should be possible to get your ideas across if you put effort into understanding their world view.

Now, if your ideas are not received because of existing prejudice, that's a different issue.

I've always heard things like "I think you'll find that you're lonely." Hm. Well, yeah, I (male) do find that! But it doesn't seem to matter where I am or what "group" I'm in, I'm lonely as hell. I connect on a meaningful level with a very low percentage of people. Most of the others can be classified as disconnected from me and apathetic about me (not "wrong" per se) or actively malignant, in that they are bullies or otherwise seek to use\abuse me, probably in a totem pole ego gratification move or just in a political\profit based one.

I dunno. I think what it comes down to is that in most things, male\female is much the same experience, even if it expresses it self in different ways. You can rant on about all the sucky hard experiences one side gets, but I think if you really look, you'll find the otherside has a very similar set of problems as well.

"Now imagine going through that every day in your college career."

Except for the US college system is dominated by women. There are roughly 6.4 million men and 8.7 million women currently enrolled in college. By 2016 the gap will jump to 7 million men and 10.3 million women. And since the top colleges can get away with accepting more men to even out the gender ratios, that means the median college classroom is entirely dominated by women except for a few niche departments like computer science and physics.