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

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

#941

Post by xigency » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 1:23 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #771

xigency wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

For what it's worth, he addressed your first point in a reddit AMA. More or less, he thinks smart women are more verbally gifted, so they have more viable career choices on average. If that's true, they may they pick apparently nonverbal jobs (programming) less often. https://www.reddit.com/r/JamesDamore/comments/6thcy3/im_jame... "For high achieving women, they tend to be good at both quantitative and verbal skills.…

Yeah, I still think that's transparently BS. His source there is another opinion piece.

That said, it does sound as if Google is engaged in illegal hiring practices.

As someone who went to a private engineering school, formerly boys only and co-ed in the past decade, there are many brilliant women in engineering. All of this spouting does them a huge disservice. As Damore himself admitted in one AMA answer, it might by "cultural." I believe that is a far more acceptable argument than evolutionary psychology and political ideology.

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

#942

Post by sologoub » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 1:32 PM UTC

mentallimits wrote: post #891

sologoub wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an actual citation to prove the USSR anecdote as true: http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/6985/downlo... > Since the Communist Revolution of 1917 and during the ensuring Soviet times, the role of women in engineering and engineering education was strong with almost 60% of the engineers being women. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian women in these engineering careers has fallen to below…

does this not provide support for Damore? Once Russian women had a greater choice of career opportunities in post-soviet russia STEM participation declined.

Absolutely not - Russian women had less choice following the collapse as the country's economy declined.

The paper I cited does not claim that USSR had managed to transform an otherwise very prejudice society into an equal egalitarian one. Instead, soviets focused on full employment AND full Labor participation as part of ideology, leaving less room for contradictions such as gender discrimination on employment or education itself. Salary and promotion discrimination remained as there ideology provided less cover. Following the collapse, Russian society reverted to its old prejudice self. Lookup домострой if you don't believe me.

Another less from USSR for gender/family stays equality is that childcare access makes a huge difference. In USSR, parents were guaranteed state funded care from the point maternity leave ended to college. On paper that still exists, but in practice it's a shadow of what it used to be.

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

#943

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 1:40 PM UTC

peoplewindow wrote: post #939

Dylan16807 wrote: post #927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes local bias can make things fairer overall. The difference is that something anti-black is obviously making things worse, while something anti-white might be helping or hurting in various ways. You have to be intentionally myopic to think all bias is equally unfair. Especially consider how racist you can make desegregation sound, even though it's giving everyone the same treatment: "They're going to start se…

You have to be intentionally myopic to think all bias is equally unfair Intentionally myopic? Why is the law intentionally myopic? I don't see any written law that says it's OK to be racist against white people? Are you saying the law should be changed? Attitudes like this make me agree with the right-wingers who say that people who campaign against racism, sexism etc really just hate white men. A few years ago I wou…

> the law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_Unit...

> Attitudes like this make me agree with the right-wingers who say that people who campaign against racism, sexism etc really just hate white men.

And what do you say about a person that ignores 90% of racism and sexism unless it harms white men?

The world is full of little biases. Ideally we'd get rid of all of them. But until someone invents a magic button we need to keep context in mind. Give charity to the people that have been mistreated and need charity, etc.

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

#944

Post by rainbowmverse » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #570

belorn wrote: post #242

A common criticism by each four of the female engineers is how the memo effected them in their job and how they had to prove themselves afterward. This strongly reminds me of about a case a year ago when a kindergarten teacher was tried and charged for rape against several children. After a lot of media attention, many male teachers all over the nation reported to constantly having prove to parents and fellow female…

The feminist movement as a whole is very much against gendered norms about who should and shouldn't be a kindergarten teacher. Which feminist movements did you see fanning these particular flames?

Like with all movements, there are a lot of people who join on and don't seem to really understand it. Intersectionality is catching on among feminists, but "men bad, women good" is still a way too common sentiment.

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

#945

Post by thieving_magpie » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 1:51 PM UTC

>I’m also disappointed that the men I know, including most of my male colleagues, remained silent on the topic. And the ones that did participate, either seemed to support Damore or demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding for the issues women engineers are faced with and care about.

Interesting takes on the memo. This part stood out to me.

I'm not really in a situation where I have many coworkers around but, just knowing myself, I can say I likely would be someone that would have stayed silent on the topic unless it was specifically brought up. That's more about my personality than anything, I generally avoid starting conversations because I'm bad at small talk.

I'd like to know what I can do differently. My opinion generally mirrors the thoughts put forward by the female engineers but I feel like maybe I've let someone in my life down by not being more vocal and supportive. Really the only thing I've done is tried to encourage female coworkers in non-development positions to try it out, and offer them help. I've tried to nudge our hiring team to look at a more diverse crowd - though that's hampered by low wages and living very literally in one of the more remote parts of the country (our town has 3.5k people and is considered a large town for our region). I guess I'm saying I want to do more but I don't know what to do without seeming disingenuous.

