These Female Entrepreneurs Created a Fake Male Co-Founder to Work Around Sexism. How Well It Worked Is Incredibly Eye Opening.

From the scandals involving gender bias at Uber and Google and the resignations of two prominent investors as a result of accusations of sexual harassment, the last few months have seen an intense focus about how issues of workplace sexism and discrimination are addressed, especially in Silicon Valley.

The sexism at play in the tech industry can manifest in a number of ways. It doesn’t have to lead to the downfall of a big name CEO such as Travis Kalanick to be a pernicious force. But there are just as many ways that female founders are fighting back.

Last year, two Los Angeles artists, Penelope Gazin and Kate Dwyer, started a company called Witchsy, an online marketplace for art with an odd, unconventional sensibility. The pair bootstrapped the venture and brought in $200,000 in sales, with 80 percent of the transactions going back to the creator of the item that was purchased. But they found themselves running into the same roadblock over and over again.

Gazin and Dwyer told Fast Company about some of what they experienced as they worked to grow their company -- for example, a developer attempted to delete everything he had worked on for them after Gazin wouldn’t go out with him. While most of the time they weren’t up against outright sabotage, the reception they got to their questions was often condescending or demeaning.

Until they came up with a solution. Read more

Nina Zipkin - Entrepreneur - 1 Sep 2017