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women aren’t facing these challenges alone, female entrepreneurs say—not if they tap into the dense ecosystem of engineers’ groups, startup founders’ organizations, meet-ups, conferences, mentoring relationships, and female-friendly investors that have evolved in parallel with established Silicon Valley institutions mostly staffed by men.

women’s groups—representing thousands of members—seem energized by the eruptions of public attention to gender discrimination and harassment that arose after former Uber engineer Susan Fowler and other women accused powerful men in the tech industry of pressuring them sexually, touching, or groping them.

Even if a male venture partner or company executive hasn’t been outed on the front page of a national newspaper, his behavior might already be the subject of scorching accounts by women on their group channels, possibly damaging his reputation among hundreds or thousands of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. This could come as a shock to some of those men if they haven’t been directly confronted about their conduct.

Last year, female founders received about 2 percent of venture capital funding — and the numbers are moving in the wrong direction. While the average investment in companies led by men jumped 12 percent, to $10.9 million, the average investment in companies led by women dropped 26 percent, to $4.5 million. Statistics tell us that funders award women founders just a quarter of the funding they ask for. Male founders, meanwhile, are getting half.

only 7 percent of partners at the top 100 venture firms are women. Fewer than two in five firms had even a single female partner.

there is a lot of evidence that unconscious biases are impacting the way female founders are received. Consider, for example, the finding that investors tend to describe young male entrepreneurs as “promising,” and young female entrepreneurs as “inexperienced.” Or that the managing partner of one of Silicon Valley’s leading VC firms admitted that one of the things he looks for when deciding whether to invest is an entrepreneur who fits the Gates, Bezos, Andreessen or Google model — which is to say, “white male nerds who’ve dropped out of Harvard or Stanford.”

in just the past year, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a woman can be fired if her boss finds her attractive, a New York court decided that unpaid interns can't sue for sexual harassment, and the Paycheck Fairness Act was defeated by Republicans who claimed women actually prefer lower-paying jobs.

Adolescent girls - especially girls of color - are given less teacher attention in the classroom than their male peers. A full 56% of female students report being sexually harassed. Sexual assault on college campuses is rampant and goes largely unpunished, women can barely walk down the street without fear of harassment, and we make up the majority of American adults in poverty.

The truth is, if you're not insecure, you're not paying attention. Women's lack of confidence could actually just be a keen understanding of just how little American society values them.

New data from PayScale shows that women age 45 and older earn 70¢ for every dollar that men earn, before adjusting for factors like experience and industry. By comparison, women age 30 to 44 earn 78¢ for every dollar men earn, and women in their 20s receive 83¢.

That gulf between so-called controlled and uncontrolled pay gaps represents what PayScale calls the “Opportunity Gap”—societal and business forces that keep women in lower-paying jobs and industries while men continue to advance and earn more. 

Women are opting out of—or being excluded from—some of the highest-paying industries, such as technology, where women make up just 29% of workers, and they’re not being promoted into management as quickly as men are.

In a 2017 study titled Do Women Ask?, researchers were surprised to find that women actually do ask for raises as often as men — we’re just more likely to be turned down. Conducted by faculty at the Cass Business School, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Warwick and using data collected from over 4,600 Australian workers, the study was expected to confirm long-established theories around women’s reluctance to negotiate. Instead, the analysis showed that men’s and women’s propensity to negotiate is roughly the same.

Women are far more likely than men to work in jobs where salary negotiation isn’t necessarily possible, such as low-skilled hourly wage jobs or part-time roles. Previous studies that reached the “women don’t ask” conclusion often failed to account for certain types of jobs (and industries) being dominated by one gender, focusing instead on the overall number of men or women who’d reported salary negotiations,

women actually negotiate for pay raises at a slightly higher rate of 31 percent to men’s 29 percent.

The leadership double standardTo recognize when you are using coded language to describe strong women, ask yourself “Would I use those same descriptors for a male leader?” Would you be saying he’s too old or would you be saying he has depth of experience in that arena? Would you be describing a man as difficult to work with or would you appreciate that he has a different perspectives coming from

Founders should expect and push their investors or those they consider partnering with to have made a clear commitment to eliminating harassment. Those looking to support this drive can share this template with the hashtag #HarassmentPolicy. 

Statement of values regarding why protecting founders from harassment by investors is necessary due to the imbalanced power dynamic Explanation that standard  sexual harassment law does not adequately cover the investor/founder relationship, so voluntary policy is needed Recognition that harassment and discrimination perpetrators and recipients can be of any gender or identity, though most often women are harassed by men Discussion of the need for a culture of explicit consent

Zero-tolerance for investors overtly sexually assaulting, harassing, or discriminating against founders or their teams

FairFunders will let women report both bad and good experiences with specific investors. It's expected to launch on July 27.

for several years there have been various angel investors channeling funds specifically to female-led startups: Golden Seeds, Female Founders Fund, and Broadway Angels,

the company is leading an effort to create an anonymous reporting app, akin to Glassdoor, that would allow users to grade VC firms on how they treat women.