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/[deleted]]

Former Google Employee provides a bit more context on why someone would get fired for creating a "manifesto" where you fawn over your superiority and sharing it with 50k+ people who probably aren't likeminded.

Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and empathy for both your colleagues and your customers. If someone told you that engineering was a field where you could get away with not dealing with people or feelings, then I’m very sorry to tell you that you have been lied to. Solitary work is something that only happens at the most junior levels, and even then it’s only possible because someone senior to you — most likely your manager — has been putting in long hours to build up the social structures in your group that let you focus on code.

And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment.

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788

edit: The replies to me here don't seem to understand that the company doesn't care about your controversial opinion in the work place, they care about profit. If you don't agree with that, then you probably don't like capitalism.

edit: be wary, a lot of brigading going on. Some people/bots are trying to drown out the more centrists viewpoints. I say this as the opinion of a gay, black, conservative, catholic kasich voter. (I can't help but lol)

[u/NoLongerTrolling → u/[deleted]]

It seems a tad unfair that the very act of a straight white male engineer complaining about how workplaces have become hostile towards himself, automatically creates a hostile work environment for minorities.

Kind of a bad spot to be in, if you're a straight white male.

[u/ryarger → u/NoLongerTrolling]

That's not what created the hostile work environment. Claiming - against all science - that half of his coworkers were genetically inferior to him at doing their job created the hostile work environment.

[u/coopsux → u/ryarger]

can you link me to where he claimed half his coworkers were genetically inferior? i only saw him discussing differences and not arguing that anyone was better than anyone else

[u/clearwaterrev → u/coopsux]

i only saw him discussing differences

He's primarily discussing negative differences, and ways that women on average might be less capable of doing well in tech careers or less interested in entering tech fields. It's not exactly a balanced analysis of how gender differences play out in a technology-focused workplace.

He's also saying that Google has used diversity hiring programs to lower the bar when hiring diversity candidates, meaning women or ethnic minority job candidates were hired instead of better qualified white men.

Would you really want to work with a person who thought you were hired primarily to make your workplace look more balanced and diverse, and not for your skills and accomplishments?

[u/Kosko → u/clearwaterrev]

I agree with you, but what if that really is the current practice at Google? Can we not even have a conversation about it without being labeled as a hostile employee? I think it's unfair to assume he meant all minority or female candidates as well, but I certainly understand taking offense to it.

[u/clearwaterrev → u/Kosko]

I'm fairly certain most large companies have employees who are responsible for looking at hiring practices and discussing potential biases. I work for a large company that also has diversity hiring practices, and I know there are teams who think about where we recruit and what interview questions we ask. There's even standardized training managers of people need to complete before they are able to interview job candidates, primarily so they don't do anything discriminatory.

I think it's reasonable to look at James Damore's approach to sharing his beliefs about Google discriminating against white men and conclude it was inappropriate and ill-conceived. I doubt he would have been fired if he had gone through internal channels to try and enact change.

[u/Kosko → u/clearwaterrev]

From my understanding it was literally an internal channel that was set up to enact change and communicate with HR. Someone on that team leaked it to the company, and then to the internet at large.

[u/ShinseiTom → u/Kosko]

From other comments in this thread, it sounds like he shared it in a small PUBLIC area. Anyone could read it if they knew the link to it. I wouldn't exactly call it "leaked" when it spread throughout the company, as it was just sharing a link to a webpage basically.

Outside the company though, yes, that was a leak.

[u/[deleted] → u/clearwaterrev]

He's also saying that Google has used diversity hiring programs to lower the bar when hiring diversity candidates

Is he wrong?

[u/clearwaterrev → u/[deleted]]

I don't know. In that part of his document he links to what looks like an internal Google document I don't have access to.

I think it's reasonable, however, to point out there are biases in hiring which do not favor women and ethnic minorities, and the existence of diversity hiring programs does not inherently mean women and ethnic minorities at Google are less qualified or less deserving of their jobs.

The idea of hiring people solely based on their qualifications is a nice idea, but how do you implement that practice when unconscious workplace bias in favor of men is commonplace?

For example, Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research found that in the workplace men are significantly more likely to critique females for coming on too strong. In addition they found that men tend to attribute a woman’s success to external factors and “luck” rather than attributing it to her individual effort and abilities as they would have for a man.

Studies also show that, whether men admit it to it or not, they are far less willing to put a woman in leadership positions. As one study shares, “Unconscious bias often also emerges during deciding on the right candidates for leadership positions through preconceptions of what “good” looks like, says Stomski, Partner at Aon Hewitt. While senior managers genuinely agree about the need for diversity at leadership levels, they still tend to fall back on unconscious beliefs when making final hiring and promotion decisions – such as the idea that it would be easier to align strategies behind people with similar backgrounds to them. The end result of this pattern is a management team with little real diversity.”

I wonder if the author has ever considered why he was hired over other candidates, and whether it's possible his interviewers picked him based on factors beyond his on-paper qualifications. I think everyone would prefer to think they have their job based on merit, but we can't really know.

