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.

Comments

This will not end well.

[DuckDodgers]

Maybe you should post the question to a website with fewer trolls. I suggest 4chan.

Re:This will not end well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up sexist. Today I identify as female, and I think the letter was correct.

Re:This will not end well.

[MSojka]

On second thought , let's not go to 4chan. 'Tis a silly place.

A mixed bag. Some females support it, some don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://medium.com/the-mission/im-an-ex-google-woman-tech-leader-and-i-m-sick-of-our-approach-to-diversity-17008c5fe999

I had posted this elsewhere. My op

[Christinagirl1]

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¦

Just as ignorant as educated males see it

[ranton]

This topic comes up with my wife fairly often; even more often since we had two daughters. She is a business / data analysis at a smallish multinational manufacturing company, and while it upsets me when I see this behavior directed at my female software engineer counterparts it is even worse when you hear first hand accounts from someone you care about deeply. From being treated like a secretary to having her comments dismissed, it is all behavior any reasonably educated male should notice even without having it pointed out by female coworkers.

It is often hard to give advice to my wife because I simply don't have to deal with the same obstacles. She cannot really complain about misogynistic behavior without being branded a trouble maker, and she has to walk a very fine line between being assertive or just a bitch.

A quote from Bob Thaves about Ginger Rogers sums up the plight of women in the workforce in general, and women in STEM field especially. "Sure [Fred Astaire] was great, but don't forget Ginger Rogers did everything he did backwards and in high heels."

Re:Just as ignorant as educated males see it

[Christinagirl1]

You're a good man. Thank you for caring about us enough to write on our behalf. Most of these we are discussing don't respect women in the first place, so they will never listen to our cries for equality. It takes men such as you, to make a lasting change in their thought patterns.

Re:Just as ignorant as educated males see it

[ranton]

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.

Re:Just as ignorant as educated males see it

[0100010001010011]

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.

Re:Just as ignorant as educated males see it

[Agent0013]

Let's talk about medicine. Women make up roughly 47% of medical school graduates.

Yes, lets talk about medicine. Particularly the different specialties in medicine. And if we collect them based on if that specialty deals with the equipment and high risk, or if that specialty deals more with people. If you haven't read this paper, then you really should. The more egalitarian countries in the world show larger diversity, but places like China and Iran, have 50/50 split in gender for work.

Specialty --- M% --- F%
People Based
Obstetrics/Gynecology --- 15% --- 85%
Pediatrics --- 25% --- 75%
Psychiatry --- 43% --- 57%
Family Medicine --- 42% --- 58%
Thing Based
Internal Medicine --- 54% --- 46%
Radiology --- 72% --- 28%
Anesthesiology --- 63% --- 37%
Emergency Medicine --- 62% --- 38%
Surgery --- 59% --- 41%

Re:I had posted this elsewhere. My op

[butchersong]

Could you provide some examples of what he wrote that you found objectionable for discussion? It seems likely you're objecting to him characterizing women as being slightly inclined to more interpersonal roles and empathy but then in your post you say that:

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?

Which seems like a stronger generalizing statement than anything I saw in the kids manifesto.

Re:This post proves the Google memo correct

[Scarred Intellect]

To even ask the question to females only acknowledges that men and women are in fact different, with different views driven by biology. Well done Slashdot.(emphasis mine)

While I agree in principle that men and women have different views and there are biological differences, I don't think this post is emphasizing those biological differences. It's asking for the same reason I often ask female coworkers the same thing: they have different experiences than I do. I want to better understand the problem, but I can't do that until I know what it is, and I can't know what it is myself because I can't experience it.

These different experiences can be attributed to different views that can then be ascribed to being based on gender, but that's an indirect relationship. This post is asking women, not because of their biology, but because they're the ones with the experience. That difference is important.

Asking for views on a matter specifically from the group most directly affected does not acknowledge any differences directly. It only admits incomplete knowledge on the part of the person doing the asking, an admission of ignorance.

Re:I had posted this elsewhere. My op

[AmiMoJo]

This is a week old account which has only posted on topics about the Google memo. Most of the posts appear to be badly copy/pasted.

I tried to read it but it's an impenetrable wall of text.

Economist

[Major Blud]

I started to read that post from The Economist until I got to this section:

Have you ever noticed how no one takes sentences that start “I’m not a racist, but” at face value? Here’s why, in the words of Jon Snow in “Game of Thrones” (season 7, episode 1). When Sansa Stark tells him: “They respect you, they really do, but,” Snow laughs and comes back with: “What did father used to say? Everything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit.”

Seriously....they argued with the science, but quoted Game of Thrones.

Re:I'm not female

[PopeRatzo]

What's the % of female users on Slashdot, seriously?

The same as the percentage of Slashdot users who have had sex. With another person.

Re:Better question:

[Frobnicator]

My wife's a mathematician but isn't on /., she's answered that question to me a few times. She (of course) describes it as a numbers game.

It should be on merit in this case, but in cases where it really is a problem then an "affirmative action" can help fix problems whenever systemic problems actually exist.

In software engineering the field is about 20-25% female. Compared with many fields that is relatively balanced. Pulling up US labor statistics, look at gender distribution in nursing, childcare, education, HR, social services, event planning, civil engineering, construction, librarians, therapists, speech pathologists, hairstylists, secretaries, tailoring and sewing, painting ... all these fields have stronger gender bias than software engineering. People tend to only complain about the industries with high pay and few physical requirements; nobody seems to care that construction workers are near-universally male, nor that early childcare workers are nearly all female.

Google is shouting from the rooftops that they are seeking gender diversity with 31% women, plus trying to hire even more women. Anyone smart enough to read Slashdot should see problems with that; Google is hiring 50% over the general programmer population, plus taking efforts to hire even more than are available. That can be even worse than underhiring; they've got about 7000 more women than stats say they should. Apple similarly has thousands more than they statistically should. By overhiring they are preventing many other companies from reaching parity with the industry's gender distribution, causing even worse stigma because so many other smaller companies have no women in the applicant pool.

Gender is only one concern, but no matter the topic if the numbers are too high or too low, people should ask why that is the case. Gender, race, age, political party, and every other stat could be examined. If the company's demographics don't match the broader environment then there is a concern. It doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem, but it should still be understood if the numbers aren't similar.

Google has two glaringly obvious demographics mismatches. First, women are over-represented; they're flooding the news with "31% female" statistics instead of the 20% that is expected for the field. Second, youth are over-represented with a median age of 29 instead of the industry median age of 43. All the major mismatches should be investigated.

Re:We're just tired of this bullshit.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Division is only coming from the left?

Well, multiplication is coming from the religious right, so that would make sense.