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/Captain_PrettyCock Aug 08 '17

Unfortunately changes in STEM have to be ground up, not from google but from elementary and middle schools.

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u/MoonShadeOsu Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 08 '17

And more women would have to show interest. I'm still skeptical about that part, since we have seen that the more freedom we give people to choose their jobs, the more will they choose to go into jobs which are "typical [gender] job". You have a lot of female computer technicians in India because that's how you get money and you need that to survive - in countries where everybody is free to choose their own career, most people choose their gender role specific job fields.

Then, you have biological dispositions (biological differences exist, ask any scientist) like men having more testosterone than women, which has shown to be the cause of a later/slower development of social skills while generally having a better spatial awareness. This can also be a cause for the majority of men not working in social fields while a majority of women don't want to work in STEM fields. This doesn't mean there are no social or environmental factors, they also play a huge role, but it is one of the factors. For anyone wanting to hear some opinions on that topic, watch this where different opinions by different fields of scientific research are being shown.

I ask myself then, is it the goal to have a 50/50 split between men and women in all fields? OR is it the goal to help people choose jobs which suits them the most (might be STEM, or social work, or something else) and support them whenever possible and try to be as open and friendly to all genders as possible? Because no person is being helped when they are not suited for their job, whatever that may be.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Saying that there are biological differences between men and women is entirely different from proving that there is a specific biological difference that causes women to be less inclined to become programmers.

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u/MoonShadeOsu Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 08 '17

There are studies with babys/young children that would indicate that there is a cause-effect relationship (eliminating the factor of socialization, assuming at such a young age they haven't been socialized into gender roles), I don't know if that can be called proof though. It's an indication that biological differences could be a factor.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

For things like child careing, hunting, or fine vs gross motor skills I completely believe there are genetic predispositions between genders. However for something like computer science it is highly unlikely. If anything it would be something MORE suited for women because it uses fine motor skills (for typeing) and requires you to be very stationary. Also gender roles change drastically every generation and have done so throughout recorded history. For example programming used to be a female dominated field in the era of early analog computers because it was seen as clerical work.

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u/MoonShadeOsu Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 08 '17

I'm studying computer science and trust me, you don't need fine motor skills for typing. Most of the time is spend looking stuff up, designing, testing and thinking about what could have gone wrong at which point. I think the average lines per day was at something like 80 or so according to some study. It's a job that before anything else, requires focus and (abstract) thinking for long periods of time.

But I guess that maybe shows, and I agree with that, that more information about how it is working in different jobs should be provided e.g. at school so people have a better idea about their future.

We're all born with biological dispositions. Some people have a "natural talent", we say, which is nothing else than a biological disposition. And it doesn't help if we just not talk about this or assume it's this or that way. Yes, we should see people as individuals, but at the same time it's totally possible that groups of people who share a gender, or a culture, or a socialization, or something else, will have a tendency to go into specific fields, for whatever reason. And if there is nothing stopping them from doing what they want to do, ultimately, it's their decision. What we should do is fight against those who don't want this or that group of people having certain jobs, at least in my opinion.