Women Are More Likely to Secure Kickstarter Funding Than Men
theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/wome...
theatlantic.comPosted Aug 18, 2014, 12:49 PM UTC
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theatlantic.comI think this is true for Kiva as well. In 2012, 80% of loans were made to women entrepreneurs.
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Is this sexism? Should we stop it? How would we react if 80% of the loans were made to men?
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How would we react if 80% of the loans were made to men?
I think it's pretty obvious how TwoX would react if that were the case.
I find it hilarious that the comment below you uses logic and reasoning to defend the 80% of loans going to women. I agree with that comment 100%, it's just when things don't go women's way, logic isn't exactly received so well here.
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Lets be honest if it were reversed, people would be crying out sexism (feminists looking at you).
But honestly there are variables that need to be accounted for first and second when it comes to kicksarter its crowd funding, and its what the crowd funds that gets funded so there is nothing you can do there.
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It all depends on why this is happening. In Kickstarter, the research seems to suggest that it's this way because some people are trying to make up for the terrible biases against women in tech, and if you saw the piece about how much sexual harassment women trying to get funding for tech startups face, you'll realize that this doesn't make up for the overall tech gap. I would also be interested to see if men are overrepresented in the funded projects from categories like fashion, because it's not likely that men and women backed projects are equally represented in that category.
On Kiva, who knows why the loans are going to mostly women? Maybe it's mostly female-backed projects that are asking for funding, or maybe there's a tendency for female-backed projects to be more practical or easier for people from completely different cultures and lifestyles to understand the need for. If it's happening just because they're women, that's basic sexism, though I don't see any way to stop it without imposing some sort of quota that would be difficult to manage. If it's happening because of differences in the types of projects proposed by men vs women, that's a different story and while it could be rooted in some sort of sexism as well, it would seem to be on the part of the borrower's culture that predisposed them to choosing different types of projects rather than on the part of individual lenders.
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Should we stop what? Kiva's whole appeal is that you can make microloans to people based on what you value. Should they stop that and just take any loans in and split them evenly across the board? I don't think so, and I don't think most people would call for that. Not everything that is sexist, or problematic, needs to be put to an end by force or strong-arming.
From the linked wikipedia:
- Kiva emphasizes supporting women because women can gain the most from microcredit. Patriarchy and a strict division of labor still dominate the societies of many developing countries, and women often suffer the most from poverty because scarce resources are often allocated to a family's males, rather than its females*
This makes sense. The line of reasoning is also that women will spend their money on their families, and their children (education, food, medical care etc). You just have to ignore the part that basically says men waste their money on alcohol, drugs and prostitutes.
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I mean I understand what you're saying, but it still sounds incredibly sexist. I think if someone made those same sorts of sweeping generalizations that didn't paint women is as positive of a light, that this subreddit would be up in arms. I heard Feminists really stood for equality, but when we see sexism slanted so favorable towards women, it seems as if Feminists and other equality-minded women want to preserve this sexism.
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We aren't talking about women in the US with Kiva. We're talking about women in countries where women are frequently seen as property, where women might even be seen as a liability, where women are raped as an act of violence against the men they "belong" to. We aren't talking about a country where there are regulations to try to level the playing field. We're talking about places where girls receive less education than boys or even none at all, where women without men to look after them can't provide for their families at all and are fair game to other men whether they want to be or not. It is not sexist to say that women in these types of situations need more help than men in their societies, and it is not sexist to preferentially help women to help level the playing field. Micro loans don't protect the women from violence at the hands of men, they don't make women any less a man's property, but they do give women the ability to provide for themselves in ways they couldn't otherwise but a man in the same position could.
If there were a society where men were generally treated as subhuman and denied education, it would be valid to preferentially loan to men. But there's not, so in the real world that Kiva is built for, this is a reasonable approach to take and it's a step toward equality for the rely oppressed women it helps.
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Well, if women are at more of a disadvantage, and people work to alleviate that disadvantage in an overwhelming way, I guess so.
think if someone made those same sorts of sweeping generalizations that didn't paint women is as positive of a light, that this subreddit would be up in arms
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. There was one line, that I thought was particularly unnecessary and also un-cited, but I'm not sure what sweeping generalizations you're talking about. When you talk about trends, and likelihoods, and rates of occurrences, you're going to have some sweeping generalizations. Sweeping generalizations aren't always unhelpful or problematic. If it is true, that money goes farther in a loan for women than it does for men in developing worlds, do we just ignore that? Do we ignore the sexism that has been rooted in these cultures forever for the sake of equality now? Or do we try to fix things by giving money to women, who in turn educated and care for their boys and girls for a brighter future?