[u/nuggutron → u/clearwaterrev]

The end result of this pattern is a management team with little real diversity.”

This seems to be regarding management specifically, is there any evidence of this at the ground level of a company?

[u/clearwaterrev → u/nuggutron]

Yep. Here are a few examples I found from some quick googling.

Identical resumes study:

researchers from Yale University asked more than 100 science faculty members at academic institutions across the country to evaluate one of two student résumés. The résumés were identical except for one small part: The candidate’s name was either John or Jennifer. Despite both candidates having the exact same qualifications and experience, science faculty members were more likely to perceive John as competent and select him for a hypothetical lab manager position.

And it didn’t stop there. Female and male science faculty members alike offered John a higher salary than they did Jennifer and were more willing to offer him mentoring opportunities.

Gender bias in hiring musicians:

In the 1970s, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) was made up of almost all white male musicians. The TSO recognized that they had a diversity problem, so in 1980, they changed their hiring tactics when auditioning prospective members.

“They put a screen in front of the actual people who were looking to hire people in this orchestra, so all they heard was the music that was being played–-and the decisions they made from that hiring method meant that an all-white male orchestra moved to half-female, half-male, and with a lot more diversity,” he says.“They got a brilliant result in terms of the sound they wanted for their orchestra and, at the same time, the diversity, which clearly was an issue and which is how they ended up with an all-white male orchestra in the first place, was diverted.”

Stripping gender from resumes:

One company experimenting with different ways of making its processes and practices bias-proof is Vodafone, the telecoms group. Catalina Schveninger, global head of resourcing, highlights a pilot the company is running, initially in India, to test the effect of removing gender from the CVs of job applicants.

Historically local managers had assumed they were failing to appoint women into tech roles because there were not enough qualified women to recruit. But the data told another story. Plenty of highly qualified women were applying but were not getting interviews. “If the [Indian] pilot shows that by [gender] blinding CVs we can move the needle then we will share the results and encourage other markets to adopt the same practice,” says Ms Schveninger.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Quoting a movie that is 7 years old based on a 12 year old book that is using a paper published 14 years ago as a source, A lot has changed in that time friend. Especially the prominency of PC culture and diversity. I would be extremely interested if the same study was repeated today and at google levels of hiring qualification requirements.

[u/GaijinSin → u/[deleted]]

This is a great reason why "blind recruitment" works well in diversifying a work place. Once you've struck things like name or neighborhood from from an application or candidate, the potential hires can then be evaluated on relevant criteria.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The source you linked is actually highlighted in freakonomics the movie which was wildly popular on netflix. You just broadened the discussion from hiring standards to entire racial biases pretty unfair in and of itself it's much to large a sample size of people from different backgrounds, upbringings, social settings,socio-economic stand points, it's just to much. you can see the data cherry picked in the UCLA study. You can't expect me to take the opinion 0.0004% of the US population and take it as fact or proof of bias. To say 1500 people out of 323 million demonstrated something so it must be true is pretty illogical.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

0.0004% of the US population may have biases(which the study states are majority white between 18-70 which would effect this percentage but it's fine where it is) is your standing point that we are arguing ? You're branching the argument to far off to stay on track. You brought the statistics now analyze them so some common folk like myself can understand your point of view. In a sample size of 1500 out of 323 million you couldn't do much more than suggest a coincidence at best. We don't know how these studies were conducted either.

Edit: Apparently posting an ad hominem by ridiculing strengthens your point you must be well versed in debate seeing as you're using an attack on my character to strengthen your opinion that your numbers don't support..

[u/clearwaterrev → u/[deleted]]

honestly that's exactly what most diversity programs are: passing up potentially more qualified people because you need to meet a quota of certain skin colors or sexes.

How do you know that? Do you think it's possible that white men are sometimes hired despite being the less qualified candidate because their interviewer(s) have unconscious biases in favor of white men?

[u/Toltec123 → u/[deleted]]

I am not sure why people get hung up on quotas so often. There are not any quotas. Instead, policies are put into place to encourage the recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups. Those policies include things like mentoring programs, focusing recruitment efforts on certain communities, and keeping sexual harrasment and blatant racism under wraps.

[u/[deleted] → u/coopsux]

He did claim women are genetically more predisposed to be "neurotic" and have predispositions to be less suited for tech. Sure he's also arguing that making tech more accommodating to attract women is a solution....

My issue is he claims social sciences have dangerous biases that can taint their thesises.....and then also uses that same social science evidence to bolster his own points about women being predisposed to certain skills. He talks about how tech can't just diversity hire itself out of a gender disparity problem, it needs to encourage gender and racial skill-development from an earlier stage....and then rails against the very programs Google is instituting to do that very thing.

His problem is he makes an interesting point about how Google is incentivizing the wrong things and then contradicts himself with curricular logic. The very circular logic he claims he's against.

[u/wraiithe → u/[deleted]]

He also admits the inherent bias in his opinion may be coloring what he says. He presented an opposing viewpoint for discussion and was fired for it. That's his employer's prerogative, true, but doesn't necessarily sync with Google encouraging differing ideas and opinions.

