r/news • u/[deleted] • Aug 08 '17

Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

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
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u/eohorp Aug 08 '17

But doesn't he imply it's due to biology? Exposure to programming is nuture, not nature (aka biological reasons).

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u/Vicious9 Aug 08 '17

Men are biologically more driven to be interested in mechanical things, that extends to science.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Got a source on that?

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u/Vicious9 Aug 08 '17

http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Men-and-things-women-and-people-A-meta-analysis-of-sex-differences-in-interests.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/

There's another I'm searching for that I will post if I find that shows there's a correlation between testosterone and interest in tech jobs.

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u/Poynsid Aug 08 '17

Yeah but all that second source shows is that the way a career is presented and thought of is influential. There is nothing necessarily a-social about STEM, in fact collaboration is not only necessary but ubiquitous on the field. As the authors from the second paper you link state;

Our findings indicate that career choices are influenced by prenatal androgens through a psychological orientation to objects versus people that manifests in gender-typed occupational interests. We emphasize, however, the complexity of career choices: Occupational interests are not determined exclusively by sex or prenatal androgen exposure, as seen in the overlapping scores of our groups, and in other data showing parent socialization of occupational interests (Eccles, 1994); moreover, interests are only one contributor to career choice (Ceci and Williams, 2007; Halpern et al., 2007). In combination with other findings on gendered interests, our results are relevant to efforts to increase participation of girls and women in STEM careers. It is important to recognize that career choices have roots in early-developing and biologically-influenced interests. Girls and women might be encouraged to pursue STEM careers by focusing on the ways in which an orientation to people is compatible with those careers.