If I thought you meant to equate women's point of view with your cat's in any way I would be highly amused--at what you reveal about your own perspectives.
This is a fascinating set of responses. For those men who don't see the need and therefore don't approve, I wonder why you are objecting? For those who see this as exclusionary, you might ask yourself whether an all white organization seems meant for and welcoming to a person of color, and then swap out gender and see what your response is. Just because women live in a world where most engineering cultures are set by men, that doesn't mean that everyone, women and men, are impacted by the lack of diversity and gender difference.
As someone who took a woman-founded team to TechStars (yep, and I'm not an engineer, either), we found a strong interest there in supporting many diverse types of teams as they also sought to support the strongest teams they could find that year.
I left a voice mail for Jessica Livingston letting her know that we were going to do this before we started it, and if I'd been more aware of the deadlines earlier, I would have reached out earlier and started it earlier. There are no factors except culture, comfort and class that make it neccessary for 98% of the applicants and teams selected for YCombinator--or any competitive program--to be male.
This mentoring effort, which I started with some friends, is meant to give women who qualify and want to apply some support that they may perceive as lacking in a program that, to date, has been almost exclusively male, as are most programs in the start up world.
Will this effort be exclusive to YCombnator? I think not. But you're our first noble experiment, and if you're reading this and are a woman who'd like mentoring or to support this, email us at [email protected]
--Susan Mernit