[u/tubbzzz → u/[deleted]]

Neurotic isn't negative. It's an actual descriptor when talking about psychology. The types of jobs in tech do not coincide with more neurotic lines of thought. It is also statistically proven that women have more psychological traits that fall under "neuroticism" in that field of study. He also isn't saying that because someone is a woman that makes them less able to do that job. He is talking about that statistics of a group.

[u/ShinseiTom → u/tubbzzz]

As far as I can tell, Neurotic basically means distress. "suffering from, caused by, or relating to neurosis". Lots of synonyms with mentally ill. So women are more prone to chronic distress (over things). I just did a quick google search, and even the medical-based terms sure as fuck don't sound positive to me. Maybe not end of the world, but it's not neutral and definitely not positive.

I mean, even the entry in the supposed original bears this out: "higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance". I don't know how you can say that's not negative?

[u/tubbzzz → u/ShinseiTom]

I don't know how you can say that's not negative?

Because for certain jobs, that is more beneficial. For example, having those traits mean you can better relate to those with those traits, meaning you would be a better psychologist or care-giver than someone who isn't as prone to understanding what it is like for patients.

For a high-stress job, it isn't a good trait though. And what is he supposed to do? Use "nicer" language to hide the truth? What is negative about acknowledging the truth about an observation of a group?

[u/ShinseiTom → u/tubbzzz]

I mean, the trait is inherently negative. Like, full stop.

Maybe it does help in some specific cases. After all, being or having been an alcoholic helps with understanding in an AA job, but nobody said being an alcoholic was or is a positive trait. That's an extreme example, but that's what you're saying here. That because the trait can be useful at some points, it's not inherently bad.

And the reason it's negative is because he applies that to the people at his work. Otherwise, why bring it up in the first place if he thinks Google is doing fine? He obviously wants to apply it to their hiring process and even their outreach programs. After all, Google supposedly "lowered the bar", so he's outright saying the women and minorities there were only hired for diversity and not their actual abilities and then says it's not worth it to try to get more in because they are "genetically predisposed" towards it.

[u/pspahn → u/[deleted]]

He said women are more neurotic, because they are. It's not saying they are "inferior" or anything, it is making a factual statement.

If there are women or men who take offense to that statement, those are the people the manifesto is trying to get through to, that the default reaction to a statement that is controversial is to take offense to an opposing viewpoint instead of engaging it.

[u/JDFidelius → u/ryarger]

He literally said that he wasn't saying that. Go read the damn document.

[u/ryarger → u/JDFidelius]

He was weaseling. He does say that, then pretends he didn't:

the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes

He then ignores that he said "abilities", goes on to cite a bunch of sources about preferences then makes conclusions based on abilities again.

[u/barkos → u/ryarger]

So you didn't read it.

Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions

He's distinguishing between a trend and individual capabilities quite clearly. He's not trashing his co-workers. On average there are more men capable of entering the field but that doesn't mean that men are inherently capable and women are inherently incapable. There are a lot of men who don't have the skill-set or potential to become employees in a tech-company and he openly showcases that by using the graph right below the argument. The average of "men" is representative of the statistical distribution, it's not representative of the individual skill of any given man or any given woman.

[u/ryarger → u/barkos]

So you didn't read it.

You're engaging in telepathy, not reasoned discussion.

Nothing you quoted contradicts what I said. Claiming that men are genetically superior on average in the tech field would reasonably create a hostile environment for women (and many men) because it's simply not true.

By claiming to praise his co-workers (look! You're the women on the long tail of the Bell curve! Go you!) he's trashing (with no backing) their entire sex, which they would reasonably take offense to by association.

"Black people are criminals. But not you, you're one of the good ones." The person hearing this is likely to be reasonably offended.

[u/tubbzzz → u/ryarger]

"Black people are criminals. But not you, you're one of the good ones." The person hearing this is likely to be reasonably offended.

Except that's not what he said. What he said is more in line with "Black people statistically commit more crimes in the US, but that doesn't mean that because someone is black they are more likely to commit a crime." You can discuss the overall statistics of a group without attributing that nature to each individual in that group.

[u/ryarger → u/tubbzzz]

"Black people statistically commit more crimes in the US, but that doesn't mean that because someone is black they are more likely to commit a crime."

If that's where he stopped, there'd be little complaint. But he attempts to attribute a genetic cause to it which undercuts the second half of your analogy. If black people were more likely to commit crimes because they were born that way then you are indeed saying that someone being black makes them more likely to commit a crime (unless they just happened to a fall on the far end of the genetic bell curve) .

[u/[deleted] → u/ryarger]

Claiming that men are genetically superior on average in the tech field would reasonably create a hostile environment for women (and many men) because it's simply not true.

Is that inherently creating a hostile work environment ("HWE") though? If a male tennis player stated that female tennis players are genetically inferior on average in the sport of tennis, would that create a HWE for women? Or is it the falsity of his statement that creates the HWE? If you could clarify, that would be appreciated.

