Quinn Norton posted an insightful first part of her series on women on the Internet today. For me, the money quote is this:

Men have to open their mouths and talk about constructing an idea of manhood that makes sense in the 21st century. The whole world needs a manhood that doesn’t rely on attacking or demeaning women.

There were two notable reactions from the audience of men at large: demands that her comments about men were qualified with the word "some", and complaints that men alone don't define what a man is.

Who cares? Neither one of these responses is constructive. There is an undeniable gender equality problem that pervades society. Quinn points out unsettling domestic violence figures; there are also less overtly violent, but still unsettling, gender career inequality figures to consider, not to mention the countless stories about sexual assault right here in the tech industry. Qualifying these problems with "some"s and "it's not just us" doesn't help solve them.

Instead, men, let's own it.

I think Quinn has put her finger on the issue. There is still a traditional, prevailing view of manhood that is at odds with the rest of the 21st century. Here on the web, we're all about disrupting gatekeepers and restructuring systems to be more transparent. Why can't we turn that lens on gender inequality? I agree with Quinn that technology can't solve this. We need to have an ongoing conversation about what manhood is - something that projects like the Good Men Project have already begun.

Although this problem goes far beyond tech, and is far older than our industry, there are a few things I, perhaps naïvely, think startups should think about to help correct the problem:

• Equalize maternity and paternity leave. Where this happens, women's pay is also equalizing. I've unfortunately been in conversations, in prior companies, where colleagues were wary of hiring women because they might get pregnant. This mitigates that, but also more generally sends a very strong message about the role of a father in a family. I would strongly support legislation to make this happen more widely.
• Enact a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment. Publish your policy publicly, and ensure that any kind of harassment is dealt with swiftly and fairly when it occurs.
• Publish salaries on job vacancy advertisements. Don't adapt the salary based on the employee and how willing they are to negotiate; simply decide what you're willing to pay for the right person, and stick it right on the vacancy ad. Then, as much as possible, clear out names, gender pronouns and company names from resumes as you consider them.

Those are all simple, administrative changes that could make a difference. More than that, though, public participation in this conversation will make a change in itself: understanding that traditional social values are oppressive, and that we can all engineer something better together.

This requires a certain amount of "yes and" thinking: defensive retorts about how not all men are participating in the oppression aren't helpful. We are all participating, whether we like it or not, not least every time we sidetrack the conversation. Being male comes with inherent privilege. Whether we use that to oppress, or use it to help society evolve, is our choice.