Google Grapples With Fallout After Employee Slams Diversity Efforts (npr.org)

An anonymous reader shares a report from NPR: In a 3,300-word document that has been shared across Google's internal networks, an engineer at the company wrote that "biological causes" are part of the reason women aren't represented equally in its tech departments and leadership. The document also cited "men's higher drive for status." The engineer's criticism of Google's attempts to improve gender and racial diversity has prompted two Google executives to rebut the lengthy post, which accused the company of creating an "ideological echo chamber" and practicing discrimination. Wide sharing of the document has highlighted struggles with gender equality and the wage gap in the tech industry and particularly at Google, which was sued by the federal government earlier this year for refusing to share compensation amounts and other data.

But in contrast, the document's author -- whose identity hasn't been publicly released but who claims to work at the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters -- accused Google of having "a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence." Not enough has been done, the engineer said, to encourage a diversity of viewpoints and ideologies at Google. The author also faulted the company for offering mentoring and other opportunities to its employees based on gender or race. The engineer began the document by stating, "I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes." The message ended with a similar sentiment -- but with the added notion, "Stereotypes are much more accurate and responsive to new information than the [company's] training suggests." In addition to the responses made from Google's VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance, Danielle Brown, former engineer Yonatan Zunger, and Google VP of Engineering Ari Balogh, senior developer Sarah Mei wrote: "This guy almost certainly thinks of himself as a 'computer scientist,' but he does exactly what you're not supposed to do as a scientist. He draws a conclusion favorable to his ego, and then works backwards from there, constructing an argument to justify it. [...] This google dude literally works at the company that made it _trivially easy_ to locate relevant social science research."

Comments

One guy

[nwaack]

These are the opinions of a single person, not Google itself. They shouldn't have to deal with fallout because he's got dumb opinions.

Re:One guy

[Anonymous Coward]

They should, instead, deal with the fallout for having a moronic position like a VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance.

Re:One guy

[Anonymous Coward]

They shouldn't have to deal with fallout because he's got dumb opinions.

Except they opted not to actually argue against what he was saying... instead doubling down on the ideological echo chamber.

It's always been interesting to me the intellectual shallowness I see from many on the left (like this case) where they refuse to debate or discuss those things which they view as settled. Even if true, the exploration of the topic creates insights and a deeper understanding not of the end result, but how it is achieved.

But then... they still don't understand how/why Trump won.

Re: One guy

[Anonymous Coward]

VP of Diversity, Integrity and Governance AKA Social Justice Warrior
It's not a job, it's the Spanish Inquisition for anyone who disagrees with the dogma of the day.

Re:One guy

[cecurry]

Jesus Christ. Can we not have a discussion without blaming something on "the left" or "the right"?

Re:One guy

[penandpaper]

It never said that "women can't do X because biology" but they have different interests and motivations and a gender gap may very well be explained without gender based discrimination. We should treat people as individuals not as groups. It also said that political biases will make it difficult to talk about the issues that diversity programs may cause such as treating individuals as a group.

No one is arguing that women can't do X but rather because of biological differences the average can create a gender gap even when the individual is an exception.

Re: One guy

[Wycliffe]

Women are physically weaker than men. This puts them at a disadvantage in jobs like police officer and soldier. I have a good friend who was hired as a resident assistant. She was blind. So they hired a blind person to be in charge of making sure that nobody was sneaking in booze, that there were no unsafe living conditions, etc... It doesn't make sense. As far as programming goes, men tend to prefer that type of solo work and more importantly, google already hire percentage of women than are actually graduating as do most other Silicon Valley firms so if we want more diversity, we are going to have to start a lot younger and figure out why men are more attracted to programming. We can start with a similar field and try to figure out why boys play video games significantly more than girls. Until we "solve" that problem the bandaids at adulthood are a joke.

Re:One guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they opted not to actually argue against what he was saying...

These issues have been argued to death. For centuries people have been saying "Women can't do X because biology says they should be home having babies", where X= policing, soldiering, leading, working as a professional, thinking about hard stuff, and now programming. So far the naysayers have always been wrong, but were never convinced by "arguments", only the performance of women in the jobs they supposedly couldn't do.

The article is saying nothing new at all, other than repeating the garbage you can find on any alt-right blog.

Soooo, how many female NFL players are there?

In a sport where you can literally get away with murder if you're good enough - hello, Ray Lewis - why has there never been a woman even come close to being able to compete? Because if a woman were a good enough player to play in the NFL, that woman would have every team in the league trying to sign her. And you know it.

Why doesn't the LPGA ever list the yardage on holes in women's golf?

How many women have played in England's Premier League or Germany's Bundesliga?

The women's world record squat is something like 705 lbs. That's also about the world record for a man - in the bench press.

they still don't understand how/why Trump won.

Trump lost overwhelmingly in Silicon Valley.

Ahh, yes, the land of the 1%

Re: One guy

[desdinova 216]

no one would ever expect that

Re:One guy

[Northdot]

You should read the article more closely, as he is not saying "all women" this or "all men" that. He specifically says that there is significant overlap between the sexes, and is only speaking to the large-number trends of gender percentages.

So in no way is he saying that all women are less suitable/inclined for leadership or for tech.. that would be laughable. He is just saying that when you look at the large trends, that part of the numbers may be in fact due to the biological traits which put the bell curves in different places with respect to success attributes for those professions.

And yes I think he stretches in places, but he is making an argument at least worthy of debate. Unfortunately the whole subject just gets everyone's hackles up, and both sides tend to start labeling rather than discussing particular points..

