Is Social Entrepreneurship a Better Space than Tech for Women?

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-08-29 10:47:00 UTC
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There has been an explosive conversation in the blogosphere this weekend about the under representation of women in tech entrepreneurship and web entrepreneurship more broadly. Is the situation better in social entrepreneurship?

This iteration of the conversation started off with a piece in the Wall Street Journal that rehashed many of the back-and-forths on this issue from the last few months, including the debate around whether the forthcoming TEDWomen conference was actually a step back for gender equality because of a sort of "seperate-but-(un)equal" thing. It also included a pretty lazy potshot at Techcrunch, the leading web 2.0 media publication.

Michael Arrington, the founder of Techcrunch, didn't like that one much at all and wrote a post titled: "Too Few Women in Tech? Stop Blaming the Men." In it, he effectively argues that venture investors, tech conferences and the media clamor for female entrepreneurs because they're eager to redress the imbalance and highlight more female innovators in order to inspire a younger generation of women to build companies.

The "debate" around this issue isn't about whether or not there is a gender imbalance in entrepreneurship. It's about why that is, and more specifically, which pieces of that why are structurally determined and could be shifted. It is also tinged by the supposed dichotomy between meritocracy and opportunity that colors debates about affirmative action, as well.

There is no shortage of theories about all of this. Right now, these particular set of posts are being debated on TechCrunch, VC Fred Wilson's blog, and Hacker News, among other spaces.

What's interesting to me is that in the world of social entrepreneurship, it seems like the balance is much better. I have no doubt that women in our field still deal with structural barriers, explicit or implicit assumptions about their capacity to lead, and other real hurdles to success. But it does feel to me that there are far more highly visible women social entrepreneurs and thought leaders in this field than in pure technology. Just as a proxy, in the last thee years, 24 or 49 of Echoing Green's prestigious seed fellowships have been awarded to teams led by women.

So here are my questions:

1. Is it true that social entrepreneurship has more women leaders than tech entrepreneurship?

2. If it is, how come?

3.  Are any of the reasons things that other entrepreneurial fields can learn from?

4. What does this field still need to do better?

Photo credit: TheGiantVermin

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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