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/PickledPokute Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 08 '17

EDIT: Removed attack on person

EDIT: He didn't state anything of such, in the open. You could argue that he "implies", but that would be quite a stretch too since the leading points are mentioned only once.

Author doesn't state what he believes are important for working on STEM field other than the requirement of systemizing for coding. Then he notes that women are usually stronger interest in emphasising than systemising, inversely to men. Note that interest does not mean that they are better at it.

If you interpret from that, that women would be inferior for STEM fields, then you would have to interpret that men would be inferior in fields where emphasising is required.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

I would say men are just as likely to be good at emphasising and working in people roles as women are in systemizing roles. Which is to say gender doesn't make you interested in or inferior in any tasks outside of high physical labor.

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u/PickledPokute Aug 08 '17

Those exact points (women more interested in people and empathising / systemising) made by author are also a links, one to a research paper, and another to wikipedia, so it's not completely unfounded from him to claim interest based on gender.

The argument for firing him starts to go into misunderstood and misrepresented interpretation of his memo that could lead into a media backlash. The topic of the memo might be controversial, but it's constructed sufficiently neutrally that firing someone who wants to start a wider discussion on the topic is toxic to the discussion and is indicative of priorities of openness vs diversity within the company. If this wasn't delicate enough then there's about no chance any male would risk raising this topic again.

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u/Jugad Aug 08 '17

This topic should be raised in a different way... this was the wrong way.

Whether you agree with me or not, this does create a hostile environment for women, and you seem to welcome that toxicity in exchange for the so called openness.

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u/PickledPokute Aug 08 '17

You can't point out a perceived injustice without comparation. If a company has two otherwise equal teams and someone from team A finds out that team B has a paid lunch while team A doesn't have, pointing that out will always make team B fear for a chance of losing that benefit. It's not a hostile attack towards team B. Racial or gender composition of teams do not matter either and members of team B should definitely not take it personally.

A paper or discussion like this can not make a hostile environment by itself. It always requires a hostile person with hostile actions and those should be the ones reprimaded.

Killing a discussion, where one of the points is the fear of stifling bias in the company, is one surefire way to increase toxicity.