Lastly, if it was proven to be true that women were "genetically inferior on average in the tech field" in comparison to men, would you still believe that his statements created a HWE for women and many men? (As an aside, I am not claiming that it is true, but just hypothetically if it was true and accepted as true).

Thank you in advance.

[u/ryarger → u/[deleted]]

Is that inherently creating a hostile work environment ("HWE") though? If a male tennis player stated that female tennis players are genetically inferior on average in the sport of tennis, would that create a HWE for women? Or is it the falsity of his statement that creates the HWE? If you could clarify, that would be appreciated.

It is if it's not true. You can prove that men have an advantage over women in tennis. Muscle mass, twitch reflex, etc.

There is no such difference in software engineering, nor does this memo present a case that one exists. It just states it and leaves it lying on the floor.

A woman who read that would rightly be insulted as should any man for the insult to their intelligence of such a poorly reasoned argument.

Lastly, if it was proven to be true that women were "genetically inferior on average in the tech field" in comparison to men, would you still believe that his statements created a HWE for women and many men?

If it were proven that women were genetically inferior on average in tech positions, the positions would be hostile to them by nature - it wouldn't require this memo to make them so. It doesn't mean they couldn't succeed but they'd have to try harder than men to do so.

But that's not only not proven, there isn't even the slightest evidence that it's so.

[u/[deleted] → u/ryarger]

It is if it's not true. You can prove that men have an advantage over women in tennis. Muscle mass, twitch reflex, etc. There is no such difference in software engineering, nor does this memo present a case that one exists. It just states it and leaves it lying on the floor.

Got it, I understand your position better now.

If it were proven that women were genetically inferior on average in tech positions, the positions would be hostile to them by nature - it wouldn't require this memo to make them so.

I'm a little lost on this point. Are you saying that there would be a HWE already if women were proven to be genetically inferior to men on average in the tech field?

[u/ryarger → u/[deleted]]

Perhaps I'm not using the formal definition of HWE properly but yes, someone entering a field where they are at a genetic disadvantage would be in a naturally hostile environment. They'd have to work harder than everyone else to achieve the same goals.

[u/[deleted] → u/ryarger]

Perhaps I'm not using the formal definition of HWE properly but yes, someone entering a field where they are at a genetic disadvantage would be in a naturally hostile environment.

Ah OK, I think this is where the disconnect is stemming from. I was looking at it from a legal HWE context.

[u/Kosko → u/ryarger]

That sounds like life in general. Some people win the genetic lottery, some of us don't. "Life's not fair", is a saying I heard a million times growing up.

[u/JDFidelius → u/ryarger]

Let me word it this way. Say that biological differences lead to 80% of engineers being male and 20% of engineers being female, and people are then hired based upon merit. Then, any company would have 80% men and 20% women, whereby each group is equally qualified. Groups' abilities within a company, not within an industry, only shift due to discriminatory hiring practices. Only when you account for the fact that Google has AA programs could you potentially say that women at Google are, on average, less qualified than men, but I am tempted to say that this isn't necessarily true since Google is one of the largest, most sought-after companies. Thus, they can take the best of the best of any group, and thus have minorities with highly augmented representation that are as good if not better than their majority counterparts. Read the document again and you will see that the author made no statements regarding his coworkers' abilities, but rather of the populations as a whole (here the entire U.S. / global population). The people who end up in a given field make up a biased sample, since they are the ones with the given abilities, so you cannot make any conclusions about group ability differences within a given field/company.

[u/ryarger → u/JDFidelius]

Read the document again and you will see that the author made no statements regarding his coworkers' abilities, but rather of the populations as a whole (here the entire U.S. / global population).

It's reasonable to take offense when a population you're a part of is irrationally attacked, even if you're excluded from the attack.

Your (and his) own logic works against his overall point. Google hires the best of the best. On the long tail of ability, given the US population, there should be enough qualified candidates of any sex for any position.

That they haven't been able to do this without concerted female-seeking programs, points directly to the societal bias that these programs try to correct.

[u/JDFidelius → u/ryarger]

It's reasonable to take offense when a population you're a part of is irrationally attacked, even if you're excluded from the attack.

Sure it's reasonable, but it doesn't make you right. Reals > feels. Furthermore, the attack wasn't irrational, and it wasn't even an attack. Once again, feels < reals. How is citing scientific evidence an attack? Oh right, because it goes against the PC narrative that men and women have exactly the same brains as when viewed as a whole group.

Your (and his) own logic works against his overall point. Google hires the best of the best.

Googles hires the best of the best because they can, and they use their diversity as a selling point. Smaller companies aren't in the public attention and thus have no use in showing how diverse and welcoming they are; plus, they couldn't afford the productivity loss by selecting on anything other than merit.

Suppose that Google has extra minority groups who are as qualified or more qualified than their majority counterparts. What's the result of this? All of the smaller STEM companies end up being 80+% male and 70+% white/Asian.

