women are underrepresented in tech because of inherent psychological differences

[MineKraftCheese]

http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320

This is horrendous! I don't know where to start but I'm boiling with rage.

So many awful gender stereotypes and weird lies and biological "truths".

MeRichard straw man? I expected better.

@AssassinatedBeauty The way you write implies that you think he believes this point even though he doesn't write it. Forgive me if I have gotten that wrong. You are absolutely free to think that if you do. For all I know he might believe those things. How could I tell otherwise?

Of course I have to note that you cannot fire someone from their job because of what you think they believe. An extension of the earlier point that you can't sack them for what you wish or felt or thought they said. You can only take action for what they actually do, or actually say.

I know that just about everyone on this forum is working on the basis that he has said explicitly that women are inferior and that as I did not rush to agree, that he said it, then I too must believe that women are inferior.

The general gist of the manifesto is something along the lines of

I don't like the current set up at my place of work.

Women and ethnic minorities are working alongside me.

They are doing work I do and getting paid less for it.

They are so grateful to have a job here and they're getting benefits in kind; with all the different perks and positive discrimination they aren't asking for pay rises.

My bargaining power is getting less and I can see the day when my pay stalls and theirs catches up with mine.

I'm not being treated as the special dude I think I am.

Why don't we go back to the old days?

When men were men and women were cleaners and secretaries?

We need to get back to the manly days.

When we weren't so touchy feely.

I'm not saying women need to be fired. That thought never crossed my mind.

[Probably true. That thought never crossed his conscious mind.

However, every time he doesn't see his socio-economic type around him, it's at the back of his mind.

Every time he has to look down to talk to someone, every time he has to watch his language in case he could be construed as racist or sexist or every time he tries to talk to someone around the water cooler about his weekend and they show no interest in what he does and what they've done is alien to him; it's there. That question "What are you doing here, making me uncomfortable in my space?" is always there]

I'm just saying we need to stop going out of our way to employ them.

And make the working environment so uncomfortable for those we have employed that they'll leave.

He does believe, or no doubt he knows due to the science, that women are inferior, on average, to men. That's what he explains with references in his manifesto. He's very careful not to say all women, just that the differences are enough, on average, to likely explain the current state of gender balance in his organisation and more generally.

I believe he thinks women are inferior and dislikes them in spaces that he thinks of as male. I believe this due to the way he writes about women and the references he uses to common ideas that are used by MRAs to promote their anti-women agenda.

Google have sacked him. If they were wrong to do so, legally, then no doubt it will be proven to be the case and he'll get a large payout. If that seems likely I would imagine that Google will try and reach a settlement before that happens. They seem happy to have taken that risk, I'm sure they can probably afford any pay out or fine.

MeRichard doesn't have the experience and expertise the rest of us have at clocking this guy instantly. He doesn't need to explicitly say what he so carefully dances around.
His choice of interviewer post-sacking just confirms what we already knew.

One thing that should be considered is that while Google guy refers to classes for certain races and special treatment for 'diversity cases', the only group he whips out the graphs and crappy research for is women. If he wanted to find reasons why black people are biologically unsuited to tech (or whatever) he could - there's crappy research for racists too.
Why has he given women quotas so much more thought and consideration than other quotas? Because he's sexist and thinks he has found a way he can get away with it.

The author has pointed out that there are biological differences in men and women. Does anyone deny this? (If so there isn't much point in discussing this further.)

Height is an obvious example. Muscle proportion is another. How many women medallists have beaten the times of their male counterparts in the 100m sprint at the Olympics?

Looking at any population, there is of course a bell curve, as stated by the author in the memo. I have female friends that are taller than some of my male friends, however on average men are taller than women.

Now look at the human brain. Ignoring the obvious fact that men on average have a higher brain mass than women, there are numerous other differences: Men and women have higher proportional percentages of grey and white matter respectively. Some subcortical regions of the brain are typically larger in men and others in women, even when the initial difference in brain mass is taken in to account. There have even been studies that show that neurons have different firing patterns in male and female brains.

Now, just as you can't pick a random height and say whether that person is definitely male or female, you cannot look at an individual brain and tell the sex. Once again there is a bell curve, however this does raise questions about biological influences on our perspectives, traits and abilities.

The author suggests there could be ways of optimising performance in a field in which he works, e.g. making work more collaborative playing to what is potentially a female strength.

In denying people the right to not only debate but actually acknowledge that these biological differences exist you are not hampering scientific discovery but impeding the advance of sexual equality.

But how much is nature and how much nurture?

What about the men and women who don't conform to the gender averages to do?

Transition?

Socialisation is too big an elephant to ignore.

Of course there are biological differences. Height, muscle mass, as you say. Brain differences too, on average. Can you tell me what any of those brain differences actually result in, in terms of differences in psychological traits or aptitudes or abilities?

Debate away, but recognise that the playing field is not level and has not been level for a very long time.

But what does he know absolute biology anyway? He's not talking about his own area of expertise at all.

