From Here to Autonomy

Death of an Entrepreneur

Somewhere around age 45 my father decided he didn't want to work anymore. He didn't tell anyone this; he may not even have told himself. He'd started his own business about ten years before and had worked like crazy. Dad's experience was in automotive print advertising sales and he'd developed a client base among local car dealerships. When he left the corporate world he had a network of clients ready to hire him to promote their dealership sales events. Some people say my Dad could sell anything.

Dad was successful initially through sheer force of will. Though his job was primarily in advertising and promotion, he personally touched every piece of the sales funnel--placing ads in the local papers, orchestrating mass mailings, being the voice of God in local TV and radio ads, donning his tuxedo on Saturday mornings and welcoming people into his clients' dealerships, and even at times selling the cars. At night, he'd come home exhausted, usually not having eaten all day. He'd loosen his tie and fix himself a drinkie winkie. Mom would ask, "How many?" Sometimes it was a number in the twenties, sometimes it was more.

For several years Dad sent out these massive mailings for his clients. He wrote and designed the materials; picked them up from the printer and then personally dropped off boxes of mailers, envelopes, and reams of names and stamps at the homes of my mom's girlfriends. They would hand-address, stamp and stuff, making maybe 40 bucks per job. For particularly big jobs my Dad employed his kids. It took a while before I was allowed to write on the envelopes--Dad wanted the writing to look professional--but eventually I got my own lists. I felt proud being trusted enough to help.

After several years Dad became more efficient. He printed labels for the mailers, which saved time and looked better. Still I think he did things the hard way. His business didn't have nearly the scope of one that would necessitate funding, but I don't think Dad thought along those lines anyway--of borrowing money to make more money, or of hiring staff in order to free him up to do more high-level thinking. His only "employee" was his unpaid bookkeeper, my mother, who admits her only qualification for the job was an ability to balance a checkbook. My father was a quick learner, but I do wonder now if things would have been different if he'd consulted others as he grew.

Why I don't care that low numbers of women are receiving VC funding

My first semester in college I went with some sorority sisters to a set-up (these were small parties that paired a sorority with a fraternity, and for which you were often "set up" with a date from that fraternity. The concept seems almost ludicrous to me now, given the potential room for mis-matches, but I digress). One of my pledge sisters asked me if I had a problem "being set up with a black guy."

The question threw me. I'd noticed, shall we say, homogeneity among my corn-fed, flat-accented, Midwestern sisters. But I'd gone to a racially diverse high school where I had African American friends, and interracial dating was quite common.

"Of course not," I said. I was above such foolishness. I silently prayed he was hot.

"Good," my friend said. "I mean, I would do it but my brother (who was white and even in the same fraternity as the black pledge) would kill me. You're so open to stuff like this; I knew you'd be a good sport."

I recall being offended, not for myself, but for my date. Did he know how his supposed peers felt about him? I resented the assumption that by agreeing to go out with someone of color I was somehow agreeing to take one for the team. And I questioned where I'd settled socially. Did these women accept me because they thought I saw the world like them?

I ended up having a fine, but not earth-shattering, time. My date was shy, even a bit standoffish. After my friend's comment I couldn't help but notice that he was the only black man in his pledge class. I wondered if he was aware of comments said behind his back, like the one my friend made, or if he was oblivious. He seemed restrained, even a bit false. He wore the same preppy clothes as his fraternity brothers; the same garden variety frat boy well-worn baseball cap. I also wondered if I was judging him as fake because he seemed "too white". What if he identified as being white? Was there anything inherently wrong with that?

At some point we started talking about our backgrounds, and he shared that he had been adopted as a baby by a white couple. He admitted to me that he didn't "feel" black and even referred to black people as "them." I felt sad. I felt like he was trying to say to me, "See, I really do belong here."

I wanted to tell him, "You don't really want to belong here. Believe me."

