Nobody says that it's only a women's issue. But, if that servers your rhetorical needs, you keep putting those words in peoples' mouths.
Childcare is vastly a burden born by women, thus considered a women's issue. That doesn't mean "there are no men who are burdened by childcare." It means that, in aggregate, the impact falls far more on the women.
It's so egalitarian of you to not want it to be so, but until women are paid the same and men are taking on equal responsibilities (in aggregate) with the child rearing, the feigned "equality uber alles" cry is the fight song of the MRA.
"I found an outlier, therefore WOE ARE THE MEN MEN MEN!!"
Child care is not a "women's issue". That idea has the unique property of being insulting both to women and to men in equal measure.
No institutional change is going to solve child care for company founders --- which is, after all, what we're talking about here. If your "investors" provide child care, double check to make sure their proper title isn't "employer".
Tech workers with young families should be especially careful about asking for child care benefits. They're a powerful form of lock-in for employees. Altering child-care arrangements is often traumatic for everyone involved, and is at the very least a logistical headache that most people who change jobs don't have to face.
Tech jobs are already very amenable to child-care arrangements. They almost always feature flexible hours and often support WFH arrangements. The problem with tech isn't that it fails to account for child care. The problem is that tech companies have a terrible habit of stigmatizing child care responsibilities†. That's what needs to change, not the child care itself.
There is no child care fix to women's low participation in tech entrepreneurship. Founders need to provide their own services. That's the nature of starting a new firm.
And, if we broaden the discussion to women's participation in the tech industry as employees, there are good reasons to be cautious about company interventions in child care.
There is a child care issue in startuplandia: it's that child care is stigmatized. A more cynical commenter might say that an attempt to bring child care into the discussion at all is simply an effort to keep pushing back on founders with young families. Surely, I'm not that cynical.
Obviously, I don't think it's right that women should be forced to shoulder more of the child care burden than men. But we don't even have to reach that argument to dispose of the "child care" issue on this thread.
Child care is not a 'women's issue', but it is an issue that has a disproportionate impact on women and therefore one that should come up earlier in a discussion on "how can we better support women" than in the equivalent discussion of "how can we better support men".
I don't see where your comment addresses my sentiment that childcare is more of an issue for women than men? It seems to be talking about the risks of having childcare through an employer, which is valid (like healthcare) but a different aspect of the topic.
Childcare is vastly a burden born by women, thus considered a women's issue. That doesn't mean "there are no men who are burdened by childcare." It means that, in aggregate, the impact falls far more on the women.
It's so egalitarian of you to not want it to be so, but until women are paid the same and men are taking on equal responsibilities (in aggregate) with the child rearing, the feigned "equality uber alles" cry is the fight song of the MRA.
"I found an outlier, therefore WOE ARE THE MEN MEN MEN!!"