Comment by mbell

While I'd love to look at the world with rosy colored glasses I think this is simply unrealistic. While the parent post wasn't worded all that well (sorry). Its just a fact that it isn't realistic to expect a startup or even an early stage company to go without a critical member for several months, regardless of the cause of the absence. Male, Female, Trans-gender, pregnancy, bar fight, rehab, base jumping, whatever. The cause doesn't really matter, the effect is extremely destructive to the company and I feel it's reasonable to expect those in critical positions to protect themselves against such absences. Just to be clear, not singling out women here, there are many things everyone can do to avoid issues that could result in such an absence.