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From Google To Yahoo, Tech Grapples With White Male Discontent (bloomberg.com)

Reader joshtops shares a Bloomberg report: Google isn't the only Silicon Valley employer being accused of hostility to white men. Yahoo and Tata Consultancy Services were already fighting discrimination lawsuits brought by white men before Google engineer James Damore ignited a firestorm -- and got himself fired -- with an internal memo criticizing the company's diversity efforts and claiming women are biologically less suited than men to be engineers. The Yahoo case began last year when two men sued, claiming they'd been unfairly fired after managers allegedly manipulated performance evaluations to favor women. They claim Marissa Mayer approved the review process and was involved in their terminations, and last month a judge ordered the former chief executive be deposed. TCS, meanwhile, is fighting three men who claim the Mumbai-based firm discriminates against non-Indians at its U.S. offices.

32 of 577 comments (clear)

  1. Need vs Politics by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Insightful

    White males are not very PC today but it's hard to run a company without any of them. The trick is to find a balance where you treat them shitty enough to make the left happy but not so shitty they go somewhere more tolerant.

    1. Re:Need vs Politics by green1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Discrimination against white males is no more "tolerant" than discrimination against any other race or gender.
      Discrimination is discrimination, no matter what group it is against. Just because it's socially acceptable to discriminate against white men doesn't make it right.

    2. Re:Need vs Politics by green1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Correct. Unfortunately when companies make it white males vs everyone else, everyone loses.

      Companies need to stop discrimination, not shift the target of it. Companies shouldn't even keep track of race or gender of their employees, there is no legitimate reason to keep that information, and it is only ever useful for discriminatory practices.

    3. Re:Need vs Politics by zugmeister · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well as long as you have a personal anecdote I guess that's all the data we should ask for?

    4. Re:Need vs Politics by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Now try looking for Trans, PoC, etc Queer people - yeah. They barely exist.

      That'd be because (aside from "PoC"), they do barely exist, at least in the US. It's well under a percent for trans people, and 1-2 percent queer/lesbian/gay. I haven't seen any studies on the topic, but I wouldn't be surprised to find they're actually overrepresented in the media (I can't find simple numbers with a quick Google search, but Wikipedia gives ~4% for regular broadcast TV characters, which is surprisingly close to the right fraction). And as for "PoC": they're again usually represented at around the expected demographic fraction (13% of movie characters vs. 13.6% of the population, for e.g.), except for IIRC Asians, who tend to be overrepresented, and Mexicans, who tend to be underrepresented.

      Mind you, people will still complain because most people have no idea what the demographics in the US actually are (such as for e.g. this, admittedly quite dated, study), and for many special interests groups, that's a feature, not a bug. A news story of "only 3 of the 20 Oscar nominees are black!" gets clicks, "black actors slightly overrepresented at the Oscars" does not.

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  2. As a white man... by mellon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I gotta say, I get treated pretty nicely. When I was a twenty-something I was really resentful because I couldn't figure out how to get dates. I want to believe that there is more to this kerfuffle than that, but I really just don't get it. Why are my youthful brethren so discontent?

    1. Re:As a white man... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You get treated nicely. Given your Slashdot user number, it's highly likely you've been here for almost 2 decades. That would mean you've figured out the corporate game and how to keep your mouth shut. You may have already been promoted and given generous raises.

      Young men getting shoved to the back of the class or young men getting passed over for promotions or not getting accepted to college because they are white and male is a different thing than you've experienced. But - they are not a protected class. Are we creating a disenchanted class of young white men without prospects? Maybe not yet, but when you have a cadre of young men without jobs, passed over for promotions and educational opportunities, they will find other ways to spend their time. Witness Charlottesburg. Lot of people apparently with plenty of time on their hands to create havoc and now murder.

      It may sound like grievance mongering, and you may not buy the thesis, but lots of young people with nothing to do equals time wasted spent on other things that are not productive to society. That goes for all races, genders, etc.

    2. Re:As a white man... by Altus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You seem to think that this is a new phenomenon... that the idea that we should treat women and minorities decently is somehow just coming up... or the idea that equal representation might be an important thing for minorities, or that you shouldn't sexually harass co-workers....

      All this stuff was around in the 90s, most of it came into being in the 80s. You might believe you are the first generation to be held to a higher standard, but thats simply not true.

