Equity means never having to say you are sorry.

This Y-combinator story is fascinating, and I'm grateful to both women for making it transparent for learning. It's brave of both of them.

Equity doesn't mean that we all get along. Or that I even like you or how you lead. It doesn't mean I forgive what you do while in power or that as a subject to that power I get to do whatever I want. It means, there are so many other choices available to me I can just move on to the next one.

This story is a perfect example of misogyny and sexism being about power and policy and not about individuals. This is why people feel double betrayal when a fellow woman (or any other underestimated identity) either acts out power in a way that hurts them, or responds to their power in a negative way. It's the Power for You is a Zero Sum Game gaslight.

In this case it is very clear: our structures of power do not include caretaking into the way we do business or learn because they were designed for people presumed to have others to do their caretaking for them. Therefore, those who have been disproportionally cast as caretakers can unintentionally create those conventions in how they structure their events or create policies or fail to create them. And how we can unintentionally defy those structures simply by being there. Even when the room is all female identifying.

The policy needs to be thought about beforehand and communicated so that people can agree or disagree to it before coming. Once there we need to abide by the policy, whatever it might be.

*How do we handle power and how do we handle respecting someone else's power?

*How do we both achieve a goal in a group and respect individual autonomy?

If you find yourself signing up for Team Surbhi or Team Elena here, that's a manipulation and turns the struggle against inequitable power distribution and inequitable policies to women fighting and attacking other women. That's an unconscious operation.

As for me and my house? I'm team #equity

Equity means having a group for women exclusively is unnecessary. It means that if there is "female founder group" and I don't match with the females there there are plenty of other opportunities for me in the world.

It's the zero sum power game, we turn on each other. No blame no shame. It's there by design.

We aren't there yet. But we will get there.

Surbhi and Elena. I hear you both. I might not like you if I got to know you (or I might) but I hear you. Both. Loud and clear. Cuts like a knife.