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05/03/12 | Uncategorized

5 Ridiculous Myths About Women In Technology

YEC Women dispell myths about women in technology, entrepreneurship and business.
By Natalie MacNeil (Co-Founder, YEC Women)

The following answers are provided by YEC Women. Co-Founded by Natalie MacNeil and Scott Gerber, YEC Women is an initiative of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs from YEC answer the question:

What are the most ridiculous myths you hear about women in technology?

#1 – We Have to Focus on Fashion

“There have been many successful female founders working in the beauty and fashion spaces, but it is a myth that most female founders do. There are phenomenal women in technology who are creating companies in non-fashion industries like e-commerce, advertising, HR, big data, and more.”
Doreen Bloch (Co-Founder, Poshly
#2 – We’re Not Ready Before You Know It

“One myth is that we need to talk about it at the business level. Start well before Silicon Valley or Stanford and talk about women in tech to your 6-year old. That’s where the equality bar is set. Then we can all stop talking about it — and start working.”
Susan Strayer (Founder, Exaqueo)

#3 – We Don’t Help Other Women

“We’ve definitely encountered unhelpful people – or sometimes intentionally harmful ones – in our trajectory, but that’s inevitable in business. There is a perception that women don’t help women network in the Old Boys Club way that men do, but it’s a learning curve. We’re increasingly finding ways to do so, as Hearsay Social CEO Clara Shih brought up in a recent panel with us at Facebook Women.”
Caroline Ghosn (Co-Founder, The Levo League)

#4 – We Can’t Play Video Games!

“Okay, so the question is not necessarily about playing video games but as a girl gamer, this irks me! Women in tech can be just as nerdy, just as geeky and just as adept at getting insanely high kill streaks in COD as our counterparts are. The thing I hear more often than not is that women are just placed in tech rather than being there with purpose and earning their way — and that has to change!”
Erin Blaskie (Founder & CEO, BSETC)

#5 – We All Have Programming Backgrounds

When I speak to groups of women about having a tech company, many tell me they won’t pursue careers and businesses in technology because they “didn’t go to school for computer science.” When I tell them that I went to school for Business and Political Science, not Computer Science, some are surprised. Women in tech have diverse backgrounds, professional experience, and degrees.

This post was contributed by the The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs.

The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment and provides its members with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of a business’s development and growth.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.
About the guest blogger: Natalie MacNeil is an Emmy Award winning Producer at the digital media company she co-founded, Imaginarius. She passionately works to get more women into business in her role as Co-Founder of YEC Women with Scott Gerber and through her blog, She Takes on the World. Natalie is frequently quoted and interviewed in the media discussing entrepreneurship, personal branding for women, and new media. Follow her on Twitter at @nataliemacneil.

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