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

#946

Post by rainbowmverse » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 1:55 PM UTC

Pigo wrote: post #935

belorn wrote: post #242

A common criticism by each four of the female engineers is how the memo effected them in their job and how they had to prove themselves afterward. This strongly reminds me of about a case a year ago when a kindergarten teacher was tried and charged for rape against several children. After a lot of media attention, many male teachers all over the nation reported to constantly having prove to parents and fellow female…

I suppose this is the one point I always find myself pondering when these women in tech arguments arise, why is there no push to for women in the oil-manufacturing industry? How many women do we have working on oil rigs? It's a very well paying job with a lot of opportunity for people with less than stellar backgrounds, but trying to get their life on track. There are lots of jobs out there that are close to 100% mal…

I'm sure there's similar movements in other industries, and I'm sure there's someone in their forums saying something similar.

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

#947

Post by sobani » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 1:55 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #880

joe_the_user wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually say just the opposite - the memo seemed to be written as well and in as conciliatory manner as it could be written and the memo made good (or at least plausible) point and bad points. But the bad points were so bad that it was appropriate and necessary to fire Damore. Essentially, as analogy, there's no way for a person to say "Black people are inferior and shouldn't be hired", as a message broadcast thr…

Unfortunately for him, he did basically say that about African-Americans. How else am I supposed to take it when a self-identity right wing person claims the left don't believe some science related to IQ in the context of a diversity memo. What "science" could he possibly be referring to other than the Bell Curve BS?

Didn't he also refer the bell curve studies that claim that despite the same average intelligence, there are less 80 IQ women than men and there less 120 IQ women than men? So why wouldn't it be reasonable to assume when he was talking about IQ differences, he was talking about that?

Why do you jump to the conclusion he must be talking about ethnicity? Afaik ethnicity wasn't referred to at all in his memo.

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

#948

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 2:00 PM UTC

sobani wrote: post #947

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for him, he did basically say that about African-Americans. How else am I supposed to take it when a self-identity right wing person claims the left don't believe some science related to IQ in the context of a diversity memo. What "science" could he possibly be referring to other than the Bell Curve BS?

Didn't he also refer the bell curve studies that claim that despite the same average intelligence, there are less 80 IQ women than men and there less 120 IQ women than men? So why wouldn't it be reasonable to assume when he was talking about IQ differences, he was talking about that? Why do you jump to the conclusion he must be talking about ethnicity? Afaik ethnicity wasn't referred to at all in his memo.

He repeatedly refers to race in the context of diversity in his memo, at least 9 times the word "race" is used for example. Notably, he doesn't seem to feel the need to back any of that up with science, apart from (maybe!) the casual reference to IQ.

Sometimes you'd think there were two completely different memos under discussion given the lack of basic agreement on facts as relate to the memo itself, never mind it's arguments and sources.

Though, I guess you're right, he may have left it ambigous about exactly which IQ differences he believes in that "the left" don't. People seem to think it's wrong to complain about his communication style, but as this example illustrates, peppering a memo with alt-right buzzwords and then being ambiguous about which particular controversial IQ studies you support can just as honestly be interpreted as dog-whistling rather than incredibly high levels of naivety. I think most people suggesting his communication skills are lacking are actually just giving him the benefit of the doubt.

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

#949

Post by Ensorceled » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 2:10 PM UTC

The main issue I had with the document is that it read like an 80's USENET posting in alt.politics. I've seen this entire discussion play out over and over again, at multiple companies, with the same talking points, for all 35 years of my career.

My stepson just graduated from the same comp sci program I graduated from in the late 80's and I was startled by how fewer women there were in his graduating class than mine. I've watched my female classmates and colleagues leave the industry. I've watched the number of female candidates for my positions dwindle to the point where I recently hired three developers and there was a dearth of female candidates.

There is definitely a problem and the first step is to get beyond the point where smart, professionals in their late 20's think 80's reruns are adding to the debate.

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

#950

Post by exelius » Wed, Aug 16, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

There's a difference between "starting a conversation" and blasting out an e-mail to 50,000 people that doesn't really even grasp the realities of modern software development. There's a chain of command about this kind of stuff for a reason. The author is simply mistaken on the requirements that make a good software developer: yes, it is true that on average, men are probably better at heads-down software development. But that's at most half of the job of software development, and it's honestly the least important part to get right.

On other metrics (such as interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, etc - all critical components of modern engineering) women are better on average. How many Silicon Valley startups fail because their product represents the problems that the team members (who tend to be mostly white men) are facing? How many investors went along with this because they too had the same problem?

Point is, you don't get to cherry-pick statistics that match your perceived criteria for the job and claim to be trying to start an unbiased dialog. I don't think it's intentionally disingenuous -- I think that the author of the original memo has a limited view of the job and the problems associated with it.

That's honestly the biggest problem here: white men very often believe their viewpoint is the only valid one, and don't even consider alternate viewpoints. I'm not saying this as "white men bad!" -- I'm totally empathetic to the fact that many white men feel they are under attack -- but that misses the point. Everyone who is not a white man has felt that way their entire lives in some degree. Every way you deviate from the "straight white male" archetype (by being black, gay, female, transgender, etc.) is another front you have to play defense on.

I think the right response is something along the lines of "Your viewpoint is valid, but please understand that it is not the only one that is valid." We have to be careful not to invalidate someone's lived experience -- that's exactly the problem we accuse white men of, and showing the same behavior right back isn't going to solve the problem.