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A few weeks ago I read several pieces that evoked anger, empathy, even silliness about the lack of venture-backed women entrepreneurs. Some focused specifically on Silicon Valley, tech-related businesses. One piece indicated "hidden biases" of VCs toward younger, male entrepreneurs who presumably have fewer distractions (read: families, concerns about hygeine) than women to worry about. This later led to discussion in the comments arguing for and against women's innate suitability as primary caregivers. One commenter, Carla Thompson:

...As long as a good-sized portion of the population, both male and female, believe that women are the only gender genetically predisposed to adequately nurturing and raising children, this problem will persist.

I knew that these blog posts were, indirectly and yet directly, about me, but I didn't know how I felt about them. In the end, I felt confused--certainly not inspired by comments of women who, despite biological realities, could claim to have managed it all--there were none of that sort offered. And I couldn't say that I have felt the back hand of bias in these matters. My partners and I had a business with a revenue model that was working in a growing industry and several years of experience to back us--that's what has mattered to our investors. Story told.

Have I felt marginalized as a female entrepreneur in Silicon Valley? Made to feel less worthy of funding because I have ovaries and may put them to reproductive use? No. Can I say that because I haven't experienced bias that there isn't a problem? No.

So I backed away from writing on the topic. I didn't feel I had a strong enough opinion either way.

I asked another female entrepreneur if she had read these recent pieces, and what did she think of them?

"What's to say?" she responded. "None of these writers asked actual female entrepreneurs in the Valley how they've felt."

"What would you have told them if they had?" I asked.

"It's a non-issue. Women can have babies and run businesses. Get over it."

I found myself wanting to verbally sweep my penchant for drama under the rug,

"Exactly," I said. "What's the big deal?"

Why do people make a big deal about these inequities when clearly there are women who are making things work? Why do we feel compelled to constantly pull out the data showing the lack of women being funded when, perhaps, most women simply don't want the life of a tech entrepreneur?

Why do I keep thinking of that set-up, my Freshman year in college?

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Just this week I happened to be back in New York the day that my sister, Julie, did a signing for her new book, The Madame Curie Complex. I've browsed the book and read every review that currently exists on it, but embarrassingly have yet to read the damn thing. When people asked me what the book is about, the PR flak in me comes out:

"It reveals how some of the most acclaimed scientific discoveries made by men were actually made by women," I say, then wait for the oohs and ahhs one reserves for books that out Presidents and get you on Oprah.

Fortunately my sister is amazing at Cliff-noting herself at these events--I need to remind her to stop providing so much value at her readings, lest people think they can learn nothing more by buying her book. And she's entirely too noncontroversial. I realized that I've woefully oversimplified the premise of her book. It really has nothing to do with men taking credit for women's brilliant work, but rather women's brilliant work not being seen as brilliant, because it is women's work.

The Madame Curie Complex is a term meant to describe a standard women scientists often set for themselves (and is often perpetuated by men, to be fair). My sister writes in her book:

"No doubt, [Curie's] work helps to make the case that science is made to be manly rather than being inherently so. But Curie’s myth haunts these pages and the psyches of succeeding generations of women more completely than her real-life example, for it has both empowered and stigmatized women, liberated and constrained them, often at the same time. The historian Margaret Rossiter noted an inferiority complex in women after Curie’s tours of the United States in the 1920s, and for generations the Curie complex has continued to allow men to disqualify women -- and women to disqualify themselves -- from science. Women scientists have felt as though they cannot measure up to Curie, and of course how could they, when this mythical measure of female competence has morphed in the American mind over and over again? It’s like trying to hit a moving target."

It occurred to me: women scientists, women entrepreneurs, same freaking difference. How effing sneaky, Julie, Wrapping your latest work up in a geeky little package to get your science-averse twin sister to not think you were onto her. Isn't the Madame Curie Complex what we women in "male" industries perpetuate when we back away from asserting our femininity? When we undermine it? We look at what we do in the world and say under our breaths, "Yeah big whoop ... did I put the milk back in the fridge this morning?"

Because even when we take on "male" industries, we do it in ways that are seen as much less impressive than men, or we do it just like them--both of which approaches are equally alienating and in many cases ineffective.