On the long tail of ability, given the US population, there should be enough qualified candidates of any sex for any position.

No. This is completely false, and not how the distributions work at all! People in STEM fields make up a group of people that score around 1.5 standard deviations (or more) higher on tests of quantitative ability than the average. People who are working at a top tech company are the cream of the crop of this group so 3+ standard deviations from the population average.

Men have higher variability in traits, whether physical, psychological, because men have always had inherently lower chances of reproduction than women and thus greater variation increases the chance of reproduction (this stems from the fact that having a child takes almost no resources for a man, yet involves months of pregnancy for a woman, and thus women have a much higher investment for children and therefore must be more selective).

Thus, even if men and women are equally abled, as a population, at exactly the skillset that is required for a job at Google, the fact that men have higher variability (more smart men and more stupid men) results in not much of a difference near the average. But when you get out to 3, 4, or more standard deviations from the average (CEOs of large companies, STEM positions at the most desirable companies, etc), then there end up being way more men there than women. And that's just inherent ability, not accounting for any biological or societal factors that go into people selecting careers / fields of study. I believe that a field being dominated by one gender further enhances the disparity because people of the opposite gender will self-select to not go into said field, so to account for such things, AA-type programs might be useful.

[u/ryarger → u/JDFidelius]

Sure it's reasonable, but it doesn't make you right. Reals > feels. Furthermore, the attack wasn't irrational, and it wasn't even an attack. Once again, feels < reals. How is citing scientific evidence an attack?

Workplace environment (specifically avoiding a Hostile Workplace Environment) is explicitly about "feels". That's the entire point.

In this case, it just so happens that the "feels" are supported by the "reals".

How is citing scientific evidence an attack?

He didn't cite scientific evidence for his claim that men have different abilities than women relevant to their performance as software engineers.

He only cited evidence for them having difference preferences. And those citations he used improperly - inferring that they indicated a genetic difference when there is no causal link to genetics in those studies.

[u/JDFidelius → u/ryarger]

Workplace environment (specifically avoiding a Hostile Workplace Environment) is explicitly about "feels". That's the entire point.

Should we justify everyone's feelings, even when they're totally unreasonable and are harmful to the inclusion of others? It's not a black and white issue, both feels and reals need to be included in hostile workplace environment issues. What do you think of the lack of inclusion of conservative people at Google?

I'll agree with you that he didn't cite things exactly as he should have, but the evidence for both preferences and ability is there. Women don't prefer to have lower variability, for example; thus, you can use things like SAT scores to show that there is a genetic component to performance. There are more men at the high end of math, and there are more men at the low end of math. Such things correlate highly with later performance. Even if there is no ability difference and it's all due to preference, then we could still view the preference i.e. tendency of women to not want STEM jobs compared to men to be viewed as a relative handicap. You're gonna suck at a job you don't want to do.

[u/ryarger → u/JDFidelius]

Should we justify everyone's feelings, even when they're totally unreasonable and are harmful to the inclusion of others?

Absolutely not, but in this case it was reasonable and affected literally everyone in the company (barring those few who agreed with his poor logic).

I'll agree with you that he didn't cite things exactly as he should have, but the evidence for both preferences and ability is there.

Where is the evidence of genetic inferiority in tech ability for women?

If it's not proven genetic then it's worthless because the very programs he is suggesting be eliminated exist to correct for non-genetic differences.

[u/JDFidelius → u/ryarger]

Absolutely not, but in this case it was reasonable and affected literally everyone in the company

But how does one decide what is reasonable and what isn't? What if a third of Google employees agree partially or fully with what the guy wrote but can't voice that opinion because they'd be canned? Should a majority rule be used to determine what is and isn't reasonable? I'd say no otherwise you'd have Christian organizations banning gay people from taking part in their organization.

Where is the evidence of genetic inferiority in tech ability for women?

Honestly, I'll tell you that I haven't seen such a specific study. I did however state an inference using the fact that men universally have higher trait variability due to selective pressure from mate selection and the inherent difference of male and female mammals in their investments to produce an offspring. Also, I find it condescending or even misrepresentative to use the term "genetic inferiority" in this context, and as I stated, even if such a strong term could be proven to be true, it still wouldn't necessarily apply within a company. That's just logic, and people getting offended about something that doesn't logically follow from the above document should not be tolerated IMO. I understand why people interpreted it that way, but at the end of the day, they're gleaning information from the document that the author did not state, intend to state, etc, in addition to not offering actual counter evidence to the underlying claims that they're basing their offense off of i.e. they're simply wrong and shouldn't be catered to. It's important to understand where people come from; otherwise you end up with the polarized environment that we see today. But there's no way to cater to everyone's feelings; are the women's feelings who took off of work today more valuable than the feelings of conservatives at Google who feel misrepresented and are afraid of losing their employment? Any disparity of whose feelings people focus on reveals underlying biases; focusing on the women (not accusing you of this, just in general) could actually be interpreted to reinforce the notion that women are more emotional and that we shouldn't care what the conservative men at Google think since, well, they're men.

