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The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

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Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#301

Post by computerex »

zzalpha wrote: post #278
Ajedi32 wrote: post #20

Not much new here. This article is essentially just re-affirming all the scientific statements that were already made in the original memo, backed by links to scientific studies. Only difference being that the author of this article has a PhD in sexual neuroscience (so people might have a harder time accusing her of not knowing what she's talking about) and is female (so some people might have a harder time of accusi…

I'm just gonna copy another comment I made elsewhere: The problem is that the gender differences cited cannot, in aggregate, explain the 70/30 bias toward men in the industry. There's a real similarity to the global warming debate, here. There are many factors that affect global mean temperature. For example, over the very long term, the sun will get brighter. But that can only account for an astonishingly tiny fract…

> But no serious psychologist or sociologist would claim that those differences can account for the dramatic real world bias in the industry. It simply doesn't follow.

What's your evidence for this? Debrah Soh, the author supposedly has a PhD in sexual neuroscience so one would think she is qualified to make comments about this. And although I can't confirm this myself, the article does say that societies with greater gender equity also have greater gender gaps due to the differences in what each gender values.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#302

Post by jorgemf »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #289
jorgemf wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> edit: Wanted to add, a PhD of neurosexuality is probably one of the last people I would consult on philosophy, humanism or any kind of larger social issue. It's not exactly her scope. It does help to have an expert on the subject chime in on the science, though. It will help at least dispose of that less useful side of the discussion. Please respect all the researches, they usually read out of their main topic to g…

I wasn't disrespecting her work. In this discussion, though, her writing on the hard science being referenced is extremely valuable. Her giving a conclusive statement on the intent of the original author muddies the pool a little bit. I keep hearing "well the scientists say so!", but it's simply not enough. For instance, I am enamoured with the work of physicists and their unique ability to explain the beauty of the…

Sorry to disagree and with all my respects I find you attacked her when you under valuate her job in the topic compared with other professionals. It is exactly her topic of research and you throw her away.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#303

Post by notacoward »

As with many defenses of the Damore memo (and more than a few attacks against it as well), this completely misses the point. Let's say for the sake of argument that there are differences in ability and/or preference between men and women. Let's even say that the magnitude of those differences is sufficient to explain a 4:1 ratio between male and female engineers at Google (which is clearly not true). My response is still SO WHAT? That outlandish premise still doesn't even begin to justify his tone, his complaints, or his policy proposals.

* Differences in ability do not support his accusation of silencing. They're unrelated.

* Phrases like "the left tends to deny science" and "extremely sensitive PC-authoritarians" are inflammatory, prejudicial, and discriminatory in their own right, independently of whether gender differences exist.

* Diversity is provably good even in the presence of gender differences. Many studies have shown that the effect of mixed teams outperforming single-gender teams far outweighs any individual differences.

I could go on and on about other ways that Damore comes across as a radically intolerant jerk, a hypocrite, etc. but I'm trying to stay on one point. The "science" part of Damore's memo, which the OP is meant to support, is practically irrelevant. That's not the only part that's offensive, or dangerous, or in violation of his employee agreement. It's not even the only part that's unscientific, since sociology and economics are involved as well as biology and he doesn't even try to engage honestly with those. His belief that women are less fit to be engineers is abhorrent, but so separately are his other beliefs. Even the strongest refutation of that one point doesn't make a dent in the memo's total start-to-finish toxicity.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#304

Post by zzalpha »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #295
zzalpha wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just gonna copy another comment I made elsewhere: The problem is that the gender differences cited cannot, in aggregate, explain the 70/30 bias toward men in the industry. There's a real similarity to the global warming debate, here. There are many factors that affect global mean temperature. For example, over the very long term, the sun will get brighter. But that can only account for an astonishingly tiny fract…

I don't think he has a gross misunderstanding of the science. If you look at the example cartoon distributions he draws for gender differences - there is huge overlap. From my reading, he is advocating for non-discriminatory methods of trying to fix that gap. He's basically saying we shouldn't try to fix discrimination (that we think is bad) with discrimination (that we excuse as good).

He acknowledges that in practice the gender differences are real, but small.

Then uses the existence of those small differences to justify fundamentally changing their hiring policies.

The latter does not follow from the former.

Again, as with the global warming debate, it makes a lot more sense to tackle the larger influencers first, before addressing these smaller factors.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#305

Post by 52-6F-62 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #282
52-6F-62 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practices at places like Google have been designed to get women who want to be in the field into the field . They're far from perfect. Being a straight white male in a progressive country and working at a larger corporation that is currently undergoing many of the same situations and issues that this whole thing is about -- I will likely be passed over to share the opportunity with people who traditionally have n…

> That's fine by me. I just have to adjust my trajectory. And silence your mouth? There is a big difference between "I'm fine with this" and "Anyone who isn't should be fired".

If I disagree with somebody, I can grab a megaphone and shout in their face, hit them, or try to start a civilized discussion.

If I'm not mistaken, he was fired for breaching the company's civil code of conduct. That's different than being fired for an idea. If I started onto my company's social intranet and posted essays citing references about why something should change, I'd probably face equal back lash because it's abrasive and not at all socially graceful. There's a lot of conjecture flying around in all directions...

