Google staff walk out over women's treatment

Because I'm a bit annoyed by what seems to me a growing push towards confusing the judgement of someone's work with their moral qualities. I see it as fundamentally anti-intellectual, as it strives to bring extraneous criteria in the evaluation of what should stand and be judged on its own. A scientific theory or a work of art aren't less valuable because their authors or proponents are or aren't communists, or arians; a literary masterpiece isn't diminished by the fact that its author was an anti-semite, or sadist; a great movie director remains a great director even if she did horrible things in her private life. Very little of our past science and philosophy and arts would still be standing if we were to apply these criteria, and I very strongly doubt we'd gain something better. Every single time "political" criteria have been used to judge the value of intellectual products, it's been the indicator of serious troubles, both for the society doing it and for the overall quality of the disciplines.

I have interviewed for jobs and have interviewed others for positions on my team. Both startup and traditional 9-5 tech jobs.

> The decision to hire someone in a high-skilled job has extraordinarily little to do with their compensation and much more to do with their perceived value.

It's a bit of both.

> Society has conditioned us to view a certain kind of masculinity as inherent value. Men are rewarded for their aggression and confidence, whereas women are criticized for ego and emotionality.

Is it society or nature? Also, society socializes males to be less aggressive. So I don't agree with your claim.

> Perhaps this argument has credence in the low-skilled labor market, but it is not applicable to tech,

Because in the tech world, aggression is what is sought?

> Because the system I just described above is prone to failure thanks to unconscious bias.

If that is the case, why don't these women create companies and hire only women ( who are supposedly doing the same job for 77% pay of their male counterpart )?

Maybe in construction work or farm work, male traits are highly preferred. But in programming and tech world, it's pretty much what you can do.

You really didn't address my point. If what you are claiming is true, why don't you start a search engine company and hire only women? You would put google out of business in a few short years given your built in 23% profit margin.

Do you realize how significant a naturally embedded profit margin of 23% is?

So I'll ask again. What is preventing you or any other person from starting companies and hiring women if women truly make 77% of a man's wage for the same exact work?

And 1970 might as well have been 1870. The 21st century is an entirely different world.

Most of the jobs that triggered actual labor reform in the 19th and 20th centuries just don't exist any more. The factories of the 1800's wouldn't survive a single day of business today because modern, largely automated, equipment would leave them sitting in the dust when it came to profitability.

In this case you list, same thing. There aren't sewing machinists like that now, that stuff is largely automated. Very few automotive manufacturers use people to do the sewing and when they do it's a highly skilled artisan job that involves hand stitching for luxury vehicles, not machines.

I do not deny unions reformed working conditions, most of it however was many, many, decades ago in a world that doesn't begin to resemble today's world.

Fact is, unions are dying in the western world. Union membership is free-falling. Who needs a union when you have a cell phone and organizations like OSHA here in the US that you can directly file safety violations to for investigation.

Unions made changes with striking. Striking is no longer a useful tool and no longer needed.

If you strike now, especially if you aren't in a union, you should be fired. For each of those people that strikes over this, there's probably 50 people that would ecstatically take their job in the city they are in.

Striking isn't going to do jack for discrimination/harassment. We don't live in the 20th century anymore. Documenting and reporting incidents will bring change, not walking out of work like a child throwing a temper tantrum.