Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#311

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

rpiguy wrote: post #126

tedivm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets assume that we're in an alternative universe where the document was never leaked. The document still did harm. Just read this quote from the posted article- > When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? How do I prove myself to people one way or another? Th…

The thoughts of one twenty-something engineer posted to an internal message board (for these kinds of discussions I might add) does not create a hostile workplace or harm Google in any way. Basically, in any other context we expect people who have vastly differing views to be able to put them aside and work together. The only exception to this rule seems to be around leftist issues, where if you disagree you are out…

[deleted]

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#312

Post by morgtheborg » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

rpiguy wrote: post #126

tedivm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets assume that we're in an alternative universe where the document was never leaked. The document still did harm. Just read this quote from the posted article- > When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? How do I prove myself to people one way or another? Th…

The thoughts of one twenty-something engineer posted to an internal message board (for these kinds of discussions I might add) does not create a hostile workplace or harm Google in any way. Basically, in any other context we expect people who have vastly differing views to be able to put them aside and work together. The only exception to this rule seems to be around leftist issues, where if you disagree you are out…

> for example, the Jewish people and the Islamic people at a company to work together.

But you wouldn't expect a Muslin to work with an Jew who had decided to share a memo internally about how she thinks Muslims aren't actually, on average, as well suited for positions at their company and are only present in the percentages they are due to a lower bar to entrance based on their "diversity" quota.

At which point any reasonable Muslim would think, "What the fuck. So I'm just a diversity hire? I don't deserve my spot here? You don't think, on average, people like me can do this job as people like you?"

Understandably that sounds like a damn hostile environment to put someone in. In the case of sex, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I know I certainly wouldn't be comfortable working with him in a professional capacity. I would feel like I was being judged every moment to see if I deserved my spot here and that the baseline assumption was no, I don't.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#313

Post by xigency » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

kromem wrote: post #80

Can anyone cite the parts of the document where he claimed that the biological differences mapped to job performance? I read it, but definitely don't recall that association being made (he did talk a lot about preference and job satisfaction), but see numerous detractors citing that association as a criticism, so I'm a bit confused.

On pages 3 and 4 he claims that these differences exist (emphasis added):

- On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. ...the distribution of PREFERENCES and ABILITIES of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.

- Women, on average, have more: Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men

- These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.

- Women, on average, have more: Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).

- This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

And later proposes these solutions:

- We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration.

- Make tech and leadership less stressful.

So he has 1) cited biological differences between men and women in their abilities (not simply preferences) and 2) claimed that these lead to suitability for different jobs and also indicated the specific jobs would need to be changed in order to be more suitable for women, which strongly implies differing performance levels.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#314

Post by sheepmullet » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

Blackthorn wrote: post #258

sheepmullet wrote: post #237

More likely your female teammates are creating a hostile work environment by being unable to handle minor ideological disagreement. Or even more likely, you have misinterpreted them and are unaware that they were not shaken or seriously disturbed in any way. Edit: edited to remove the personal attack while still keeping the meaning.

I was there. Literally. Why are you trying to say you understand my colleagues, who you do not know, better than I do?

Do you see what you are implying about your female colleagues?

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#315

Post by BearGoesChirp » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #128

jorgemf wrote: post #111

> I disagree with his use of science and data to convert opinions into facts. Funny. So if you backed your opinions with science that is not right? It was hard to keep reading after that statement.

"Applied science incorrectly to confirm a bias or advance an opinion incorrectly" and "applied science to form an opinion" are different things. Damore did the former.

Did he?

If someone approached this problem with a blank slated, looked at the evidence, formed an opinion, then wrote something to back their opinion, how could you tell them apart from someone who had an opinion and applied science to just advance their opinion? Assume both are average, and thus imperfect, writers.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#316

Post by alexandercrohde » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

Blackthorn wrote: post #195

It really doesn't matter if the memo had any truth to it or not. At the end of the day, that really is immaterial to the result. What happened because of the memo is it managed to piss off virtually every woman in the company. You don't piss off 20,000 of your coworkers in a completely avoidable manner and keep your job.

Did the memo piss them off, or did a non-existent "Sexist manifesto" created by click-bait sites piss them off?

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#317

Post by tracker1 » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

First off, nobody in tech, male or female is really "average". Second, everybody must prove they're good at their job by doing it well. But to suggest that there is absolutely no correlation that makes men or women disproportionately want to work in certain fields or have a higher aptitude to certain roles is a bit premature.

The vitriol and disdain in response by some from the original memo, completely discounting some of the reservations on opinion vs fact and presenting them as only a footnote is somewhat disingenuous.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#318

Post by msla » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

doubleshame wrote: post #66

tomp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder about this as well. Specifically, how does one define "gender" as distinct from "opinion", without being recursive (as in "a man is someone who feels like a man")?

This is the worst damaging consequence of this whole charade. The words themselves no longer have any meaning. - "Man" is to no longer define any category except for people who self identify as men. - And at the same time, it is sexist to say that girls prefer dolls. Regardless of the correctness of either statement, to say both in the same breath is simply contradictory. Here are some definitions: Man: Adult human m…

OK, define "male".

Is it chromosomal, such that XY makes you male? Wrong. People with total androgen insensitivity are XY but look and act and feel female, because the androgens they produce never took effect. Their bodies and minds feminized, so they're female in every respect except their karyotype.

There's a ton of other conditions which make the definition of sex complex. Read this essay, which lists a lot more of them: http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Essays/marriage.html

Your simple definition is only simple because you punted the complex part, and no amount of screaming about how words don't have meanings anymore is going to change the level of complexity surrounding this subject.

You are too ignorant to know what you don't know, so you think you're a goddamned expert.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#319

Post by Berobero » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:03 PM UTC

sheepmullet wrote: post #261

Berobero wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the case, strictly speaking. It instead results from people perceiving there to be a lower bar for diversity hires; whether or not it is rational to describe things in that manner based on empirical data or what not is ultimately inconsequential. In that context, it is entirely possible for a poorly formulated memo to cause this type of damage, and likewise entirely possible for this perception to be perp…

> In that context, it is entirely possible for a poorly formulated memo to cause this type of damage It's also possible, and more likely, for an overreaction to a memo to cause this kind of damage.

Surely "overreaction" is a matter of perception as well.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

#320

Post by humanrebar » Tue, Aug 15, 2017, 9:03 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #277

oconnor663 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in as conciliatory manner as it could be written Strongly disagree. I think emphasis is a really big deal here. Here's a key line from the memo: > Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story. This runs right into the Jon Snow line, "everything before the word 'but' is horse____." It comes across that the author d…

Relevant to your John Snow callout: https://www.economist.com/news/international/21726276-last-w...

Except that article itself is an egregious "I'm glad you say you like diversity but...".