Re:One guy

[imgod2u]

Right. And if the manifesto had stopped there -- i.e. calling for more nuanced exploration into gender differences based on biology as opposed to social structures -- it may have garnered better reception. Instead, what happened was:

1. Starts out by rightly pointing out that gender gaps can often be a mix of systemic biases, discrimination as well as biological origins. And that just flat-out assuming that any part of the gap was due to one or the other was irresponsible. And flat-out trying to force the result without understanding the root causes of the gender gap is also irresponsible.
2. Proceeds to make tons and tons of assumptions and assertions about the differences between men and women (even statistically) without any regard to whether those differences truly are biological, social or some combination of the two. Or whether those differences even exist with the modern demographic and to what degree (lacking data, instead just assuming it's true).
3. Concludes by downplaying systemic sexism (as well as the aftermath of historical systemic sexism) and proclaims all is well and whatever gap we're seeing today is due to the womenz being too nurturing and not cut-throat enough.

This is by no means a flaw seen only in conservative men. But I find this line of reasoning all too familiar with the scribes of various blogs. And more often than not when you point out the clear hypocrisy and contradiction, the originator cries "oppression" and how everyone disagreeing with him is just part of a "PC movement".

Re: One guy

[Alok]

> Women's greater average ability in the communication stakes means that their code is probably better documented, right? And the SCM commits better written up. And their release notes better.

So you're arguing that women are different from men in some ways, and using that as part of your argument that GP is some sort of bigot?

As for pair programming, just because it exists doesn't mean its followed in the majority of positions so how does that invalidate the idea of programming is solo work.

Re:One guy

[K. S. Van Horn]

"Proceeds to make tons and tons of assumptions and assertions"

The original apparently had links to supporting sources for these assertions. Gizmodo chose to remove those links. I wonder why?

I don't know how accurate in general his assertions of fact are, but when it comes to gender differences in interests -- with men tending to be more "thing"-oriented, and women more people-oriented -- he is on very solid ground. I recommend that you read Scott Alexander's article discussing this:

Gender Imbalances Are Mostly Not Due to Offensive Attitudes.

Pay particular attention to section II where he discusses Richard Lippa's research.

Re: One guy

[TimothyHollins]

Come on mate, are you really going to bring this dead horse up again?

Spot the person who's never heard of pair programming. Or who believes, due to his own inability to work with others, is the wrong way to go.

Why isn't pair programming the one and only way to do things then? Could it be because he's right? I think so.

But hey, what is programming at all but communication. Communication with the computer. Maybe women are fundamentally better at it. On average.

Wow, quite the assertion. Unfortunately it's completely contrary to reality. But hey, you get SJW virtue points for the signalling. Well done.

Ah, yes, I remember that being a concern once upon a time. However, it's no longer true. There are more girl gamers than boy gamers now.

https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]

Seriously, you think Candy Crush on the smartphone is 'playing games'? It's cute that SJWs try to justify enforcing the "diversity" stupidity in gaming by trotting out these numbers again and again, but when we look at real games that require even the smallest level of investment (PC/consoles) we find that the audiences are largely male. But hey, you are absolutely correct as long as you constrain your propaganda calls to The Sims. But I guess you don't need to as that game, which correctly identified its audience as mostly female years ago, already is catering to that audience. Just like all other games would *if their audiences were actually female to any relevant proportion*.

Your ideology is not supported by the facts.

Re:One guy

[AmiMoJo]

Women sometimes can't do X. For example, it's pretty unlikely that a woman will ever beat the men's 100m sprint world record.

What is being argued is two things:

1) Just because women are different does not mean they are lesser, and in fact having diverse perspectives is beneficial.

2) The gender gap in tech is largely unrelated to biological differences, it's mostly social. There is a very large amount of evidence to support this.

The frustration here is, as ShanghaiBill points out, it's become a lot like climate change. Most people who looked at the evidence seriously came to the same conclusion, but some people keep insisting that we do it all again from scratch and occasionally one of them puts out a well written, reasonable sounding document that people who want to believe those things latch on to.

I suppose this can't really be helped, but it's still frustrating.

Re:One guy

[alvinrod]

Google made a shit-ton of money by offering good products. I don't give two fucks about the skin color, sexual orientation, political leanings, etc. of the software developers at Google as long as their search returns fast and accurate results. Diversity has almost nothing to do with quality of product as far as I can tell, but I can tell you that any company that institutes some kind of quota system is going to alienate and drive away some of those people who were responsible for quality products.

If you're recruiting people at disproportionate rates to the pool of available candidates either you need to pay better (and pay everyone else more as well or people will complain about receiving less if they believe that have equal skill or capability) or hire certain demographics at a lower ability threshhold (this assumes that none of the usual diversity demographics have any bearing on ability, which I'll assume you and most of the other people in favor of this crap would argue in favor of anyway) or disproportionately reject candidates who apply but don't fill any diversity quota. This is not an ideal strategy and opens the company up for competitors to offer a better product because they're either utilizing cheaper labor, not adding less skilled workers, or not passing over potentially higher skilled workers.

It might make good short term marketing, but in the end businesses compete on price. If this weren't true we'd still have all manner of goods being made in the United States because there are just as many people who like to virtue signal over their patriotism as there are those who like to about diversity initiatives. People's actions don't always align with their words, and companies run on dollars, not platitudes.

As an interesting aside, I had an interesting thought. Typically when these types of stories get posted someone invariably trots out an argument that diversity improves team performance. I don't think anyone has linked a study to ever support their claim, and for all I know such a study does exist, but assuming that claim were true, it would necessarily mean that those very same diversity characteristics (race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) mean that the people who possess them are somehow different. If that weren't the case, you shouldn't expect a different outcome. But if those characteristics make them different, then why would it be surprising if those characteristics didn't also result in fewer (or more as for that matter some minority groups are disproportionately more likely to be in computing) members of those demographics getting into software development or any other field for that matter. I suppose you could argue that those characteristics themselves aren't responsible, only that they are more strongly correlated with other factors such as growing up poor or something like that. However, that just strikes me as stereotyping people by assuming that just because they're a member of a certain demographic that they must possess some characteristic that will lead to this magical diversity performance improvement.

