Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Female Engineers, Could You Please Share Your Thoughts On the Google Memo
Reader joshtops writes: The widely circulated memo written by software engineer James Damore has become the talking point across companies in Silicon Valley, and elsewhere. In an interesting take, The Economist on Tuesday argued with the scientific or otherwise assumptions made by Damore. I was wondering what female engineers -- or females in other STEM beats -- think of the memo.
Many of the more reasonable criticisms of the memo say that it wasn't written well enough; it could've been more considerate, it should have used better language, or better presentation. In this particular link, Scott Alexander is used as an example of better writing, and he certainly is one of the best and most persuasive modern writers I've found. However, I can not imagine ever matching his talent and output, even if I practiced for years to try and catch up.
I do not think that anyone's ability to write should disbar them from discussion. We can not expect perfection from others. Instead we should try to understand them as human beings, and interpret them with generosity and kindness. Also benis.
Dear female engineers,
Do you prefer affirmative action or getting the job on your own merits? In other words, do you prefer equal outcomes, or equal opportunity?
Here's the Google diversity training Damore seems to have been reacting to.
"Google's Bias Busting @ Work | Facilitator Guide"
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yNBCAro6b-S1KifD6PnZWrlyBZ_kEFGWPtUkIpvFljk/edit
I read this article (see bottom of thread), felt like screaming and then felt compelled to write about my experiences and thoughts on the matter. ****I am a women in Information Technology and I have been doing this since 1995. Actually, even before that time since I worked at a computer camp at age 17 teaching BASIC computer language. ****Before there was oodles of money in IT, I rarely experienced prejudice and sexism in my job. I loved what I did and all of the guys in my field were very nice and helpful. They were collaborative and fun to be around. I never felt out of place and I did what anyone else was doing without anyone blinking an eye. When the dollar signs started to increase a lot of men must have thought "Well, I could like Tech if there's money in it." and started studying CS in school. Later, they would emerge into the dotcom time where money was flowing like honey. The boys club moved into my world and it has never been the same. **** I've been marginalized, badgered, stalked, ostracized, been the center of vicious gossip, denied work expenditures, had someone digging into my childhood and family and had IT peers hack into my home PC turn it on and listening to private conversations. Sadly, the list goes on and that last item is more common than you would believe. Note that that kind of voyeuristic behavior would have had someone in jail before the 90s. (Just creepy if you ask me.) But, the good guys are still there and they are somewhat left behind as well. They quietly watch the bullies from the Lord of the Flies and go about their business. ****This hierarchy that these guys have created is brutal. They are each testing boundaries trying to find out where they fit in and the weakest and most insecure pick on women. They pick on women because first and foremost, it bonds them with other men. Secondly, they do it because they can't hack being at the bottom of the pecking order and a woman is a nice target. Woman will often say nothing in a blind attempt to keep the peace. And if they do say something, they become a bitch. Which of course fits in with the first item mentioned, it bonds them with other men. ****So, what does this have to do with Information Technology? NOTHING! Yeah, that's right. Nothing! So, all of your money, all of your private information, all IoT (Internet of Things), all of your Security is exposed to this lot of people! Hence why this guy was fired. Google is smart enough to realize that they hold information about ALL of us. Male, female, straight, gay, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, transgenders etc. And guess what, we all want a say in who has our information and how it is used. We all want them to show empathy with our personal information and lives. And if Google, Facebook and IBM etc. are experimenting with AI, most of us would want them to build a system with agents that are compassionate. How will that happen if all of it is run by men who live like we are all on an island like the Lord of the Flies? So, I beg everyone to think about these ideas. We cannot afford this kind of behavior at the height of an epoch of science and discovery that has the tell tale signs of a change that will effect all of human existence as we know it. As for James Damore and his so called manifesto, his call for the elimination of empathy in IT is so short sighted that I can barely believe it. How can someone with such intelligence be so blind to how dangerous that would be. Hey wait, I answered my own question. He's on the island of The Lord of the Flies, that's how. He's not thinking properly. http://www.businessinsider.com...â¦
Did you read the memo?
Did it say anything about women being inferior to men and that they should stay in the kitchen?
No. What it did say was that it may be biological differences that women ON AVERAGE have different interests than men and that it is unwise to try to get 50% of employees be women.
Do women ON AVERAGE have different interests than men? Yes. Does this mean that all women are inferior to men at "men fields"? NO. This is the same as with physical strength. There are lots and lots of women who are stronger than me and could kick my ass in a fight. But, if I was forced to choose between fighting a randomly selected man or a randomly selected woman, I would choose to fight the woman, because on average, my odds would be better.
But no, men and women are equal in all things, including their interests and if only 5% (made up number) of girls are interested in fighting each other with fists when 30% (made up number) boys do the same it is only because of discrimination in our culture not encouraging girls to settle their differences with a good fistfight. Right?
So, in an effort to not discriminate people based on their gender or race we ... discriminate people based on their gender or race. Girl-only programming classes are celebrated, where if one made a boys-only programming class it would be chaos. White-only dormitories are bad and racist, but black-only dormitories are an awesome symbol of non-racism. Right?
So now we have gender quotas. There is an open position in a company. 10 candidates apply - 9 men and one woman. The woman is average qualified for the position - out of the 9 men there are better and worse ones. But she gets hired anyway, because the company does not have enough women in that department.
