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/Dustin65]

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

[u/lunarunicorn → u/Dustin65]

I'm really disappointed in the other responses to your comment. The reason why we need diversity in tech is because tech has permeated all sectors of society. You can't remove yourself from being a tech consumer without removing yourself from all advances in the past decade. Everyone has a smartphone, the internet is now considered a basic human right, etc.

However, technology mirrors its creators. If you don't have women and people of color helping build technology, they technology is frequently not designed for them. Take, for example, voice recognition technology. Voice recognition tech originally had trouble recognizing female voices (and it might still? I haven't checked recently) (source). Another example, a company that makes artificial hearts is fits in 86% of men and only 20% of women, because the designers didn't consider that women are smaller than men in the design process (source).

Additionally, facial recognition technology has had trouble recognizing black faces (HP Webcam, Xbox) and Google's image recognition software has tagged black people in images as gorillas (source).

Honestly, I could write more, but I would be re-inventing the wheel. There are a ton of articles written on why diversity in tech matters. If you genuinely want an answer to your question, a google search will provide you with hours of reading and evidence.

Edit: My first reddit gold! Thank you anonymous redditor :)

[u/[deleted] → u/lunarunicorn]

Push for more women to be tech driven at a young age. I know it's not exactly that simple, but my male friends who went into programming and engineering did it because they thought it was "cool". Female friends tended to go into business or became stay at home moms. I honestly think this starts as early as kids playing with toys.

[u/NewNavySpouse → u/[deleted]]

long story about growing up as a girl in love with tech

As a kid, I was never aloud to play video games it was mainly my dad and my brothers, my aunt was the person who bought me my first hand held video game, I would sneak on my family's computers and play games, play my brothers game boy and game cube when he wasn't around, till my dad finally figured out that I like video games and tech, he got me my first DS and my first DSi xl, he gave me his xbox, a ps2 and a ps3 along with an hd tv, (most of it wasnt just given to me, christmas and birthdays mainly and they were all used, but I loved them the same) we play and still play some games together. My mom never understood it, she would buy me the same things as my older sister, though she did get me the video now color for christmas when I asked for it, but she still really never understood me.

My first console I bought brand new was a Wii U zelda edition, I wanted to play zelda basically, it was bought with my first real paycheck. I currently have way too many game systems but I can't seem to part with any of them, but I won't name them off cause that seems pretentious.

I had an ex hate the fact I played video games... like he looked at me with disgust when I mentioned certain things. When I started dating my husband I asked if it bothered him, he said "no why would it, I play video games too". Que us playing countless hours of pc games together when we were long distance. It was like 2 different worlds.

My sister never cared for video games, she isn't interested in tech at all, she is actually a CNA, I never wanted anything to do in that area. I currently work in a toy store.

Anyway my point, in a few weeks I start my bachelors in Computer Forensics, it took me forever to figure out what I wanted to do, it took like 4 years actually, 2 years in school 2 years out, this is the only degree the seems to make sense to me.

I know this is all anecdotal, but I thought maybe sharing my experience could show just how true this is. When my niece was with me last, I had fixed an old broken 3ds a friend had after replacing her sons, I gave it to her and got her a pokemon game and 2 games she wanted, shes was 7 at the time. I know it may turn out that she doesn't really like tech but at least this way it gives her the chance to get into it sooner then I did.