An alarming number of women have recently come forward with sexual allegations against reputable VCs in Silicon Valley. I published this video on Youtube to describe my own experiences raising funding in Silicon Valley for my fashion startup and the sexism I personally experienced during the process.
The shocking thing is that I had started to internalize the inappropriate treatment I received and wondered if there was something I was doing that led males to not take me seriously. I often wondered if I came across as ditzy and unintelligent - perhaps it was my own fault that people felt it was okay to make a pass at me during a business meeting or graze my thigh suggestively. I started to forget that I was an articulate, ambitious, smart woman with a degree in Neuroscience from Stanford (and it is even difficult for me to write this very sentence because a small part of me still wonders if I'm a fraud). I feel as though my credentials need to be excavated from layers of projections and hurts incurred through several years of micro-aggressions and other cringeworthy indignities.
For the longest time I believed ignoring the "problem" would somehow make it go away. If I simply worked harder, sounded better, "leaned in," stopped being so sensitive, stopped making this a problem, then creepy men would stop hitting on me and take me seriously. But the logical part of my brain realizes the desire to ignore the problem was really a defense mechanism - and the strategy was hinged on a fallacy. If I blamed myself, then I had a false sense of control over my situation. I could always fix myself, and that would fix the problem. I was more readily able to accept this situation then if I blamed the System, blamed the way the cards were stacked against me when it came to raising VC funding in Silicon Valley. I didn't want be the victim, I wanted to be the stoic hero (heroine). I didn't want to accept that there was a larger pervasive problem that I had no control over.
This is why the conversation in Silicon Valley needs to change - asking women to "Lean In" and somehow transcend the strictures of sexism and sexual harassment in the work place is essentially a version of victim blaming that does not address the problem. Systemic behavioral change needs to be induced, with strong measures to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions applied in organizations. All humans deserve a baseline level of respect - this should not have to be earned or doled out begrudgingly. Sexism and sexual harassment is never okay and "credentials" will never win in a universe where they exist; telling women that they can transcend sexism by leaning in and earning their way towards respect is essentially the same thing as selling the "model minority" myth to unwitting asians who believe they must earn their way to a world without racism. The implication that protection from racism and sexism is earned not given, a privilege not a right, is insidious and dangerous.
I vow never again to fall into this trap and "lean in" to this crap.
For the longest time I believed ignoring the "problem" would somehow make it go away. If I simply worked harder, sounded better, "leaned in," stopped being so sensitive, stopped making this a problem, then creepy men would stop hitting on me and take me seriously. But the logical part of my brain realizes the desire to ignore the problem was really a defense mechanism - and the strategy was hinged on a fallacy. If I blamed myself, then I had a false sense of control over my situation. I could always fix myself, and that would fix the problem. I was more readily able to accept this situation then if I blamed the System, blamed the way the cards were stacked against me when it came to raising VC funding in Silicon Valley. I didn't want be the victim, I wanted to be the stoic hero (heroine). I didn't want to accept that there was a larger pervasive problem that I had no control over.
This is why the conversation in Silicon Valley needs to change - asking women to "Lean In" and somehow transcend the strictures of sexism and sexual harassment in the work place is essentially a version of victim blaming that does not address the problem. Systemic behavioral change needs to be induced, with strong measures to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions applied in organizations. All humans deserve a baseline level of respect - this should not have to be earned or doled out begrudgingly. Sexism and sexual harassment is never okay and "credentials" will never win in a universe where they exist; telling women that they can transcend sexism by leaning in and earning their way towards respect is essentially the same thing as selling the "model minority" myth to unwitting asians who believe they must earn their way to a world without racism. The implication that protection from racism and sexism is earned not given, a privilege not a right, is insidious and dangerous.
I vow never again to fall into this trap and "lean in" to this crap.
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