      --

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    3. Re:As a white man... by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To some degree the culture wars are a struggle between groups striving to reduce the other group to a bit player in their personal dramas. When you're young, you think the frustrations of your group are unique -- which in a way they are.

      When you're a female engineer, you face patronization, and an entrenched belief that no women can't be good at what you do. And that sucks. Yet it makes my skin crawl to see a wealthy middle class woman lecture a poor working class man about his "privilege". It's not that she's wrong; being male, particularly white male, confers certain privileges. But not only does it completely ignore the privileges of class that he does not enjoy, it's reducing all that individual's unique life experiences to a scheme.

      The bottom line is people don't have enough compassion for each other. And that's because they treat compassion as a resource; if I spare compassion for *that* group, I won't have enough left over for *my* group.

      Compassion is not a resource, it is a habit of mind. What's more it's an essential tool in the the human cognitive framework; the way we enter another's skin and come to understand him or her as an individual. All these pointless arguments, you will note, take place in terms of archetypes (e.g. the average woman or man).

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    4. Re:As a white man... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You ignored his questions and remade the argument to make him look anti-egalitarian. Here it is again:

      Did you ever feel in YOUR twenties that you were being blamed for society? Were YOU ever being told to "check your privilege" simply because you were a white male? That, somehow, it was YOUR fault and YOU should feel ashamed due to an accident of your birth?

      These things were not in the '90's. In '85 nobody said "check your privilege". Nobody called a computer club in '99 bigoted cisgender neo-nazis because the only people that showed up were socially ostracized teenage boys. Society has radically changed in the last ten years let alone twenty.

    5. Re:As a white man... by Cederic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      All this stuff was around in the 90s, most of it came into being in the 80s. You might believe you are the first generation to be held to a higher standard, but thats simply not true.

      My generation was held to a higher standard. We were taught to treat everybody equally.

      Sadly that's no longer the case. Mainstream media is rampant with anti-white and anti-male writing, and at its most hysterical when the two intersect.

  3. False representation/slander? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The memo not only does NOT make the claim that women are less suited to tech roles and leadership roles, it makes the counter claim, that men have designed those roles to make them less friendly to women and that by altering those roles we can improve diversity and decrease the gender gap.

    But I've yet to see a single neoliberal source treat the memo honestly, every neoliberal source I've seen treats Damore radically different than his behavior reflects. I don't agree with everything he says, but to claim he is against diversity is straight slander here.

    1. Re:False representation/slander? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, they have been lowered.. he didn't sugar coat the truth.

    2. Re:False representation/slander? by swillden · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He says hiring standards had been lowered for diversity.

      FWIW, I work for Google and interview software engineering candidates. I have never, ever been told to go easier on diversity candidates, or indeed anything other than to apply the same rigorous standard to all. My colleagues on the hiring committees (who make hire/no-hire decisions) say the same, and I see no evidence of bias in which people I've interviewed got offers... maybe half of the good ones got offers, none of the borderline or below got offers, and I see no gender or racial correlations at all.

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    3. Re:False representation/slander? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      He says hiring standards had been lowered for diversity.

      True. But he doesn't say that is because women are inherently less capable, but inherently less interested, so the standards have to be lowered because the female candidate pool is shallower.

      Disclaimer: I am just trying to clarify what James wrote. I am not agreeing with it. I like working with chicks.

    4. Re:False representation/slander? by harrkev · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think that the bigger issue is that, generally, women are not as interested in tech jobs as guys are.

      Women are 100% as capable as men in tech fields -- when they choose those fields. I have known some great women engineers.

      However, women only make up approximately 20% of I.T. related degrees earned.

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    5. Re:False representation/slander? by sexconker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Except it was supported by his sources.

    6. Re:False representation/slander? by harrkev · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not necessarily. I have kids, so I have seen the differences between males and females. There are structural differences, including differences in the corups collosum (part of the brain). Perhaps such changes just mean that boys and girls find different sorts of things interesting.

      I have four daughters. If one of them wanted to enter the tech field, I would support them 100%. However, I am not going to try to force them to enter the field just just because somebody thinks that we need more women coders and sysadmins. I will let them decide what interests them.

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    7. Re:False representation/slander? by dtandersen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Several of his sources said "yep, he pretty much understood our research and got it right."

