I went to an entrepreneur talk put on by the Engineering College at George Washington University. It was way more fabulous than I expected. Awesome fancy hors d’oerves, excellent speakers.
There were three semi-white male panelists. One was American, the other two had some Middle Eastern background. They had interesting stories about how they started their companies. Well, I found the stories interesting, probably because they were relevant to me and I like to compare how people develop new companies. However the student next to me fell asleep.
The entrepreneur panelist I found most relevant was Elias Sham who founded telezoo.com, a B2B social networking site, in 1999. He was also on the board of Searchles, another social media company, and runs a blog http://www.awesomedc.com which is about the real people of DC, not the politicians. I relate to that mission. When I was on the board of the local Society of Women Engineers section, I used to write letters to various media outlets commending them whenever they wrote about engineers, making the point that engineers are a huge part of what makes DC tick.
Unfortunately, the panelist story that stuck out for me was when the white guy made a point about how hard it is to start a company when the wife is at home and pregnant. Hello? Who is your audience? Why is your wife sitting around at home? I felt like to him, my presence in the audience was nonexistent, that he was commiserating with the boys, and I was merely an interloper.
Of course to the men, I’m sure they didn’t think twice about it. Instead they probably thought it was more unusual that women were there.
January 19, 2010
White Male Engineer Panelist discusses pregnant wife at sitting around at home