There was a point in Julie's talk where she spoke about "the numbers," as in: "Why the big stink? Look at all the women MBA's and women who got into MIT." In science academia women are as well represented, if not more so, than men at top institutions. "We need to stop worrying about the numbers of women in science," Julie said, "Numbers aren't the problem."

But, she pointed out, often women scientists are relegated to "female" forms of science--think of those soft mushy behavioral sciences. After all, as Lawrence Summers would posit, those cold, hard facts are just so difficult for us ladyfolk to grasp. Or our more holistic approach to such serious subjects as science, tech, and business have often been dismissed.

For instance, Jane Goodall was relatively untrained in the traditional (read: male) technique of studying primates. Rather than measure their toenails, count their bowel movements, and call it a day, she watched them and took notes, often in narrative form, and often giving the primates' interactions a storyline. Initially this more intuitive approach was seen as amateurish and dismissible, and yet it's now much more indicative of how scientists today frame this sort of research. Goodall proved the worth of a "female" perspective in science.

I think of my own industry and of BlogHer: We didn't invent computers, or the Internet. We didn't invent blogging; but we provided a larger context for its importance, particularly to women. I guess by some definitions this is a girly-girl approach to technology, akin to Goodall's approach to her science. But is it any less valuable; any less illuminating or fundable?

Do I care if so few women are being funded in Silicon Valley? No. I care that women's approach to business is so underfunded, and hence undervalued. I care that those women who are succeeding in it are seen as doing so DESPITE who they are, rather than because of who they are.

I think of that black man I was set-up with 20 years ago, content, silent, and numb. 

The Back-Up Parent

My sister teaches college history in NYC. From the looks of it she has one of those dream jobs that allows for full-time employment and flexibility. Twice a week she comes into the city early to teach class and meet with students, and the other days she works from home, where she works full-time. The days she is in the city her husband drops the kids off at day care and the school bus stop, but she comes home early to pick them up, make dinner, and most times bathe them and put them to bed.

Her husband's job is demanding. He's an attorney and often has to spend long days at the office and work on weekends. When he gets home the kids are often in bed. He gets up early to help get them ready in the morning. I wonder how he manages on so little sleep.

"That's just the way it is right now," my sister says. My job has more flexibility so it makes sense that I'm the default for picking up the kids from school, taking them to appointments and soccer practice, staying home with them when they are sick."

Many couples I know have a similar arrangement: the spouse with more flexibility is the default child chauffeur, preschool pageant volunteer, dinner maker. The job that yields more income is protected by both parties.

"I just couldn't imagine Chris having to leave the office in the middle of the day with all he's got going on," she said, then joked, "but me--I'm always backing toward the exit while people are still talking to me. I'm always in a state of having to be somewhere else."

She doesn't tell me this to complain. It's just more of an observation she's had lately. Her new book is out, and though she's tickled by the PR and attention it's getting, she's had to rethink her intricate weekly regime. A panel discussion at Princeton, a book reading at night in the city, an interview during the dinner making hour. These are things that require rearranging, booking sitters, and asking favors of neighbors. Her husband has been more than willing to take days at home and rearrange his schedule to support her. But she still seems uneasy.

"It's great that he helps out when he can," she said. "But he's not the back-up. I am. I'm still the back-up."

I want her to take in the rewards of her hard work. To spend a day contemplating her next project uninterrupted. To prepare for an interview without worrying about what needs to thaw in time for dinner. I want her to be able to say, "It's all covered," and then embark on a U.S. book tour. Most of all, I don't want her to always be in a state of leaving when she's at work.

And for me, I don't want to always be in a state of leaving when I'm at home. I feel like I'm learning a new skillset from her--someone who once could never put her work down. It involves thinking linearly--picking up the kids, making dinner, running the bath. It involves fewer phone calls, perhaps not even checking messages in the evenings. It involves waking up early not to catch up on email but to make lunches and help little people pick out their outfits. It involves deriving less identity from one's career and more from somewhere else. My sister's been at it for years, and it hasn't come naturally, but she's become a pro.