And don't just take this as some condemnation of hiring minority demographics or something equally asinine. In some cases you do quite clearly want to discriminate and have members of certain demographics. For example, if I were trying to make a phone I'd want to have some women on the team just because they're going to use the device in a different way than men in a very general sense. I don't necessarily mean in terms of apps or what they do with it, just that many will probably carry it in a purse or handbag and that they'll generally have smaller hands among several other things I probably haven't imagined might be important aspects of how the product should function. Yes, that itself is a contrived example, but it illustrates a point itself.

To get back on track, I think you and a lot of other posters make this mistake of assuming that you have some kind of morally superior position to base your argument on and that the rest

Re:One guy

[Rockoon]

2) The gender gap in tech is largely unrelated to biological differences, it's mostly social. There is a very large amount of evidence to support this.

Is it so large that nobody has cited any of it because (A) its actually crap, or (B) its too big to fit in the margins

???

Re:One guy

[LeftCoastThinker]

Everyone is an individual and their personal choices should be respected by everyone else. The fact that the fascist progressive left at Google wants to shoehorn more women into STEM jobs "just because" is bullshit and a blatant FU to all of the women who chose to put their children and family first and chose to stay at home while their husbands try to find a job being held hostage by gender politics.

Re:One guy

[penandpaper]

The point is even if the average of women can't do X you don't make it impossible for them to try X. Further, if you have a gender gap of "100m sprints" then it may not be because of systemic sexism in an organization that has "100m sprints".

1) It was never argued that women are lesser for having different interests or motivations. Taking more risks isn't necessarily a good or bad in and of itself but it can lead to higher status or higher probability to land in jail or homeless. Likewise, taking fewer risks isn't good or bad but it can lead to less status and less chance to be homeless or in jail. Yes, you are right. Diverse perspectives are beneficial which is why the original memo pointed out that there is a distinct lack of diversity of thought in google. This lack of diversity causes issues such as shaming into silence and an inability to honestly discuss ideas because some are too sacred (as the responses have shown them to be too sacred).

2) Social behavior is influenced by biology such as the examples listed in the original memo. Again, the point is that systemic sexism may not be adequate in accurately explaining the gender gap and forcing 50/50 gender representation through discrimination is unfair and bad for business.

Most people who looked at the evidence seriously came to the same conclusion, but some people keep insisting that we do it all again from scratch and occasionally one of them puts out a well written, reasonable sounding document that people who want to believe those things latch on to.

I can sympathize with that but the problem is when you reject any criticism and any discussion. The lack of diversity of thought coupled with the moralization of politics makes it impossible to discuss and come to a better understanding. The point of any discussion should never be the end result but the arguments, logic, and facts to get there.

Re: One guy

[BasilBrush]

That women differ from men is undeniable. That they happen to differ in ways that make them less good engineers is not a defensible position. What we see in the Googler's post, as in the bigotry here is that certain men assume that the attributes they display must surely be the ones that make for a better engineer. And that is just ignorance.

That pair programming isn't practised as much as solo programming doesn't make solo programming the right way. It may just be a symptom of the lack of communication skills amongst the current engineering population.

If you define gaming as a boys activity, and make games that appeal to boys, then it's not surprising that the majority of gamers as boys. As used to be. When you drop that bigotry and produce games that girls want to play too, low and behold it turns ou there are more female gamers.

Likewise, if you create an engineering industry catering to male ways of doing things and male opinions, then you end up with an engineering department where there are few women. However if you accept that women have different approaches, then you will likely find that there are just as many and just as good women programmers.

There was a film out a few months ago called Hidden Figures. Based on a true story about some black women who did some of the maths behind the early NASA missions. It was about the racism and sexism that existed against women engineers and mathematicians at the time. Sad to see that some people haven't progressed much in their opinions. The racism has lessened more than the sexism has.

Re: One guy

[TimothyHollins]

You are more than welcome to reformulate your point to "girls play more *smartphone* games than boys, hence we should put all kinds of SJW checkpoints into smartphone game development". If you do that, it will actually be correct and we can both be happy. Well, I'll be happy. I'm not sure if you are the kind of person that does happy.

Also, I didn't put any kind of objective superiority into it, merely pointing out that they are vastly different and for vastly different crowds. I think you are projecting that last part.

Re:One guy

[alvinrod]

If women are different from men in a way that would result in them having diverse perspectives, then why is it unreasonable to assume that those same diverse perspectives might lead them to other career choices?

As to your second point, the evidence seems to point the other way. I believe it was you who made a post in the previous thread in this topic indicating that Iranian women were more likely to be involved in software jobs as some evidence that it must be socially based. Interestingly enough, you'll see higher rates in other countries too. India is one example where there are significantly more women in computing. What you fail to understand is that this has little to do with cultural differences (and you'd be hard pressed to argue that either India or Iran have better views towards women in general than western democracies) and is the result of economic ones. Computer science jobs are well paying and in high demand, and do potentially afford you the opportunity to immigrate to a western democracy that may be preferable to the type of people who are intelligent enough to excel in the software development field.