  4. Fix by Tailhook · · Score: 4, Funny

    Pretend you're gay. You'll gets lots of kudos and become part of a protected class.

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  5. Again??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >> claiming women are biologically less suited than men to be engineers.

    Come on, He didn't make such a claim. He said biology may play a part in women's preferences in choosing to go into the field.

  6. You get dates with good jobs by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The kind that have vanished. There's nothing more dangerous than a man, any man, with no job prospects and therefore no marriage prospects.

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  7. Re:Is it really that difficult? by green1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And better yet, treat them exactly the same as you would treat women or minorities. That means no discriminating against people based on gender or race (as is alleged by the "discontent white males")

  8. /. lies by getuid() · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slashdot, that's not what the memo said.

    You can agree with the memo or you can't, but at least get the f$#@ing facts straight.

    1. Re:/. lies by ckatko · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seems like people who know they're wrong will never dare confirm the facts.

  9. Re:"Discontent" by green1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But don't worry, discrimination against white males is socially acceptable.

  10. Re:Is it really that difficult? by Bert64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well here's the thing, if you treat everyone equally then you end up with a majority of white males in various roles such as tech.
    Different people are interested in different things, and different cultures have different biases. Girls in school for instance are usually not interested in technology, and their peers will shun the few that are.

    People are different, they have different interests, different upbringing, different aspirations. Trying to artificially distort the proportion of different groups in the workplace is stupid. If people were interested in doing a particular job they would have studied for it, learned about it and applied for positions.
    In all my years working in tech, the vast majority of job applicants who have applied for jobs i've been responsible for have been white or asian males.

    If you want women and other minorities to do tech roles, then look at schools and culture. If people are interested in these fields at an early age, and not discouraged (or bullied) away from them by their peers in school, then they will pursue careers in the subjects that most interest them.
    Trying to force "diversity quotas" and other stupid shit is simply a form of discrimination against the presently dominant groups, and will result in an overall lower standard of employee. As minorities account for far fewer applicants, you will need to apply far lower standards in order to ensure the same number of successful applicants vs the larger majority group.

    There are also many professions which are typically not taken by white males, nursing for instance - are any steps being taken to increase the number of white males working as nurses?

    If 99 women and 1 man apply for 5 nursing positions, how does the hospital satisfy a diversity quota saying that 50% of nurses should be male?
    What if the diversity quota is 20%, but the one man applying has no qualifications or experience and yet 30 of the women are highly qualified and experienced?

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  11. Fuck off with your lies msmash by Marful · · Score: 5, Insightful

    with an internal memo criticizing the company's diversity efforts and claiming women are biologically less suited than men to be engineers.

    At no point in the memo was this ever stated.

    I'm fucking tired of disingenuous assholes trying to spin something that says one thing, into something else to further their agenda.

  12. That's not what the memo said by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Disagree with the memo all you like, but at least have the integrity to argue against the points it raised instead of making up some bullshit that it didn't say.

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  13. Stop lying about what the memo said! by K.+S.+Van+Horn · · Score: 5, Informative

    "an internal memo... claiming women are biologically less suited than men to be engineers."

    Goddamnit, have you people no shame whatsoever? THE MEMO DOES NOT SAY THIS. Why do you keep on repeating this lie?

  14. WRONG! and WRONG! ... Stop lying already. by Qbertino · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1.) He did _NOT_ criticize Googles diversity efforts per se. In fact, he applauded them. He did however express concerns that the way they are executes isn't effective and/or counter-productive to the cause and provided educated conclusions for this presumption.

    2.) He did _NOT_ claim that women are biologically less suited for tech jobs. He used solid state-of-the-art scientific research results to find explanations why women might not be interested in taking tech jobs other that the standard arguably totally insuifficient "OGM! WTF! WHITE MALE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN!" narrative/explanation.

    Please quit the lying/irresponsible spreading of falsehoods and inform yourself.
    Just be an educated slashdotter and question the official group-think narrative. Thank you.

    Here's to help you out:
    Jordan Peterson interview with James Demore (citations linked in the description of the video)
    The actual paper/memo that James Demore wrote

    You're welcome.

    --
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  15. claiming women are biologically less suited by Iamthecheese · · Score: 5, Informative

    Oh my god stop lying. He made no such claim. Stop pushing your agenda down my throat. Fuck

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