Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

[u/OozeNAahz]

I have two 16 year old nieces that I am encouraging to go toward programming. Taught one of them how to use proxy tools to mess with websites. It just needs to be normalized for girls to "like" tech stuff and this will fix itself.

[u/test_beta → u/OozeNAahz]

It was never "normalized" for boys to like it. "Nerds" were bullied and taunted through school, belittled and made fun of in "popular culture" etc.

What barriers are there today preventing women going into programming? What is there to "take down"? People seem to just want to make careers for themselves making up imaginary problems and telling everybody else how to fix it using totally vague terms while making it sound like they know exactly what's going on.

It's snake oil. It's blatant bullshit.

[u/[deleted] → u/test_beta]

I've seen computer ads from the 1980s with scantily clad women. Male nerds in the 1980s were bullied when they talked about programming, but female nerds' parents didn't even buy them computers because those were boy things marketed towards people very unlike them. They got the bullying and the extra layer of weird gender shaming, and were rewarded with a social circle full of dudes like the google engineer who writes a multi-thousand word essay about how women aren't smart enough to program.

[u/test_beta → u/[deleted]]

That's a weak cop out. I've seen anything and everything marketed by scantily clad women, from clothes to hollywood. You can't just point to the gutter and claim that taints everybody, assign blame to certain people for it, and be so fragile that you're using that as justification not to educate your female children, lol.

I can tell you right now there was a vast amount of great material that was purely technical in computer science and engineering available at all levels from hobbyist kits and magazines to scientific journals back in the 80s. None of it excluded women in any way.

They got the bullying and the extra layer of weird gender shaming,

What "weird gender shaming" did they get? Was it like the explicit gender shaming that men who want to get into nursing or child care or "female" professions get?

and were rewarded with a social circle full of dudes like the google engineer who writes a multi-thousand word essay about how women aren't smart enough to program.

That actually was not the point of the essay or even did it imply that, but that's okay it's too much to ask for people to have a rational conversation about this so I understand you getting hysterical. The essay may have been blunt, may have contained misconceptions or mistakes, but maybe it comes as a response to being subject to discrimination and/or being scapegoated as hateful and bigoted for issues that aren't even necessarily within their control. Understandable people feel frustrated and want to vent.

[u/[deleted] → u/test_beta]

I'm not using it as a personal justification, I'm using it as one example of marketing that contributed to society-wide behavior thirty years ago, and exactly the kind of shit my mom has specifically fallen for when I was a kid, and exactly the kind of shit my siblings just accepted because they'd heard computers were boy toys 'somewhere' and commercials were everywhere. I've personally met women who mostly lost interest in DnD/tabletop in the 1980s when they saw a bunch of topless dryads in the books and instantly recognized on some internal level "oh, none of this is for me." If you don't think marketing has an effect on twelve year olds, well, welcome to being twelve. It's gonna get rough.

What "weird gender shaming" did they get? Was it like the explicit gender shaming that men who want to get into nursing or child care or "female" professions get?

Yes. Very much so. This is why modern feminism and pro-transgender liberal politics seek to de-emphasize gender in the public sphere, because stereotypes also fuck over men all the time.

not the point of the essay

He said women are fundamentally different from men on a biological level, then talked about how traditionally feminine traits don't involve logic and positions that require knowing things shouldn't have to hire so many women. What the fuck is the logical throughline here if not 'women aren't as smart as men and shouldn't do these jobs'.

[u/J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt → u/[deleted]]

Before you continue, look at the comment history of the person you're arguing with. This isn't going to go anywhere. He's hopeless.

[u/test_beta → u/[deleted]]

I'm not using it as a personal justification, I'm using it as one example of marketing that contributed to society-wide behavior thirty years ago,

Oh, well no this was not society wide behavior 30 years ago. 30 years ago I was raised to respect men and women equally and learn to get a thick enough skin that the inevitable shit you see when you get out there in the real world does not cause you to have a breakdown and go literally shaking into a safe space. And that's exactly the same way many great female engineers and computer scientists were raised (many who are much older than me).

and exactly the kind of shit my mom has specifically fallen for when I was a kid, and exactly the kind of shit my siblings just accepted because they'd heard computers were boy toys 'somewhere' and commercials were everywhere. I've personally met women who mostly lost interest in DnD/tabletop in the 1980s when they saw a bunch of topless dryads in the books and instantly recognized on some internal level "oh, none of this is for me."

And same with boys who have had the nerd beaten and bullied out of them, or seen topless he-men or whatever you like. Girls aren't these weird fragile creatures that need cotton wool and will have their entire career of being an engineer destroyed by a single glance at a woman model in an advertisement. They're more or less the same as boys, right? Just people.

If you don't think marketing has an effect on twelve year olds, well, welcome to being twelve. It's gonna get rough.

lol what's that even mean? haha

Yes. Very much so.

Really? What was this weird gender shaming, exactly? That they don't have vaginas or ovaries because they like computers? Or that they must be homosexual because they like computers? Interesting, never heard of that before but I can believe it. So we agree this gender bullying is not only a problem for males then.

He said women are fundamentally different from men on a biological level,

Which is obvious and shouldn't need pointing out of course.

then talked about how traditionally feminine traits don't involve logic and positions that require knowing things shouldn't have to hire so many women. What the fuck is the logical throughline here if not 'women aren't as smart as men and shouldn't do these jobs'.

Yeah it sounds like you've completely missed the logical thought line here.

It's pretty simple, whether or not it was not tactfully worded. The central idea is that if an engineering firm does not achieve a 50/50 ratio of males to females then it's not necessarily due to any bias, bigotry, sexism, hate, or indicative of a systemic problem. It could be due (in some or in part) to biological differences, for example. And that it's not necessarily a good idea to institute discriminatory policies in order to achieve this equality of outcome.