Lucie Montel Tells You Why Why Speaking Up Matters
Bulgarian investment fond and accelerator Eleven, which takes up a clever little domain 11.me has been making rounds through the CEE region on its Start Trek tour, looking for awesome startups and sharing some of their expertise. Zagreb was the today’s stop on the itinerary, where Lucie Montel from Rainmaking Loft Berlin took the stage to talk about a topic somewhat uncommon for this type of events – speaking up. And no, I don’t mean pitching. The media and the blogosphere have lately been buzzing with the talk of sexism in the startup world and the position of women in the community. Lucy was, as she confesses, not big on the topic:
Three months ago I would be the person who said „Why are we talking about girls in tech again?“
She didn’t feel a feminist, as she states, and had no need to label herself as such. Truth be told, like many women today, she didn’t know much about what feminism stands for. It is hard to wade through all the different waves and streams of feminism to discern what it’s all about, but it all boils down to one simple notion: equal rights for men and women.
From Dirty joke To Dirty Texts
That’s a very tricky issue in tech industry, which is still male-dominated, at least when you look at the numbers. For one part, this is a niche where women get to show they rock on many levels – there are even special events for women founders, like the one where EasySize.Me stole the show. Most of women who are going on about their work, their companies and their lives in the industry don’t feel discriminated – until they do. This is something that happened to Lucie – you might have read about it, it was all over the news. She went to a business meeting and later got a text from her business contact, with a less-than-professional content. I’ll let you fill in the details – you’re probably filling the blanks just right. But she was not the only one who got thrown in a middle of a quite uncomfortable situation – her friend was also on the receiving end of a message no one should be sending to their business acquaintances after a meeting. She was hesitant about speaking about it publicly, but in the end both she and her friend called the guy out on his misconduct, and the story just exploded:
Even though I got many more Twitter followers, it was so much more intense than I expected. I was very uncomfortable about it.
Speak Up – Even If It’s Uncomfortable
But that’s just the thing – sometimes you should speak up even though you’re not at ease with it. Especially when someone steps over the line, and when that one misconduct is just one of many that never get talked about, prolonging unhealthy attitudes. I’m not saying that tech and startup scene are sexist – I don’t think Lucie is either. But too much sexism passes for a habit, as she puts it. Someone tells a joke and sometimes it’s funny, but sometimes it makes it uncomfortable for you to hand out your business card, she says. And women often take sexism for granted – by now, those little #everydaysexism-s (yes, there’s even a hashtag) are something we’re used to and consider just another minor nuisance in our day. As Gloria Steinem put it:
Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That’s their natural and first weapon.
In a perfect world, we could just laugh them off or combat them with a witty counterstrike. But those little jokes and everyday sexisms can have a snowball effect, making it hard to draw the line between what’s ok and what’s not, and they eventually avalanche into inappropriate advances on business meetings. That’s why it’s important to speak out and speak up, as Lucie stresses, especially in the tech community. This is the community that is building the future and pushing the limits, so it’s a perfect place to start breaking some old and unhealthy habits and embracing new ones.