Sneak possibly. But if you say require people within the 95th percentile of the male bell curve if such thing exists, then even this would require women from the 97th percentile of the female bell curve, you really think that is too few women in the world to find to work for the top tech companies? Somehow India has managed to do it. And they are sexist af. But apparently value good work more. Who knew.

No, what he did and what you are doing is just trying to find excuses as to why sexism occurs. There is 0 evidence for this (this being that biological differences make women less likely to choose tech as a career and less able to do tech as a career). You want to debate this? How is debating going to do any good? Is he a biologist or psychologist? No. So why the f... is he offending an entire group of people working with him with "maybe it's biology, if only we knew what exactly makes you less able than us, we could actually really help you".

If he is actually genuine about this, why doesn't he shut the fuck up and do the research rather than philosophize as a man about women's abilities. And if he really doesn't want to do the research and simply debate, then he can do it on his own time, not post a memo in his company. How do you people not get this? If I posted something like this in my company I would be laid off for sure. And if he wants Google to do something, why does he not address it to the relevant people and come up with an action plan to try to gather some sort of evidence for his opinions and a plan to then change something. Nah what he did sounds like posting something on the notice board at the SU, whining like a toddler, but not actually joining the SU and actively trying to change something. Which is what he is. "Oh no the evil women are eroding my advantage and encroaching on my space boohoo".

/rant.

"Is he a biologist or psychologist? No"

yes. sort of.

" Harvard tells WIRED that Damore did not complete a PhD. He completed a master’s degree in systems biology in 2013."

www.wired.com/story/james-damore-author-google-memo-might-sue/

@AssassinatedBeauty As I said in my last post it is absolutely fine for you or other people outside the case to believe that this guy thinks all women are inferior, even if he hasn't said it. Our ability to surmise is a vital survival skill.

Of course though, it is not fine for his employer to simply believe it. To "clock this guy" as @noblegiraffe would say. It is not acceptable in exactly the same way it would not be acceptable for them to believe their female staff were not as effective as their male staff or vice versa. Businesses either act in a way that is equitable, fair and evidence-based or they don't.

I wonder why he didn't complete a PhD. Maybe he found out he couldn't prove that women are biologically inferior.

I wonder if he lied about it on his CV as well as his Linked-in profile.

it is absolutely fine for you or other people outside the case to believe that this guy thinks all women are inferior, even if he hasn't said it

He's using semantics and using pseudo scientific language to hide the fact he's worried wimmin will take his and other mens' jobs.

The same way white supremacists used to hide their racism.

I work in IT and my company works very hard to promote women in tech.
I note though that very few of the women who attend the events are hard core tech. It's all managers and project managers. Where are the women coders? Putting their heads down and hoping no one notices they're women I suspect.

@Gingernaut You have created an awful lot of content in your post "The general gist of the manifesto..." none of which are contained in the letter.

It is against logic, and of no value, to invent things he did not say and then to get angry over those things that you have invented - in the vein of "I bet he is cruel to animals too. I hate him because he is cruel to animals".

You should perhaps just pause for a moment and think; if the ideas you are penning did not come from the text, then where did they come from?

MeRichard "North Korea should be very very nervous" - about what? That a tsunami will hit them? Or that US bombs will hit them? He didn't say it, but everyone knows what Trump means.

Words and context have meaning, other than the literal dictionary definition of them. Are you unaware of this?

'I'm not a sexist but...'
'Of course at an individual level, Jane from tech is just great, but when you consider averages....'.

It's not like people haven't been using these approaches to try to justify their crap since forever. Oh, but this time it's genuine

@BWatchWatcher - I found that running hands on coding events brought the female devs out. Intros to new stuff that they might not have had a chance to play with at work especially. But it takes time to build up attendance. We did have some really interesting discussions around clothing, and how techie women feel pressure to emulate their male peers clothing choices.

Also, project managers/leads are often ex-devs. And tbh, I feel a bit uncomfortable about reinforcing a tech "hierarchy" - there are tech roles and myths like "front end dev is less challenging" (I mean wtf!!!) "QA aren't technical" etc. They are always aimed at areas where there are more women, and women are pushed towards those roles, either subtly or explicitly.

(BTW: I'm ignoring some parts of this thread because I'm not interested in debating the determinedly uneducated teenage debating society plonker when there are such amazingly highly experienced and knowledgeable peers to talk to on this thread.)

front end dev is less challenging bollocks! I personally find it much harder.

gizmodo.com/men-have-always-used-science-to-explain-why-theyre-bett-1797608461

@slightlyglittermad, that's interesting! Were they women only hands on coding? That sounds like it could work. We need to bring more of the younger members of staff so they can be supported and I think this would help.

Is this appropriate here?

There's no such thing as male and female brains.

New Scientist article.

You know, your actual, proper science.

@BWatchWatcher Yes, women only events seemed to attract the local female devs who I hadn't seen in other tech meetups. There seems to be a pattern of women attending those events first before going to mixed meetups - if there's an existing women in tech meetup near yours, you could try running a joint night? That tends to attract more women even if mixed because a) they know there will be other women there and b) they have more confidence that bullshit will be nipped in the bud pretty smartly.