Anyway that's a whole other discussion, because I primarily disagreed with his issue in the first place. His being fired was most likely twofold: he created a hostile atmosphere either knowingly, or because of social ignorance or naivete. This resulted in bad press, the whole lot, and corporations are [probably inarguably, on average] heartless institutions that seek to maintain an even keel -- bad press is bad for business. That's again a whole other discussion, but it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#306

Post by dTal »

weddpros wrote: post #227
52-6F-62 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally never called it out for sexism. I called it out for regressive-thinking as a solution based on plain fact. I can only be brief right now, but it's starting to get to me how so many people in an innovative sphere seem to have such a hard time with this. To me, it seems like it shouldn't be a second thought. If the main argument is that women do not [by nature of our scientific understanding] have minds tu…

The problem is Google fired this guy for distributing WRONG information. Wrong is the important word here. If the information is right, it completely changes the case, and the guy was fired for Wrong reasons. I hope he'll sue and win his job back (yes, I think Google needs this guy more than ever).

Nah, he was fired for drawing negative attention to Google. Whether he was right or not is irrelevant; if you publicly criticise the company you work for, on a "controversial" topic, getting fired is the expected outcome.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#307

Post by rmc »

snowwrestler wrote: post #33

The article hides a common but incorrect assumption. Look at this paragraph: > As mentioned in the memo, gendered interests are predicted by exposure to prenatal testosterone – higher levels are associated with a preference for mechanically interesting things and occupations in adulthood. Lower levels are associated with a preference for people-oriented activities and occupations. This is why STEM (science, technolog…

> So why aren't the management layers of tech companies composed of mostly women?

Because why people say "men and women are just interested in different things", they really mean "women are interested in, and better at, looking after babies, and men are better at everything else".

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#308

Post by alkonaut »

dustinmoris wrote: post #267
alkonaut wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it has been made obvious I other parts of this thread, people even disagree on what sexism or racism is. Some argue that falsehood is required, for example. I use the definition that includes prejudice, stereotyping or discriminating based on gender, and irrespective of whether something is factual (I.e I do not subscribe to the idea that facts can't be sexist/racist). I apologize for reading the "unfit" between t…

He mentioned Neuroticism as a characteristic which has been observered higher on average with women and cited it with a link to wikipedia which also makes the exact same statement, which again cites other scientific resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism Does that make Wikipedia sexist? Which one is sexist to you, or do you find both sexist: "Women have less stress tolerance" "Scientific studies show th…

Again: science and facts aren't sexist- the arguments and actions using those facts can in some cases be. That's why a single fact quote from the memo can't be sexist, but the memo can be, depending on who it's sent to, what arguments are made. Nothing will be racist or sexist without context. That is, for example why it's not racist for a black person to say something to another black person that would be racist if a white person said it.

We are completely agreeing that facts alone are never sexist or racist. I'm not even sure what it would mean for a fact (or Wikipedia - which is a collection of facts) to be racist. It's not making an argument or action of any kind.

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#309

Post by agarden »

megous wrote: post #36

What I find interesting about all this is how many people take personal offense from statistics. (and conclusions drawn from statistics) The author seems to put an effort into explaining statistical distribution and what it means and what not. He's explicit that statistical observations can't be used to judge particular individuals. Draws a graph of overlapping distributions to drive the point home even more. I'm not…

> It's not personal by definition.

In my own experience, when one tries to talk with a woman in an impersonal way about something that is personal to her, she will tend to find that very offensive. Infuriating even, because one is ignoring her emotions, treating them as if they don't matter. And to her, her emotions really matter.

From talking to others and based on what I've read, things tend to trend this way. In fact, there was a woman neuroscientist who gave a talk at Google[1] on the differences between the male and female brains and in that she gave an example of this kind of thing. She says that when she comes home and is frustrated about a problem she has been having, her husband wants to go straight to an objective solution to her problem. It drives her nuts. She just wants to hear that he understands how she feels. Before he tries to provide a solution, he is supposed to say, "Honey, I understand how you feel."

I think Damore made this mistake. He has a footnote about the need to be objective instead of emotional about these kinds of things. And so he wrote a very objective, detached memo. I suspect that was a significant part of the problem. It's a male approach to a hot issue. He instead needed to write in a way that was very emotional about how great women are and all the unique gifts they bring to the table and how he wanted to empower them to be free to be themselves at Google and create an environment that was welcoming to all that is special about women. It could have had almost all the same content but lead with positive emotions. Had he done that, he might not have faced such a backlash from furious women.

Men, too, need to know that you care about them before they care whether or not your facts are factual or relevant. But most men do not find an impersonal approach offensive per se, the way that many women do.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_uGr1ZOn4

Re: The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science

#310

Post by renaudg »

tptacek wrote: post #271
renaudg wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> massive leap to go from biological gender differences to differences in aptitude for engineering For the n million-th time : the memo said nothing about aptitude for engineering, just preference .

For the n-million+1th time: 1. The memo uses the word "preference" without ever establishing whether it's talking about free choice or choice after discouragement, and so is flagrantly begging the question. 2. It's simply false that the memo makes no connection between supposed preference and aptitude, as it builds to a section about the "harms of diversity" that includes a direct claim that women in Google's workfor…

> The memo uses the word "preference" without ever establishing whether it's talking about free choice or choice after discouragement, and so is flagrantly begging the question.

Of course it's talking about free choice. Introducing "discouragement" in the equation is itself begging the question : it's an extra hypothesis which is unnecessary in presence of a simpler, more fundamental explanation (like this one https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/ ). Occam's Razor 101.

> includes a direct claim that women in Google's workforce are less capable than men.

Citation needed.

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