Certainly much better than a lot of the outrage that's been going on. A couple of nits:
> I know most of Google’s work is people-centric.
Hmmm...is that really so? Last I checked a lot of Google's code output and value-generation is backend-y, with very little interaction with humans. Google is also notoriously bad-mediocre at UX, though this has improved lately.
> Assuming that job skills and performance can be deduced from
> differences among demographic groups.
Hmm...he didn't do this, and in fact explicitly states that doing so is not correct.
> Damore naturally assumes the differences between
> typically female and male traits mean that men are more skilled.
I also didn't see that in the memo. At all. First, what he talks about is mostly preferences, not skills. Second, there is the whole "you can't draw conclusions about individuals from slight variations in populations"-thing. So you can't turn "women have slightly stronger preferences, statistically, for these things" into "men are more skilled". Third, and maybe least intuitively, this is almost entirely about the people who don't (yet) work at Google.
Finally, she brings up Northern Europe. I can relate, because I am also from Germany, and yes, the country finds, for example, having a female Chancellor simply not remarkable. So when people vote for or against her, it is largely (can't speak for everyone) because of what they think about her, her party and their policies (or in her specific case, lack thereof g), not because she is a woman or is not a man.
And I also believe this applies to other jobs as well.
However, what Sabine misses is that this has not had the effect of gender representation in the job market equalizing. Surprisingly, it has had the opposite effect, as has been documented many places. And yes, I want to stress again how utterly unexpected this is.
And so:
> I believe for example if it wasn’t for biases and unequal
> opportunities, then the higher ranks in science and politics
> would be dominated by women. Hence, aiming at a 50-50 representation
> gives men an unfair advantage. I challenge you to provide any
> evidence to the contrary.
Challenge accepted (although not for politics, that's a different subject)!
If it were obstacles, countries that (as we both agree) have fewer of those obstacles such as Northern Europeans ones would see more women in technical fields. The opposite is the case.
And of course there is the point that the question is not "why aren't there more women in these jobs", but "why are there any men that do them", because they generally suck if you want to have a life. See Jordan Peterson's excellent take on "Women in High Paying Jobs": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV2yvI4Id9Q