When you remove economic pressures (the Scandinavian countries which have among the best social safety nets have the same low numbers of women in CS as the U.S.) and have a society that leaves you essentially free to pursue whatever ambitions you might have, it is hardly unsurprising that any biological tendencies that may predispose people to one field or another are more prevalent. To use an analogy, you can only really see if one strain of plant yields more only after you ensure that they all have sufficient water to thrive. If you somehow created a society that was able to ensure that everyone in life had an equal start, the only possible variance left would come down to biological differences.

There's a substantial amount of evidence to suggest men and women are different. Even at a surface level, we see large differences in things like personality, which has been demonstrated to be highly heritable. I'm not quite sure how you could look at those differences and come to the conclusion that it isn't going to result in differences in vocation selection or other life choices that can impact a person's career. I suppose you could argue that somehow all of these differences are merely a result of society, but that ignores the heritability of personality as well as evidence from studies that examined sex-based behavior difference in infants. See a recent study that examined children roughly one to two and half years of age in nurseries, a similar earlier study which examined infants 1 - 2 years of age , and another study which examined infants as young as three months old. There was another study that examined toy preference in young monkeys that found similar sex-based differences which does suggest that this is something that goes back quite far in our evolutionary history.

It's funny that you bring up global warming, because a lot of the evidence suggests that you are incorrect, yet you continue to act in much the same way as people who contest the science behind global warming. I seriously question how you could reconcile the studies I've presented above with your beliefs that biology plays such a little role in the outcomes we're observing. I suppose you could claim the science is biased, but then how do you know that the scientists publishing articles about climate change aren't biased?

Re:One guy

[runningduck]

I don't care how good one engineer is. If he is an asshat he will likely drive away more talent then he can ever dream of. I have been in companies one might consider a part of the "good ol' boy's network." When HR demanded that the pin-up posters come down the engineers screamed about how much more valuable they were to the company than any whiners. It was a pleasure to watch as over time each one of these "top-notch" engineers was walked out the door. And to add icing on the cake, once these asshats were gone people who were otherwise looked over stood up and did some incredible work.

The moral of the story is that you get what you reward. If you reward people complaining about their personal injustices then you will develop a company full of such people. (purposely ambiguous) If you reward people who work well in diverse groups then you will end up with a company that works well regardless of individual differences.

Re: One guy

[runningduck]

Interesting that you are casting this as a conservative versus liberal. I do not believe, as you infer, that conservatives are asshats or that they abhor diversity. I know many conservatives and liberal who respect each other and work well together across gender and racial lines. The position you are taking appears to be borderline alt-right. Is that what you intended?

"There is a difference between men an women . . ."

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . Vive la différence . . . !

. . . this story sounds as simple as a couple going through a difficult divorce . . . you can't ever really know where the truth lies, but it is somewhere in between . . .

Shaming...

[Marc_Hawke]

I think it's interesting how this guy is being shamed for posting a controversial opinion. ;) Where did I read about that happening? Oh that's right..it reportedly happens at Google.

I read the manifesto...the whole thing. He makes two spurious and generalizing claims (women are more cooperative, men are driven by status) but everything else in the paper are legitimate concerns about "how" diversity is being enforced. He also gives a lot of suggestions as to how it could be better fostered and/or measured.

The part I dislike the most is how most of the published reactions are couched in damage control and distancing themselves from the author. In reality they needed to be inclusive saying how they want to hear everyone's opinions and how they take those concepts into account when making policy. Basically, the public responses have just reinforced the complaints that the author had with the programs in the first place. (Especially Sarah Mei, who basically just called him names and insulted his intelligence without any sort of direct rebuttal to his claims.)

Re:Shaming...

[hsthompson69]

Mod parent up. I don't think there can be a more damning reaction from the left than a collective freakout and immediate calls for censorship of wrongthink.

If the intent is to debunk the original author's points, screaming "bad, bad, bad thinker!", is literally the most unpersuasive move in the book.

It's almost as if nobody actually has any logical, reasoned response to his critique...

Re:Shaming...

[computational super]

It's funny (not in a haha way, though), how in their desperate attempt not to alienate one demographic, they're so quick to alienate another with no indication that they so much as care. As of now, there's nowhere else for the throwaway straight white men that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft have no use for, but if such an avenue does open up, it'll be interesting to see how many flock to where they're actually welcomed and wanted. And doubly interesting to see if that actually creates a competitive advantage.

Re:Shaming...

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't "spurious and generalizing claims", they are statistical descriptions of behavior over a large population of individuals.
Yes, statistics shows that women tend to be more openly cooperative. Individuals vary significantly, but on average the conclusion holds.
Yes, statistics shows that men tend to be more concerned with status. Individuals vary significantly, but on average the conclusion holds.
This is exactly what he said - on average, these things are true.

Your sort of reaction to supposed stereotyping is throwing out the baby, along with the bathwater. Studies show that stereotypes are often decently accurate for a group as a whole AND over overridden by knowledge of individuals when that is available, serving to produce a combined more accurate worldview than tabula rasa or pure stereotype rejection (see "Stereotype (In)Accuracy in Perceptions of Groups and Individuals", Jussim, Crawford, Rubinstein).

Statistics is a way to learn things about populations, not individuals. Stereotypes are descriptions of populations in the same way. As long as you can understand that, they serve a useful purpose. In this case, Google is so determined to counter stereotypes that it now only acknowledges them, it allows them to direct its behavior. That needs to stop, and instead treat their employees like individuals - rather than walking talking identical population samples.

Re:Shaming...

[K. S. Van Horn]

WTF? How in the world do you come to that conclusion? You could just as easily argue that being driven by status makes for a bad leader and that cooperating more makes for a better leader.

Re:Shaming...

