“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”
Gloria Steinmen

In my last article on TechCrunch, we looked at the next Talisman of tech (list here, video here) and included zero women. A number of folks asked me why and how come?  Simple: because the media’s bias towards women is a two-way street; women are both

- unfairly given an advantage when it’s convenient and it serves the media’s purpose,
- but they’re also overly criticized in instances where a man would get a free pass.

One Tweet asked: “Male VCs/tech titans, do you want your daughters to see TechCrunch and Ashkan’s list”. Well, I’m no VC or tech titan, but as a father of two girls, my answer is: “Yes, definitely, the world is unfair. What are you going to do about it?”

Injustice Breeds Ambition

Barack Obama probably wondered why there weren’t any black presidents, either. He was probably told “it’s impossible”. Then, he proved us all wrong. But, as the 2008 elections demonstrated: it could be argued that America is less racist than it is sexist. I’m using the terms “sexist” and “racist” loosely to make a point: ultimately Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic nomination to a black man born to a Muslim father named Barack Obama whose middle name is Hussein. As in, Saddam Hussein or Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad - you get the idea. If you don’t, here it is: the American population (as evidenced by the media’s coverage) is sexist. But sexism in this context actually means biased:

- Sometimes a magazine or conference interviewer will put a woman on the cover or haul one on stage solely/mainly because she is a woman, making that kind of bias “reverse sexist” (to quote Chris Rock).

- Other times, a woman needs to deliver ten times the result to get any consideration.

It’s unfair in either scenario, but two wrongs don’t make a right.

The Talisman article wasn’t about who would replace Steve Jobs, but rather, whom the media would likely look at for insight into the future of tech?  Could this expand and talk about sexism and racism in tech, amongst VCs, etc. - possibly.

In my opinion, when writing the Talisman article, I excluded women because the bias from the media would be against women, as most

- Male journalists/reporters/bloggers would be too prejudiced to ever consider a woman (I think this article will upset men more than women).

- Female members of the media, meanwhile, will also be less likely to designate a female talisman because they want to avoid being accused of playing the feminism card, or more importantly, out of fear of not covering the male talisman who might garner more readers or page views.

Maybe some media would go out of their way and include women, but while they wouldn’t admit it, I think they would be discriminating against men in order to make room for a woman or two.  Does that make it acceptable?

Sex Sells

In business and in politics, oftentimes when women are cast under the spotlight, it’s for the wrong reasons: don’t take it from me, but others, who still comment on “Ning [being] probably most famous for a much-derided Fast Company cover that featured its photogenic CEO Gina Bianchini on the cover in a wife beater…” – a wife beater!

I’m not passing judgment on Bianchini, but wouldn’t that be a good example of this so-called reverse-sexism?

Ok, enough diplomacy, here’s the truth:

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
Gloria Steinem

However, in all candor: it’s also fair to argue that there are probably 25 if not 100 men who are more suitable and experienced to become the next talisman over the top-rated woman, and yes, that is partly because men have been in more senior positions over the years, had easier access to venture capital, and yes, been less discriminated against. But that is fact.

So when writing the initial article, I thought that it would be both condescending towards women and unfair to the unlisted men if I added a token woman or two.

Really, Ash? Really? You can’t envision a single woman on the list?

Some readers mentioned Catherine Fake, Sheryl Sandberg and Marisa Mayer.

Fake successfully built and sold Flickr to Yahoo, she writes a great blog and started Hunch to much fanfare. But would she really be a better person than say Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, founders of YouTube (who didn’t make the Talisman list)?

Sandberg has been instrumental in helping CEO Mark Zuckerberg mature and Facebook prosper, but as COO of Facebook and former vice-president of online operations and sales at Google, would she be more deserving than say, oh I don’t know, Dick Costolo (also not not on the Talisman article), who runs Twitter as CEO and sold his former company Feedburner to Google for $100 million?

Mayer is smart and as one of Google’s first employees she has insightful stories to share, but would she really be ahead of former CEO Eric Schmidt or YouTube’s CEO Salar Kamangar, also an early Googler - and neither of whom made the list?

No Uncle Tom’s, please

I can list a lot of other women whose accomplishments are inspirations to men and women, but adding any as the token female entry alongside the Gates’ and Zuckerberg’s should be offensive to female readers, entrepreneurs and executives alike.

Now, the list of women who would make one list or another knows no boundaries – people like:
- Twitter’s marketing maven Shane Steele, who has had stints in senior marketing positions at Coca-Cola, Yahoo! and Tremor Video,
- the fascinating Esther Dyson,
- Arianna Huffington who in half a decade built one of the most successful media companies and brands (why is it that Sean Parker is called an Agent of Disruption, but no one will put Huffington and disruptor in the same sentence?),

Mind you, the bias against women is also appalling:
- despite all of her ills, Carly Fiorina charged ahead with a transformative merger with an industry leader. Had a man done that, it would be “bold”,
- Sure, Meg Whitman made a colossal blunder by letting Skype’s IP walk through the door and remain in the hands of Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, but she did help take eBay to loftier heights; a man would be forgiven, Meg, not so.

In the end, let’s be candid and either admit that the playing field isn’t level…

1) and we should amplify a woman’s accomplishments to account for that or
2) but measure everyone’s accomplishments evenly and encourage the next generation of women to pull a Barack Obama and win fair-and-square.

Is it possible for a woman to surprise us and actually become the Steve Jobs of the 21st century? Anything is possible.

If this article sounds condescending, so be it.  Some people have their mind made up: men are sexist and there’s no amount of nuance that can alter their own bias.

So to answer the question: I can’t wait for my daughters to be old enough to be able to read my list of men who will be the next Talisman of tech (list here, video here). I will then tell them that life is unfair, the competitive field is uneven in ways they can’t even imagine, but that if their Muslim-born Canadian-Iranian father can bootstrap a media company to profitability and success out of the bastion of business that is Montreal, Canada – then possible is everything.

 “Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”
Gloria Steinem

Picture used on top of this entry found via this website.

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