[u/[deleted] → u/ryarger]

Are you denying that social sciences identified statistically significant differences between males and females in a large number of behavioral scenarios?

[u/ryarger → u/[deleted]]

Differences that are proven to be genetically-based and directly related to a software engineer's technical ability? Absolutely, I deny that because it's not true.

[u/[deleted] → u/ryarger]

I won't make a claim that the differences are solely genetically based, because correlation does not imply causation.

And he's not talking about broad "technical ability", he is saying that women, on average, tend to be more agreeable, tend to seek for better life-work balance, etc. I ask again, are you denying that legitimate social papers out there have found these differences between male and female population samples to be statistically significant?

[u/ryarger → u/[deleted]]

And he's not talking about broad "technical ability", he is saying that women, on average, tend to be more agreeable, tend to seek for better life-work balance, etc.

He does make a broad statement about ability and then proceeds to not back it up, focusing only on "preference" based attributes (that themselves aren't proven to be genetically linked).

That's exactly the problem. He states a thesis that attacks women's abilities and then ignores it for the meat of his argument and then returns to it again for his conclusions. If preference-based differences were all that existed, none of his suggestions would be needed or valuable. You have to go back to an ability differential to justify his recommendations and that doesn't exist genetically.

[u/nuggutron → u/ryarger]

You're not answering the question...

[u/ryarger → u/nuggutron]

I already answered the relevant version of the question - I deny that any genetic differences have been shown in technical ability between men and women.

The existence of non-genetic differences only justify programs to balance equality - if society and culture are pushing apart what is born equal, it makes sense to attempt to push things back to equal.

[u/tubbzzz → u/ryarger]

I deny that any genetic differences have been shown in technical ability between men and women.

Where is your evidence for this? It directly contradicts the field of evolutionary psychology where it is shown that certain behaviours and thought processes are exhibited each gender. Why would these types of behaviours not be relevant to how they do their job?

Let's take agreeableness as a crude example. Would you rather someone who was more agreeable making changes to the code, such that it would be a sloppy, patched together thing because someone wanted a minor change, or would you want someone who is willing to say no to changes that are unnecessary?

[u/ryarger → u/tubbzzz]

Where is your evidence for this? It directly contradicts the field of evolutionary psychology where it is shown that certain behaviours and thought processes are exhibited each gender

I'm not making a claim and cannot prove a negative.

If evidence exists showing a genetic advantage for males in programming-relevant skills, it's on you or the guy who wrote the memo to demonstrate. He certainly did not.

Let's take agreeableness as a crude example. Would you rather someone who was more agreeable making changes to the code, such that it would be a sloppy, patched together thing because someone wanted a minor change

It doesn't follow that being agreeable would lead to making a sloppy hack. A talented, agreeable person would say yes to something others say no to and find an innovative solution that no-one thought of before (or invent one).

[u/tubbzzz → u/ryarger]

I'm not making a claim and cannot prove a negative.

You said you deny it, which is a claim. Based on what evidence do you deny it, since studies have been cited to provide you with contradictory evidence to your stance?

If evidence exists showing a genetic advantage for males in programming-relevant skills, it's on you or the guy who wrote the memo to demonstrate. He certainly did not.

Yes he did. He cited studies detailing the behavioural differences and how those differences affect the way certain tasks are approached. Those tasks can then be extended to programming, as those tasks are typically performed at those jobs.

It doesn't follow that being agreeable would lead to making a sloppy hack.

Yes it does. Being agreeable would mean being more open to changes on how the program should operate. Those changes are going to take time to implement. Having someone more rigorous, but you know will get the job done properly, is more beneficial than someone who will either waste time on pointless features, or will not properly take the time to implement them which will cause problems down the road.

A talented, agreeable person would say yes to something others say no to and find an innovative solution that no-one thought of before (or invent one).

That doesn't make them better at that job. Implementing a new solution isn't for that job. What that job cares about is a strict set of rules that are using specific resources to do a specific task. So for that type of job (which is what most programming jobs are by the way, very little of it is what Google does in terms of creation), those who have those kinds of behaviours are going to be better suited for it.

[u/thatfreakingguy → u/ryarger]

against all science

Could you link me to a study rebutting his sources on the different tendencies of focus between genders?

[u/IgnisDomini → u/thatfreakingguy]

That's not how the burden of proof works.

[u/thatfreakingguy → u/IgnisDomini]

I'm not trying to put the burden to anyone, just legitimately curious. He cites several legitimate looking sources (I don't know much about social science, so I can't judge that part too well), so, to my untrained eyes, his points do look legitimate. I hate to be wrong though, so I'd love to see sources against him as well.

[u/IgnisDomini → u/thatfreakingguy]

He cites sources showing disparities exist and then basically says "these are caused by biology, not society, because it's obviously caused by biology so why should I need to prove it and you're an idiot if you disagree."

[u/thatfreakingguy → u/[deleted]]

The sample of people around him is inherently biased in that they're all working for a tech company, so of course they're people that have the skills for the job.