[PeeAitchPee]

Don't kid yourself. The reason that Google et al developers are majority straight white males (and Asians) is because that's by and large what is available in the talent pool of qualified applicants. You can't hire a black developer if you can't find one with the skillsets you require, and Google has just about zero control over that. Meaning that, this is all theater. Don't think for a second that any diversity / quotas will get in the way of billion dollar software companies developing the technology they decide to create. They need people who can code, and they'll continue to hire them, and retain the good ones they already have.

Re:Shaming...

[Rmorph]

When the core tenet of a manifesto is so patently false and absurd then OF COURSE the guy who wrote it will be shamed. It is a shameful document. Replace "Women" with "Blacks" or "Jews" or "Muslims" and see how legitimate this manifesto is. Through history various commentators have attempted to define "Biological Differences" as the central reason why one group of human beings will perform better than others at various tasks. And then remember we're talking about maths, science and technology skills. Leadership skills. There is no scientific evidence WHATSOVER that men perform better in such tasks due to a biological advantage. NONE. It is a myth born from a 19th century gender disparity that is only reinforced by the idiocy on display in this manifesto. On the contrary there is plenty of evidence that shows that when you level the playing field in technology and science men and women can perform equally well, but that the playing field is NEVER equal. The author writes from a heavily biased and entirely inaccurate viewpoint, and spends no time or effort supporting his own theories with evidence, but rather pronouncing his prejudices with all the juicy truthiness one expects self-convincing bigots.

Re:Shaming...

[AmiMoJo]

People criticise his arguments and he is "shamed" because he now looks foolish or illiberal or whatever.

How would you propose preventing this "shaming" without limiting people's freedom of speech?

Re:Shaming...

[DRJlaw]

It's almost as if nobody actually has any logical, reasoned response to his critique...

Because it's simply earlier to ignore everything that came before his critique in a "last words win" mode of analysis?

It's not as if nobody has addressed this before.

There. You have a logical, reasoned response to his critique. Game on.

Re:Shaming...

[brennz]

Almost all of his post from within Google has been completely altered for posting in the Media. References removed, no support for arguments, etc. I'm not sure we can say what is showing up in the media is even his arguments, since all the support material has been amputated.

This is hardly an open discussion.

Re:Shaming...

[hsthompson69]

Please, criticize a single one of his arguments.

Note, screaming "everything they say is absolutely wrong and we shouldn't tolerate such violent, corrosive thoughts!", is *not* a critique.

Re:Shaming...

[hsthompson69]

Your cite supports him. From the first hit:

"Results indicated that no gender differences in programming performance were found after controlling for the effect of student ability."

So...after you control for ability (which may be driven by gender), there's no difference in performance.

Would you like to perhaps be more specific in your critique?

Re:Shaming...

[brennz]

"They are all old and well debunked, so it seems unlikely that he has found some new well of insight to draw from" Thanks for telling us how to think. I appreciate that, truly.

Re:Shaming...

[hsthompson69]

Stating that approximately half of the population is by default, choosing more often to do something besides tech work, doesn't create a hostile workplace at all.

The mischaracterization of his opinion (which was about distributions and choice, not inherent inability for all members of a given group), is a willful misreading, and shows the critique of the echo chamber was spot on.

If you want to say that some ideas are off limits, then you should be more cautious with which ideas you put into that category. Like, maybe demanding that gays be killed because Allah would be a good one to put off limits, but "women make different choices than men"...that's a stretch.

Re:Shaming...

[AmiMoJo]

Is there some dialect of English where one of the words I wrote means "you must think"? Because in the language I speak that sentence doesn't mean what you think it means.

Re:Shaming...

[AmiMoJo]

Please, criticize a single one of his arguments.

Okay.

He says women are less inclined to negotiate for higher salaries. Studies show that when they do, they are often punished for being "bossy" or "shrill", rather than it being some biological imperative.

He says women prefer a better work/life balance, but attributes it to biology. There seem to be other reasons though, like the fact that they tend to do more of the unpaid labour (chores, child care etc.) and are judged more harshly for putting in long hours that neglect their families and friends. And he doesn't seem to think that men would benefit from not working longer hours either, it's implied to be a positive trait that justifiably results in rewards.

He claims that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. In fact we know that women are simply more likely to speak up when they are under heavy stress and seek support for it, rather than bottling it up, rather than being less able to cope.

Three for the price of one.

Re:Shaming...

[Kjella]

He says women prefer a better work/life balance, but attributes it to biology. There seem to be other reasons though, like the fact that they tend to do more of the unpaid labour (chores, child care etc.) and are judged more harshly for putting in long hours that neglect their families and friends.

And how much of that boils down to biology, is it external pressure to do most the child care or a biological instinct? Many women can talk equality and feminism all day but the vast, vast majority of moms will grab the role as caretaker with both hands and make dad take care of other things. Even when the wage gap is small or even inverted, it's almost always mom working part time or the one who can't work overtime. It's exceptionally rare for women to lose the daily custody in a divorce. Is it all just social construct?

Truth is, women got near equality in work life. But they're trying to put in that effort on top of the traditional gender role at home. I'm for equal pay for equal work. But equal means equal, the same experience in actual working years not away on maternity leave or working part time or leaving to collect at day care while the rest work all night long. If you don't like it, give up half the family life. Tell your man to go home to take care of the sick kids. Tell him he'll be working part time too. And no, he can't work overtime when the kids need him. Don't support equal pay for unequal work.

Re:Shaming...

[hsthompson69]

He says women are less inclined to negotiate for higher salaries. Studies show that when they do, they are often punished for being "bossy" or "shrill"

Cite, please.

are judged more harshly for putting in long hours that neglect their families and friends.

Do you also find it sexist that men are judged more harshly for *not* putting in long hours, and are expected to neglect their family and friends?

He claims that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress.