Then again, the government of my country is incredibly sexist. Men are forced to serve in the army after school (not all of them, there is a lottery), but women only get to serve if they volunteer. So far I have not seen any feminist protest against this obviously sexist policy though. Actually, I remember feminists speaking out against forcing women to serve in the army. Weird, isn't it?
Hi,
I'm a white male software engineer. I'm having a really hard time trying to separate out my own biases and the biases of others in reaction to the memo with actual factual discourse about the science. In almost all of the reaction commentary, even some of the better discourse, people keep wielding any ammunition they can find to defend their point of view on both sides. I worry that I am inclined to do the same thing.
I've been trying to read as much research as possible in the last couple of days as science feels like the only bastion where I can try to come to a reasoned conclusion about all of this. That path has lead me to some unusual places, like wondering if there is a biological explanation for higher average verbal intelligence in women that allows them to have greater selection in careers (Ref 1) and differences in brain anatomy where men have thinner average cortical thickness than women but higher variability. (Ref 2)
Given that you are a female engineer directly affected by all of this, do you think it's reasonable to explore these kinds of questions? Does it diminish the effects of the real sexism and bias that face women in tech to examine other potential explanations for the gender gap?
Ref 1: http://journals.sagepub.com/do...
Ref 2: http://www.sciencemag.org/news...
Division is only coming from the left?
Division only appears to come only from the left, when you're firmly on the right. .... (Paul Simon, The Boxer)
It's just a matter of basic physics, really.
I agree with the "tired of bullshit" comment, but attributing it to "the left" sounds like the author still has some personal development to explore.
"The right" are just as liable to impose political bullshit in the workplace, on slashdot, or anywhere else.
But "a man" sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest
It's reasonable to explore them, but it has to be in an informed way. If Damore had actually asked the people who wrote the sources he thought he understood, they would have told him that he was wrong.
That's the basic problem here. It's called the incoherence problem. Smart people read these sources, think they understand them, combine them all together than reach an unwarranted conclusion.
So in order to have a good debate about these issues, we need to first accept that we need to ask questions of the experts who write these papers, and not try to infer too much from our own reading or interpretation.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Did you read the memo? Did it say anything about women being inferior to men and that they should stay in the kitchen?
I have read the memo, and you don't have to think a group is inferior in order to stereotype them.
His paper does often say women on average have differences from men. But the important thing is not whether there are differences, but the extent of those differences. When he says "women on average are more prone to anxiety" it is both a very true and very inflammatory statement without context. Women indeed do have higher rates of anxiety, but then again individuals from Euro/Anglo cultures on average have higher levels of anxiety than average women.
The reality is that this study found about 7 in 100 women suffer from anxiety as compared to 4 in 100 men. Sure it is nearly double, but how useful is it to even discuss this when bringing up gender in the workplace? Especially when in most cases there is medication to remove most symptoms. Where is the research to show to what extent anxiety affects a person's career? The mere fact he brought up higher anxiety rates at all is inflammatory and worthy of derision. It is a way to be discriminatory while maintaining you are only being fair. It is intellectually dishonest.
Any time people complain about SJWs wanting a 50/50 split in any given profession, it is nearly guaranteed everything else they say will be full of crap. Some of what they say may be factual, but only in an attempt to distract from the ignorant core of their argument. No one is fighting for a 50/50 split in STEM fields, since there are real differences between the genders and a real biological reason why childbearing affects women careers more than men. But a 60/40 or 55/45 split is likely attainable in a more discrimination free culture, and none of the minute differences between genders will inhibit that goal.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The point instead is that lots of women face daily or weekly put-downs due to misogyny.
No, they face those because some people are dicks. When I cut my hair short I couldn't claim 'misogyny' when some unfiltered co-worker pointed out my window's peak, "Looks like balding runs in your family" or when a peer grabs an extra doughnut and someone goes 'Really need that extra one?'.
I'm not picketing the grocery store's misandry because some old ladies don't think I could be the one shopping with my son.
"Where's your mother at?". She's at work grandma.
"Baby sitting today?": No. I'm his father. It's parenting.
"Wow, cooking for your wife?" Yeah. Like I normally do. As we split household tasks depending on who is home and who is working.
"How can you let your wife go back to work so soon after birth?" She's the one that picked up shifts because she likes to work.
When individual A and individual B interact and there is a negative outcome, for the most part, the outcome is limited to something internal to A & B. From all of my experiences in the engineering industry and from reading this junk online it usually boils down to one of the individuals is an asshole and the other needs thicker skin.
The same argument could be made to keep women out of law and medicine. Until Title 9 laws in the US in 1972, women were less than 10% of the students for either profession and even less of the practicing professionals. In 1974 they were 22% of the students. Today they're 50%.
If sexism wasn't "solved" in law and medicine until the last few decades, why is tech any different?
The obvious answer is that women aren't enrolling in computer science in college. It doesn't matter how good your hiring procedures are if women don't choose programming as a career.
Harvey Mudd (university) did some good work on the question. They increased women in their CS program from 10% to nearly 50%. The made several changes, but the main thing they did was change introductory CS classes from being "filter" classes (trying to get rid of all the people who can't do it), into helping classes that help people get over that first bar.
Let's be honest, the first leap into programming can be tough, and this is true for men as well as women. Having the first class be a "filter" class was a bad idea from the beginning.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
On the other hand, there is abundant evidence across all sectors that simply changing the name on a resume to a female sounding name or to a black sounding name reduces the number of callbacks you receive on that resume.
Most of this is anecdotal evidence, or fake resumes "to test bias", not real resumes and real people.
Here are some real life results.