Gee, some people don't like the advice to be careful.

When it's your sister, wife, or daughter who
gets seriously injured for life or gets killed,
say, from suicide from clinical depression from
stress from being pushed away from motherhood and into the world of
startups, then you will understand why it is
crucial to be careful.

Sure, at one time she told me "Women don't have to
just be cared for. Women can do things, too.
I want a career.". I believed her. I was
naive.

Her mother was pushing her
hard away from motherhood and into something
challenging.

Although I didn't yet see the role of her
mother, I had good reasons to believe in her:
So, she was Valedictorian, PBK,
Woodrow Wilson, 'Summa Cum Laude', Ph.D. And
in many ways, in academics and also daily
life, she was just hands down, flatly brilliant.
She had the endurance of an ultra athlete and
could go with so little sleep that so little for
me would have me asleep standing up, literally.

Still, by the time she finished her Ph.D., she
was in a clinical depression from the stress,
never recovered, and died. Her sisters had
similar struggles. It's tough to separate
nature and nurture here: She got the nurture
from her mother who had the nature but also
got the nature from her mother. She likely got
another dose of the nature from her father, a
guy who for some years worked 20 hours a day
except cut back to 10 on Sundays.

Solid evidence is that such
vulnerability to stress is four times more likely
for women than men.

There is a good reason for the expression "Nervous
Nellie" because, from an expert, "women are much
more emotional than men" and one way they are more
emotional is that they are more nervous, more
easily made afraid. Such nervousness and fear
leads to stress leads to depression, clinical
depression, serious problems, and sometimes death.

For a women in a challenging situation, have to
exercise special care watching for signs of
low self-esteem, stress, 'burn out', and depression. Some
women can meet such challenges; too many can't; even some
that very much look like they can, can't;
these problems are much more likely for women;
it's a very challenging situation.

My advice I repeat: Be careful. Be very careful.

Some people just flatly want to believe that
"Women don't have to just be cared for.
Women can do things, too." and want to and, then,
do hate any suggestion of anything else
and pass off any suggestion as some sexism.
No, the caution
I urge is based on hard experience. Be careful.
I didn't say stop; I just said be careful.

"Careful"? Yes, for a women, have to watch
for symptoms and problems that mostly would not
have to watch for for men.

Be careful.

Sorry about your dream, largely unfounded, that
women are just the same in startups as men
and have just been held down and now need to
be 'unleashed'. It's not just a dream,
too easily it's a nightmare. Sorry about your
dream. But if the woman is your sister, wife,
or daughter, your dream can become a nightmare
for you. You've been warned. Let the pop media
have their fun pushing 'lean in', etc., but for
your sister, wife, and daughter, be careful,
be very careful.

If you want an explanation, then notice that
Darwin's forces were there and having their
effects for many tens of thousands of years
before startups. and we don't know just what
those forces were or just how they worked.
Since we can't understand what those forces
were, for making big changes now we are
walking out on thin ice. Be careful.

Or, the world of work, and startups were created
by men in ways convenient for men. And we should
just assume that women will be comfortable in that
world? Why assume? Or how many men would be
comfortable in and fit in at
a baby shower? How many men can do well at
gossip? For 'social connections', men don't
gossip; instead they communicate
information (D. Tannen,'You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation'), and
women communicate feelings and the rest of gossip.
Men are from Mars, women from Venus, that is,
they are so different they seem to be from different
planets. They
deserve equal respect as persons but are not
the same (E. Fromm, 'The Art of Loving').

Did I mention, be careful?