Now, let's be specific here. He says "women, on average" not "women". And he specifies:

"Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)."

And, he's right - https://www.cambridge.org/core...

Now, that being said, THANK YOU. Argument is the answer, not name calling, or shaming, or shunning, or deciding that certain topics are off limits.

Re:Shaming...

[Tomster]

There's a world of difference between "this isn't worth discussing or responding to" and "you're being fired[1] because you expressed a viewpoint that we believe is incorrect".

[1] replace fired with imprisoned, shot, blacklisted, or any other punishment, depending on the situation/country/time.

Re:Shaming...

[cyberchondriac]

He's not accusing them of "wrongthink"; he's accusing them of, "no think", "blindly follow crowd", and refusal (not inability) to debate or listen.
There's a significant difference, but you just wanted to counterattack with a variant of the ever mature, "I'm rubber and you're glue, what you say bounces off me and sticks to you".

Re:obligatory pay transparency

[OhPlz]

But two people can have the same job title but have very different performance, and performance is not something that's easily measured and recorded. Simple solutions are part of the problem.

Re:What is google going to do to fix this?

[bugs2squash]

Which conservative value is at issue here ?

Re:What is google going to do to fix this?

[Kohath]

Free and open debate.

Re:Hey - here's an idea

[thegreatbob]

Purple people would tend to be a target for the Purple People Eater, making them quite the liability... just sayin'

PC Thugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the problem: Men and Women ARE factually different, both physiologically and physcologically.

Letting political correctness attempt to solve a problem that is not there is absurd, and frankly at this point stupid. I don't see the huge push to get men into nursing (>90% female), social services (>80% female) or elementary school teaching (>80% female).

Every rebuttal confirms him

[sciengin]

So far every single "rebuttal" from google and outside, every autistic screeching, every angry tweet and call for his firing and public outing simply confirms what he said.

Instead to tackling the deep issues of PC culture they are trying to kill the messenger.
The very existence of a VP for diversity at an engineering company should be a wake up call.
And lets not even get to her asinine "arguments" that are anything but. Sara Meis response is even worse actually (not that I thought it could be possible). Instead of citing data that disproves his arguments (protip: does not exist, neither does the wage gap) she puts words in his mouth ("conclusions that favor his ego") and implies that he did not arrive to those conclusions by observation but apparently HAD to work backwards.

Re:Hey - here's an idea

[computational super]

The funny thing there is, they ARE hiring the most qualified people for each job - that's why they have 35% asian representation when Asians represent about 5% of the U.S. population. Funny that this so-called "diversity" coordinator doesn't see any problem with this. In fact, the numbers are probably even more skewed - Google lumps "asian" into a single category but I'd be shocked if Indian/Pakistani didn't dominate that 35% in spite of being only one single percent of the U.S. population.

One SMART guy

[mi]

They shouldn't have to deal with fallout because he's got dumb opinions.

Had they really been "dumb" opinions, they would've been easy to dismiss. The very problem for Google — and the "progressives" everywhere — is that the man's opinions are perfectly reasonable and well-argued.

The particular point I appreciated was that any "gap" between sexes, races, etc. is not automatically evidence of an evil bias, contrary to what Social Justice Warriors would like us to believe. Such a bias may be responsible for a gap — entirely or partially — but it also may not. And, obviously, any efforts to fight the suspected discrimination, the very existence of which is "proven" by nothing else, with actual and deliberate discrimination is patently unfair — and bad for business.

Re:One SMART guy

[penandpaper]

Further what I appreciated in the original was that any political bias will make it difficult to discuss the subject honestly. Since google is very left leaning any left leaning topic is difficult to discuss because of their political bias. The responses so far is what you would expect if his opinion was based in reality. Looks like it was.

Re:One SMART guy

[AmiMoJo]

the man's opinions are perfectly reasonable and well-argued.

They are well-argued, I'll give you that. And they certainly sound reasonable if you have only a superficial understanding of the issues. And that's the problem.

It's all old, tired arguments that have been comprehensively refuted before. For example, he states that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. We know that isn't true, because we have studied it in great detail.

When this is pointed out, people are accused of being "autistic" and "screeching".

Re:One SMART guy

[mi]

comprehensively refuted before

Citations?

we have studied it in great detail

Citations?

Re:One SMART guy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all old, tired arguments that have been comprehensively refuted before. For example, he states that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. We know that isn't true, because we have studied it in great detail.

Wrong! According to

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/know-your-mind/201306/the-stressed-sex-1

women have higher rates of anxiety and depression than men. The article does not claim that claims that women are "less able to deal with stress", but it does claim that women are generally more "stressed" than men.

Your claim that these are "old, tired arguments that have been comprehensively refuted" is a bald-faced lie.

Re:One SMART guy

[penandpaper]

For example, he states that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. We know that isn't true, because we have studied it in great detail.

You make a claim without substantiating it. From the quick google I see something different. The number of stressors could be a factor or the way the brain operates but either way there is more to it than what you lead on. Also, the links to his original memo were initially stripped out, did you check his sources or are assuming he was making unsubstantiated claims like you?

  Considering the guy was fired and the responses in TFS it does sound like people were screeching autistically because someone said something they didn't like.

Re:One SMART guy

[AmiMoJo]

I basically agree. His conclusions are bogus and a form of biological essentialism. He also fails to understand how focusing on such things has very negative consequences for some of his co-workers.

Re: One SMART guy

[mi]

women embedded in Iraq were instrumental in gaining access to homes without fighting being necessary because they were a) women and could thus speak to the women in the home and b) presented less of a threat profile to the local men.

So, they were useful in dealing with sexists? Seriously, that's your example?

