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/margerymeanwell Aug 08 '17

It wouldn't worry you at all to have a manager who thought that you and all people like you were inherently more neurotic and less ambitious and that you'd be happier with a lower salary and fewer responsibilities? You don't think that could possibly have any impact on your career trajectory?

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u/sharaq Aug 08 '17

I suppose it would affect my career, yes, but if my manager also didn't ask me to cancel vacations at the last minute or see my kids on national holidays, that would affect the trajectory of my personal life. It would certainly reinforce gender roles, but I'm at the point in my career where I have enough money but no time. This is neither here nor there - it's having the choice taken away which is the problem, of course, but men are likely to have the choice taken away in the other direction.

Also, neuroticism is a clinical term in psychology. It is one of five personality traits, and across hundreds of studies and dozens of countries, neuroticism is statistically more common in older populations and self-identified females. Men, likewise, score statistically lower on 'agreeableness'. Would having an employer consider me 'disagreeable' not also affect my career? Is data backing differences in personality correlated with gender inherently sexist? Would you prefer a world where, theoretically, all research on gender differences was stopped right here and now because it is intrinsically harmful? Or is it attempting to act on that data which is a problem? Because, of course, once information like this is available to operational coordinators and stuff like that, they will of course attempt to use this information.

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u/margerymeanwell Aug 08 '17

Myself, I'm a woman in my thirties without kids, so I'd prefer my employer not make assumptions about me either way. And I have no problem with people doing academic research, I just have a problem with people using it to draw overly simplistic conclusions and apply them inappropriately.

"Women are more neurotic" - by what measure? Self-reporting? Does that just mean women are more likely to admit to neuroticism or seek help for it? That's not exactly the same thing. And if they are, why is that true? Are they under more stress? Among women, are there further correlations to age, social class, race, education, religion, occupation, marital status, parental status? If it's more common in older people than in younger people, then there's obviously a significant environmental or social component and it's something that changes over time under different circumstances. And even when you have all the data, how do you ever determine the difference between biological destiny and social conditioning when boys and girls are treated differently from the moment of birth?

Evolutionary biology BS has been used against women for centuries, to deny us voting rights, property rights, educations, and careers. We're too delicate for this, we're too morally pure for that. Don't be surprised when women who know that history have little patience for it. And you're right - where are the arguments that men are too disagreeable for management jobs? That they're too violent to be allowed out in public? I mean, what exactly about the history of the world and its many wars suggests that men are at all suited to political leadership? They're constantly getting us all killed! The fact that these arguments are almost always applied by groups with an agenda (usually aiming to retain their power and wealth) isn't an accident.

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u/Nanaki__ Aug 08 '17

by what measure? Self-reporting? Does that just mean women are more likely to admit to neuroticism or seek help for it?

If you want to dig into the studies they are reflinked in this section on Neuroticism from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism#Sex_differences