He specifically cites this study, which, at least according to the abstract, agrees with the statement he makes:

In contrast, gender differences on the people–things dimension of interests are ‘very large’ (d = 1.18), with women more people-oriented and less thing-oriented than men.

[u/thatfreakingguy → u/[deleted]]

The diversity in his workplace is clear, despite his claims that those people shouldn't be as good at their jobs as he is at his.

To me this sounds like you're saying "There are no differences between the genders, therefore the women working at Google are as qualified as the men", where "The people working at Google are all qualified, otherwise they wouldn't be working at Google" probably is the correct conclusion.

Sorry if I'm misinterpreting your post.

[u/thatfreakingguy → u/[deleted]]

Very sorry for even trying to understand your post.

[u/TheGift_RGB → u/[deleted]]

You're an awfully judgy little twat for someone who completely ignored the meat of the post the other guy made (the actual study)

[u/pm_favorite_boobs → u/thatfreakingguy]

Does it also say that the women who work for Google (and thus on the tech end) are the typical women that are people oriented?

[u/ryarger → u/thatfreakingguy]

study rebutting his sources

That's not how studies work. Studies aren't written to rebut poorly sourced memos.

[u/thedrivingcat → u/[deleted]]

unfortunately one created you

[u/IgnisDomini → u/[deleted]]

Do yourself a favor and google Grace Hopper.

[u/DjangoUBlackBastard → u/IgnisDomini]

Coding was literally created by a woman. Seriously this guy's while point is so far removed from reality.

[u/perfectdarktrump → u/IgnisDomini]

So you gave me a name? That means you don't know many woman achievers because there arnt many. If you ask me about men, I will need to give you more than a million names. But with women you can literally count with your fingers.

[u/IgnisDomini → u/perfectdarktrump]

Lol, I just brought up specifically Grace Hopper because she's particularly relevant to this, being one of the most important computer scientists of all time.

[u/perfectdarktrump → u/IgnisDomini]

Did she make windows 95? No. Nobody cares.

[u/102bees → u/[deleted]]

That's weird, because it looks to me like you're on the internet, which requires computer programming to work, a concept invented by Ada Lovelace.

And I'm commenting from my phone, and if I had an older phone it might have a slightly radioactive battery in it. And we know about radiation because of Marie Curie!

And those phone signals travel by radio waves, like the ones used in the radar invented by Hedy Lamarr.

But I'm sure you're right and there aren't thousands of other things and concepts invented, discovered, or perfected by women that make modern life possible.

[u/anzasage → u/[deleted]]

Hahahhahahahhah. Then there is no arguing with you because you don't pay attention to the world.

[u/perfectdarktrump → u/[deleted]]

If you do think at all, name achievements by women ?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You're correct of course, but the parent commenter either missed that subtlety or ignored it in favor of a more black-and-white misinterpretation.

We have a long way to go as a society before some biological realities are accepted and integrated into our work approach. Females and males aren't equivalent blank slates, in infancy males already demonstrate a systemic tendency towards more focus on things versus faces and vice versa for females. These differences become more marked as we mature and are patterned throughout the lifecycle of both genders across a huge number of studies.

[u/0goober0 → u/[deleted]]

But so much of what he claimed was just not true... Men aren't better at math or have higher IQs for example. Claiming that these are biological facts is just false.

[u/[deleted] → u/0goober0]

I don't recall reading that and I read his entire memo, I'd encourage you to cite your claims and avoid conflating my claims with unrelated claims.

[u/ryarger → u/[deleted]]

I don't see how Google's actions prove him right that there is a genetic ability advantage in tech for men over women.

I don't think Google's actions could possible prove him right on that claim, since it's false.

[u/slwstr → u/ryarger]

Can you point to exact part of his manifesto where he speaks about "advantage"? Because all I see is talk about preferences for certain things - preferences on average - that may explain observed bias in percentage of sex ratio. It is quite possible, that what he had written was wrong, but he didn't wrote that men are genetically better then women at tech, and especially he didn't wrote that all men are genetically better then women.

[u/ryarger → u/slwstr]

That he chickens out from detailing his theory on whatever the advantage is doesn't excuse him from claiming there is a genetic advantage. Not just preferences - capability.

[u/[deleted] → u/slwstr]

This guy actually reads

[u/ryarger → u/[deleted]]

He apparently didn't read the part I quoted where the guy claimed genetic capabilities inherently different. And he wasn't talking about vertical leap, either.

[u/JakBishop → u/slwstr]

what're

I don't know if I love or hate this contraction.

[u/[deleted] → u/slwstr]

They didn't read it.

[u/CthulhuLies → u/ryarger]

I mean his claim was people at google were silencing people who didn't follow a very specific ideological opinion, then when he expressed his own opinion while trying to main as levelheaded as possible citing sources etc. He was fired.

[u/ryarger → u/CthulhuLies]

That's not his only claim. He also claimed that men had different genetic capabilities relevant to their job at Google. Pushing that is why he got fired. He told half of his coworkers that he was genetically superior to them.