I can't answer because I am not a woman. I cannot tell you what insights that experience might provide on a battlefield.

Your admission of ignorance is touching, but where was that humility, when you stated confidently, that there it is never the case, where the feminine viewpoint may be detrimental? Nothing useful some times is useful at all times — except feminine viewpoint?..

The giant pink elephant in the room of your thinking remains: you openly argue for considering a person's sex, when making a hiring decision. How do you not see this position as sexist, escapes me...

There was a movie, where a female musician fooled the admissions panel of a major orchestra by wearing her husband's shoes to the audition. To prevent bias, the rest of the applicant's body was always hidden by a curtain, but she suspected — correctly — that the men saw her shoes and rejected her in the earlier audition because they could see female footwear. Her character was very sympathetic and all the viewers cheered her victory and felt disgust with the old farts, that made such trickery necessary, and how their jaws dropped when the curtain was lifted and they realized, they were had.

The men may soon need to learn to wear high heels. And though to some that may seem like a well-deserved payback, it is just as disgusting and unfair. Individuals ought to be judged on their individual merits, period.

Re:What is google going to do to fix this?

[Orgasmatron]

A world of difference.

In one case, a person is asking for the ability to express ideas and opinions contrary to the herd mind without being attacked verbally, physically or economically.

In the other, a person is asking for the ability to attack people verbally, physically and economically for expressing ideas and opinions contrary to the herd mind.

One of those is the very foundation of government as an entity exercising a monopoly of violence. The other is Orwellian. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to connect those definitions with the philosophies expressed, and the parties involved.

P.S. I will rebut-in-advance the typical reply in hopes that some of you will think before responding. "Marxists define speech they dislike as violence, and violence they agree with as speech."

Re:First Be Evil

[brennz]

It isn't like Google is:

Conspiring with autocratic nation's Great Firewalls
Doxxing internal critics
Fighting against free speech
Hiding important content
Getting in bed with corrupt political candidates
Trying to subvert the political process
Enforcing ThoughtCrime
Demonetizing any Youtube performers on the Right
Rewriting queries to favor their own services
Manipulated searches to hide politicians' dark deeds
Coming up with exotic Tax avoidance schemes
Supporting Terrorists' information sharing

Do no evil, right?

the system always wins

[epine]

I glanced through Sarah Mei's Twitter page, and she's full of shit. She seems not to get why women in tech might not be evenly distributed.

* Suppose you have a culture that hires based on personal referral. (It's usually one of the best ways to go.)
* Suppose your culture starts out with a male nucleus.
* Suppose your male nucleus mostly has male contacts.

You're gonna get a mainly male culture.

Companies don't hire the best candidate available. Companies hire the candidate for whom they have the most confidence of strong performance, meaning that the route into the door matters a lot. Applicants at large will not be given equal shrift to applicants with a strong, internal referral.

From that starting point, the organization is subject to network effects, none of which need to be intrinsically biased in order to lead to a biased outcome (as determined by simple headcount).

One can argue that the sorry state of women in technology justifies taking active measures against the default behaviour of your (potentially) gender-neutral starting point. One can't argue that failing to take active measures automatically incriminates your starting point as gender discriminatory.

In Sarah's world where water isn't wet, and laudable corporations seek the best candidate while paying no attention to existing network effects, you can draw these conclusions, loudly and with no nuance, should it serve your purpose.

I'm not saying that innocent bias doesn't coexist with toxic bias. I am saying that presumptive guilt is an extremely dangerous tool as wielded by a small, angry imagination.

Re:the system always wins

[AmiMoJo]

Suppose you have a culture that hires based on personal referral. (It's usually one of the best ways to go.)

Only if you are trying to build a monoculture, the very thing that this guy is complaining about.

One can't argue that failing to take active measures automatically incriminates your starting point as gender discriminatory.

This is a very common misunderstanding. It's institutionally biased. It's not that the individuals involved are sexists or deliberately trying to build a monoculture, it's that the model they are using, the common model of hiring by personal recommendation for example, creates bias. Bias that creates a monoculture and hurts the business.

It's not about blaming people for this, it's about recognizing that there are better systems and putting them into place.

Re:What is google going to do to fix this?

[Rockoon]

Free speech.

Shakespeare

[Tailhook]

What an amazing exhibition of group-think. Google has accumulated thousands of Sarah Meis and by extension the Valley etc. has accrued a couple million rigorously orthodox malcontents. We're now into day three of that monoculture's collective apoplexy because one powerless nobody had the temerity to question the dogma.

Thou doth protest too much, methinks.

What's the big fuss?

[Qbertino]

The text is a very detailed well written and very nuanced opinion-piece and excellent food for an educated debate on the issue. He may make wrong assumptions and may be unable to cite resources, but the essay itself is well rounded and has some excellent talking points. If you don't agree or see flaws in his chain of thought, write and talk about it. If arguments or conclusions of his are wrong, debunk them. But please stop this public shaming and hysteria, this has nothing to do anymore with equal rights or neccesary gender issue discussions.

I really wish we could talk without this all-out hatered and PR assasination of people, mostly by feminists, some of whom seem to think of feminism of some sort of religious ideology.

Too bad google doesn't have "blind auditions"

[Tim2]

Prior to 1970 most symphony orchestra musicians were men. Then around 1970 blind auditions (when you don't know who is playing or their gender) started to become common, and are now nearly universal. As a result, symphony musicians today are nearly evenly split between genders. See: http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orc...

I have interviewed prospective software developers in my career, and know that it was very difficult, if not impossible, to counteract my own prejudices even when I wanted to be fair. To be a woman interviewed for a job by someone with the views of the Google employee who believed women are genetically inferior for engineering would be devastating. Even someone with more even handed views undoubtedly harbors some bias.

