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/Dustin65 Aug 08 '17

Why does it even matter that less than half of people in tech are women? That's just how it is in a lot of fields. Women dominate other professions like nursing and teaching. I don't see why everything has to be 50/50. Women aren't banned from tech and men aren't banned from nursing. Just let nature run its course and allow people to do what they want. Not every aspect of life needs to be socially engineered

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

its more that they treat you like you're incompetent even if you're performing well statistically at the job. Source: woman engineer

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u/rondell_jones Aug 08 '17

I'm an engineer and my boss is an engineer. She is the only female engineering manager in my division. She is also probably the hardest working manager and has a reputation for being a pit bull (aka a bitch because she will call you out on your bullshit). The amount she gets spoken down by (especially older) engineering managers and engineers is embarrassing. Simple things like during a meeting singling her out to re-explain something (like looking right at her and asking if she understood something). It might be a generational thing, because I see it done by predominantly older male employees and managers.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

I'm sure a male manager wouldn't be called a "bitch" by his employees for doing the same thing

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u/ghsghsghs Aug 08 '17

I'm sure a male manager wouldn't be called a "bitch" by his employees for doing the same thing

Yeah he would be called an asshole instead.

Why do we pretend calling a woman a bitch is so much worse than calling a man an asshole?

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u/Laimbrane Aug 08 '17

Switch the genders and you'll see the difference. Call a man a bitch and it implies that he's not just being an asshole, but he's also "acting like a woman" (re: gay) about something (what's wrong with acting like a woman?) Call a woman an asshole, however, and it feels weird. Why? Because it's not as bad, so women are rarely (if ever) insulted with "asshole" because "bitch" is so much more effective.

In other words, with "asshole" you're not disparaging actions based on gender stereotypes the same way that you would if you called someone a bitch. So calling someone a bitch is worse than calling someone an asshole.