I actually tend to donate to more men because of this statistic. I do sometimes wonder how our push for girls and women over boys and men (campaigns for self-esteem, confidence, leadership etc) will effect the boys and men of tomorrow, but the developing world is another story.
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Alternatively, the low rate of acceptance from venture capitalists means that women who would otherwise be able to get funding from a venture capitalist end up bringing their worthy projects to Kickstarter instead. Sure, one possibility is that people may favor women, or perhaps women just bring better projects to Kickstarter because men can more easily get funding for good projects elsewhere. The idea that people are going to be lax with their money just because it's a woman asking for it is a little bit wonky if you ask me, particularly when there's another totally reasonable explanation.
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Why is it wonky? If venture capitalists are more likely to give money to men, why is it weird that the average person is more likely to give it to women? Sure there are alternatives, but it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility at all.
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why is it weird that the average person is more likely to give it to women?
Because the pendulum here shifted, and such it no longer favors men, but women and such some have issues with it.
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You point out a pretty significant flaw in my logic. I guess the problem is that I don't view venture capitalists as people, when perhaps I should. Also, if venture captialists are indeed just people, it seems weird that whatever sex discrimination problems plague venture capitalism wouldn't apply equally to something like Kickstarter. Perhaps the lower sums of money involved change people's perceptions of the thing in some way?
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Exactly. Maybe the things that favor men with venture capitalists are the opposite when for lower funding with women on kick starter. So while one group of people favor men, the other group favor women. Its not out of the realm of possibility that there isn't some deep seeded sexism in both cases.
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You can always come up with a "maybe it actually is fair" explanation. Maybe men earn more money because they work harder because women wont marry a poor man, but a man will marry a poor woman. See? At the end of the day people will believe whatever they want.
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Except in this case Kickstarter covers a comparatively smaller portion of funding, whereas venture capitalism, the much larger pool of funding, has already been demonstrated to have bias against women.
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My point is that if you can say "perhaps women just bring better projects to Kickstarter because men can more easily get funding for good projects elsewhere" You are using the same unsubstantiated logic as "perhaps men bring better projects to venture capitalists because men need more money to support a family whereas women aren't expected to support a family" Either use that logic for both or neither. Don't pick and chose where you assume sexism and where you assume "better projects"
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Maybe the women offer better kickstarter awards for those who donate ?
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I'm kind of shocked to read some of the comments in here. While I don't think this is a particularly serious issue or anything, it's still a pretty textbook example of "reverse the genders and how would you react?" kind of deal. To see people justifying it suddenly because it's women getting the gains is just.. I don't know. Disconcerting.
Edit: And of course I get downvoted. Heh.
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With something as big as entrepreneur culture, it requires more than just reversing the genders on one website to get the bigger picture. For example, women who try to get venture capitalists to fund their tech projects face massive amounts of discrimination and sexual harassment compared to men. If we simply reversed the genders on Kickstarter, men would have the VC advantage and the small-time crowd sourcing advantage as well, and that would make the overall inequality in the industry worse. If men also faced the excessive amount of harassment and discrimination that women face in tech startups and you reversed the genders on Kickstarter, it would be a nearly identical scenario to the one we have now and the inequality on Kickstarter would be a small step toward improving overall industry equality.
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I don't see anyone "justifying it suddenly because it's women getting the gains" so I'm not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate? I see comments explaining reasoning behind Kiva overwhelmingly loaning to women, and I participated in that as well, but I think your understanding of the "justification" or explanation is lacking a bit if that's how you're reading it. I haven't seen too many comments yet about the Kickstarter specific situation, so this is all I'm going off.
Yes, if men in the developing world had far less access to resources, assets, credit etc, we probably would feel similarly if they received 80% of microloans. This isn't just "because they're women. YAY!"
In general, people give more to groups that need more. If you think that women in developing countries have similar access to resources, assets and credit as men, then I can see why you might be aghast, but I suppose I just don't think that's the case.
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Are there any stats on the amount of funding secured? Does it have a similar trend?
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Women are more likely to most things on the internet. Abuse. Adoration. Money. Attention. It's a two edged sword.
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I'm curious to know if women on whole actually asked for less money than the men did. As a woman who succeeded at KS myself, I kept my overall goal fairly small.
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White Knight Syndrome?
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We did it, kids. We beat sexism.
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Kickstarter is like charity. Charities for women do better than for men. People want to help women over men.
How not shocking.
Sexism when things are one way, "just how it is" when they see the other.
A. you need to check your female privilege B. You need to see people as people instead of their of sex. C. This study is sexist.