I don't know if "blind interviews" for engineers will ever be practical, so maybe we are stuck with perpetuating our prejudices on hiring decisions indefinitely.

Groups

[sdinfoserv]

Statistical analysis by function, creates groups. It's interesting that we group numbers, genes, animals... however it's somehow evil, in a new century way, to group based on gender

The reality is men tend to process spatially where as women tend to process verbally. that is biology. These are not absolutes, as varying individuals on both sides of the spectrum cross. However, generally it's true... and yes, I'm grouping. Anyone who claims different is a liar or misinformed. There's no debate, men and women are wired differently.
https://www.scientificamerican...
I'm sure most people on this forum have seen those ads or politicians stating "everyone needs to learn to program" and smirk to yourself or get upset knowing it's ludicrous as well
This is the same. People have predispositions to specific tendencies and processes that make some professional trades ideal, where as others, not so much. Given that mathematics, and computer programming via extension, tend to favor those who process information spatially, this biologically implies males would be more likely to perform these tasks and drawn to them.
Again, I'm not saying "all", just general tendencies.
But we as reasonable people need to stop going apesh*t when someone suggests that the everyone is not the same or some people can not perform tasks as well as others. .

Re:What is google going to do to fix this?

[Jodka]

He wasn't doxxed

Yes he was. For obvious reasons, I am not going to link that.

he didn't lose his job

His critics are demanding that he be fired.

and there is a healthy debate over his document.

He is enduring brutal, public, ad-hominem attacks by Google management ridiculing his competence as a programmer.

In fact the only people not taking about the content of the document are the conservatives complaining that people aren't taking about the content of the document.

Horseshit.

Re:Hey - here's an idea

[Mr. Shotgun]

Purple people would tend to be a target for the Purple People Eater, making them quite the liability... just sayin'

Although the Purple People Eater does have the ability to fly, his monocular vision reduces his depth perception making him a somewhat less dangerous foe. Purple People should drop a point or two into agility to make evasion easier.

Oh, please ...

[Qbertino]

Instead of you know, all the female, queer, non white, or disenfranchised employees / potential employees and other people who are actually speaking up about the discrimination they face. Not some whining man baby who feels threatened now that others are getting their chance.

Oh, Jebus H.B. Christ, give me an effing break already, will ya?

There is *NOTHING* preventing any women or team of women getting together and building the next Apple. There is *NOTHING* at all preventing any lady from getting a refurbished ThinkPad for 250 bucks, sitting down at her desk and coding the foundation of the next Oracle. There is no obstacle what-so-freakin-ever preventing any girl or woman of picking up a book on C and joining the kernel team. Or Gnome. Or getting into C++ and joining KDE. You can become a project lead and no one will even know that you're a woman. No one freakin' cares. It's the F*CKING internet! Know one knows who you are.

Why isn't it happening? For the very same reason that musical innovation of the last 200 years in the US didn't come from well educated, musically trained and compareativly priviliged and free white women of the middle and upper class but from BLACK MALE SLAVES. Why? Well, I'll take a wild guess here: There is a strong incentive for men to prove their worth to society. BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO! A young woman has already proven her worth: She has a womb and tits that give milk. Men are disposable women are not. Men have to fight to prove their worth. They have to pull way more than their own weight to prove worthy as a mate. The criminal justice system is biased against them and in favour of women ALL AROUND THE WORLD throughout history until today. Be young, beautiful, female and an asshole and get away with it. Be a male asshole and you better be a strong one capable of defending the tribe, otherwise you're kicked out or into jail faster that you can think.

I got some freakin news for you, you dunce: Tech innovation is driven by unattractive MALE SOCIETY DROPOUTS! They have nothing else to do but code.

And now cry me a river about gender inequality in tech. NOBODY is stopping any women of joining. ... Gawd how I'd love to have some neat sex and discuss the pros and cons of Rust vs. Go afterwards while lying in bed and chilling. ... Won't happen, no matter how much we wish for it BECAUSE *NEWFLASH* on average WOMEN AREN'T ALL THAT INTERESTED IN CODING!

Did you FINALLY get the message?

We cannot accept thoughtcrime

[Beeftopia]

"We can accept many transgressions, but we cannot accept thoughtcrime. It is the most dangerous to our authority."

And he's terminated as of now.

It is a business though. However, if they want out of the box thinkers... I dunno.

Re:What is google going to do to fix this?

[ArylAkamov]

Spoke a little too soon. He's been fired, dox'd and blacklisted along with threats against his personal safety.
I've yet to see anyone upset by this document discuss it in a calm and reasonable way, mainly useless gender studies graduates getting angry on twitter and refusing to discuss it, because "discussing it validates it" and "muh bigots". The irony of that last one is pretty sad.
Unless you completely ignore all forms of social media, this guy is getting completely shit on with very little "healthy" debate.
The man has a PhD in Biology from Harvard for fucks sake, and he's called the ignorant one for stating scientific facts.

Fired

[TooManyNames]

Aaaaannd he's gone. Utterly shocking, I know.

Remember kids, keep your harmful* opinions to yourself.

*The threshold for harmful opinion is subject to change. Google reserves the right to declare any idea, and the expression thereof, as harmful at any time, and will not tolerate employment or use of Google services by those expressing such ideas.

Breaking news: He has been fired

[ShanghaiBill]

The author of the essay was James Damore, and a few hours ago Google fired him.

Re:What is google going to do to fix this?

[EmptyHead]

PhD in Biology from Harvard... No wonder the thought police hate him. The new definition of gender is almost literally about feelings and culture. Probably drives the poor scientist nuts. Dark times.