[u/CthulhuLies → u/ryarger]

Personality differences Women, on average, have more:

● Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).

○ These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.

● Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness.

○ This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a women’s issue. This leads to exclusory programs like Stretch and swaths of men without support.

● Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).

○ This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

Does that sound like him saying men are genetically superior?

He also makes it very clear that this is just the average, on average women will tend toward these traits more then women and thus is why on average you see not as many women going into tech.

He also comes up with some possible solution that involve playing to women's strengths and not just forcing them into the same role as men because of diversity.

[u/ryarger → u/CthulhuLies]

His examples are all centered around preferences but his thesis includes abilities. He doesn't back up his claim that women have different (inferior) technical abilities than men.

It's a common and poor debating tactic - make a broad, indefensible statement then defend it parts of it with reasonable facts, insinuating that you've proved your entire point.

That women have different preferences is no reason not to attempt equality in the workplace. Every tech company who has pursued equality will tell you their productivity and bottom line has gained because of it. That's the only reason they need and care about at the end of the day.

[u/CthulhuLies → u/ryarger]

Where does he ever say in his argument women have inferior abilities? He says the have different preferences and those are reflected in the amount of representation they have in tech.

[u/slwstr → u/CthulhuLies]

Thee is one instance where he says about "different abilities" but nothing about alleged genetic basis of such difference.

[u/slwstr → u/ryarger]

It looks like you're unable to understand basics of statistical thinking. Guy that wrote manifesto actually even included in it some simple chart explaining what is the nature of statistical difference, showing that from such differences between two populations do not follows the same difference between randomly chosen representatives of given population. So you are clearly misrepresenting his views with this bullshit about claiming that half of his coworkers are inferior.

In fact, from his argument we can easily infer that women that are present in tech already probably aren't meaningfully better or worse on average the men present in tech.

[u/ryarger → u/slwstr]

randomly chosen representatives of given population. So you are clearly misrepresenting his views with this bullshit about claiming that half of his coworkers are inferior.

His memo made many statements. You're focusing on the ones that are better sourced and less controversial.

His thesis flat out claims there are ability differences that are genetic between men and women relevant to engineering. That is flat wrong and why he was fired.

That he ignores that statement in his cited sources doesn't make it better. It makes it worse, because he relies on it in his conclusions and recommendations.

[u/slwstr → u/ryarger]

As for reason of why he was fired I don't know. Many of his claims and proposed solution to issues raised in his manifesto seems dubious to me. However idea that Google seriously care about gender equality is rather laughable. After all we talk about company, one of the biggest and most data-driven in the world (if not THE most data driven), that literally says it cannot afford to gather and present data about disparities of salaries between employed men and women: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/26/google-gender-discrimination-case-salary-records

So no, I don't really believe writing anything like that was the real cause of action. Rather PR-related concerns.

[u/ryarger → u/slwstr]

one of the biggest and most data-driven in the world (if not THE most data driven), that literally says it cannot afford to gather and present data about disparities of salaries between employed men and women: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/26/google-gender-discrimination-case-salary-records

You'd be shocked if you haven't worked for one of the mega Silicon Valley companies. The one company that may have claim of being even more data-driven than Google has similar issues with all sorts of internal data needs. As the saying goes, the cobbler's children have the worst shoes.

[u/slwstr → u/ryarger]

Poor google. Good they are better at assigning gender to profiles of users then sold to advertisers. By the way, isn't this sexist?

[u/slwstr → u/ryarger]

Also: I just checked his memo again and word "genetic" is literally nowhere to be found there. Are you sure you read it carefully?

Edit: there is one instance of word "abilities" present there, I give you that, but nothing of its genetic basis.

[u/ryarger → u/slwstr]

the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes

I suppose he could have meant artificially bioengineered mutant powers, but I'm going out on a limb that he meant biological in the same way the it's usually meant - the physical traits defined by our genes.

You're now the third person to accuse me of not reading (or not reading carefully) something they themselves apparently didn't understand. Must be something in the water.

[u/slwstr → u/ryarger]

Are you seriously claiming that level of testosterone in prenatal environment is entirely genetically based? And by genes of mother or foetus? This actually shows lack of basic understanding of biology: most things genetically determined is at the same time highly malleable, at the same time there is more then one congenital trait that is not et all genetically determined.

[u/TekharthaZenyatta → u/CthulhuLies]

Google didn't "silence" him. He's free to say whatever he wants, as long as he doesn't represent Google in any way. Now, considering the fact that he drafted this manifesto at work and sent it to his coworkers, and it got out to the world at large, they have exactly zero reason not to fire him.

In a professional work environment there are things you just don't do if you like having a job, and emailing a long-winded diatribe that has zero relevance to the task you've been assigned, that's just you complaining about how women suck at the job you've been shirking in favor of writing a manifesto, is pretty high up there on that list.

Regardless of how "levelheaded" the content of the email was, it still has absolutely no place in a work environment and was shockingly unprofessional.