Any one even remotely thinks that the memo was right should read this : https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...
There are some good points in the memo - like having training and support for men, but it was largely an exercise in casting doubt on the ability of certain subset of your co-workers to do their job.
Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
361–370 of 423 posts
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did the author really say that women are too stupid? No. He used his words rather carefully. What might have angered some people is his statement that women are more interested in people/relations while men are more interested in things. regardless of whether it's true, and if it is, whether the reasons are inherent or cultural - how is that bad? I can totally understand the author on this as I spent several years tr…
I'm sorry but your response doesn't really answer my question at all. What I want to hear are some suggestions about how to include people who hold inflammatory opinions in a group that generally doesn't share those opinions.
If people within a group can't empathize and find common ground, then any hard stance by either side will just further the conflict. I recall reading quotes from a famous peace talk mediator that this is the primary reason why long war continues, and war rarely ends until people by both sides start to recognize that there is more common held opinions than inflammatory ones.
But if that doesn't incentivize to include people, what about deconstructing the inflammatory opinion? If we are talking about a person making a comment about skin color and crime, could we not start by agreeing that the average social economical status is not identical for all groups that people in a nation can be sorted into? Some groups will have more wealth in average, and others will have less. Can we also not conclude that social economic status today effects many areas, such as education and crime rate? From that we could conclude that what would be a inflammatory opinion would just be the logical extension of the current average social economical status, and we could politely respond to such opinion with facts that the underlying issue has nothing to do with race or skin color but is a simple result of historical social economical problems which society has been and is continuing working to improve. We can even empathize that this relation between social economical status and crime is universal, so anyone including those in the group that the person holding the inflammatory opinion are part of should receive support in the case of low social economical status. By this we find common ground.
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not know their full code of conduct. However, the part referenced by Pichai did not help to decrease uncertainty at all. This is problematic since the toxic effect of uncertainty and ideological supression at the work place is not mitigated by it being produced through arbitrary executives or an executives arbitrary interpretation of some given code of conduct. edit: If the purpose of the code of conduct is to c…
'...our Code of Conduct, which expects “each Googler to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.”' What's confusing or unclear about that? It's crystal clear to me that Google prioritizes a workplace free of harassment over your individual ideology. If your ideology makes other employees feel harassed or intimidated, you'll have to leave…
It could not be much more unclear and I can assure you that this has nothing to do with some googlerian "cleverness".
Science is not an ideology or opinion; in a diverse environment, reasonable positions are disputed by arguments, not power play.
Exercising an executive bias to intimidate the employees into subscribing to a specific ideology is nothing this code of conduct were able to prevent. The coc could not perform worse measured by it's own goal.
It's no service to any code of conduct intention if a code of conduct is treated as some chilling orthodoxy that is used to prevent a communities open dialogue and self awareness.
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#364Quoting Sundar Pichai (Google CEO), emphasis mine: > At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint) . They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent. So to be clear again, many points raised in the memo—such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings,…
You can express your minority views as long as those views don't violate company policy. That's reasonable. You certainly wouldn't expect to keep your job if you published a memo saying you should be able to call black employees "nigger" because _cite some pseudo science here_. That's a minority view, isn't it? The expectation that every minority view can or should be safely expressed is both naive and unreasonable.
I agree with you, but _cite some pseudo science here_ might actually be a solid citation (eg. Wikipedia or any other reputable study). What then?
On another note, I watched the 100m men's final this Saturday and noticed white men are worse at running than black men. Would that be racist towards whites if the stats were confirming my opinion?
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would be helpful to know WHICH Code of Conduct he is supposed to have violated. From glancing over the memo I perceive that: women/man are different and men prefer working in engineering. No need to artificially increase percentage of women engineers with incentives. I did not notice any inferior/superior claims. Being fired for this polite memo? And being characterized as a kind of toxic outcast? - I'm sorry, what h…
> I'm sorry, what have our society and companies become? Afraid of angry, vocal and hysterical internet lynch mobs on social media. Whoever is most easily offended and cries loudest gets to decide. Being actually right, or god forbid principled , is clearly a thing of the past.
Right.
Please, remind me of a time in the past in which people could actually say whatever they wanted without repercussions.
Oh right, there's no actual time in the history of humanity, with the exception of a select few people whose odious opinions everyone had to tolerate or else.
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
We all know that men and women are different but under no circumstances can you club a large section of population and say they are inferior in some respect ... hitler did it with the Jews, whites did it to the blacks , Japanese did it to the Chinese and history is rife with extreme examples of the Dangers of generalization of a large section of population. Our job as human civilization is to evolve positively and to…
Did you really compare this to racial _genocides_? Maybe men are slightly better at something and maybe women are slightly better at other things - why is this an issue? Clearly the difference is not remotelly big enough to be impactful since we see men and women work in every profession. Average worker skill is pretty low so this "genetic advantage" would only really matter at top 0.1% of professionals. e.g. women a…
Indeed, but people will go as far as dismissing valid proofs and statistics just to boost their own ego and not feel inferior in any way.
That's like me not acknowledging that a black athlete has a genetic advantage over me that would make a difference if we were competing at the 0.1% top level.
I think Google's action is not a right or wrong approach, it's a measure of maintaining order and keeping everybody 'happy'.
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
No I get what you're saying. I'm saying the way you phrased it puts the onus on women. It's fairer to say, "men are worse employees because they can't handle a women being assertive" because men have the problem, not women.
And this is partially why people got so upset at that Googler. You understood what I said, but you're somehow displeased I didn't phrase it in the way you would have and are reading a direction of duty/responsibility that isn't in my comment nor in my thoughts.
I totally get that. I think it's probably natural to think stuff like this is completely trivial and the tactic of people who are "looking for excuses to be offended" or "looking to play the victim".
But I take issue with a number of things in that first sentence of yours I quoted, and your comment here to which I'm replying. I'll try and be as explicit as possible because I think one of the major duties of allies is to try and explain our positions in our own communities instead of just shouting down opposing positions (which, I should say, I think is valid if you're on the oppressed end of those positions -- it's not also your job to teach people how they're oppressing you).
> women DO have a harder time leading because their assertiveness is perceived significantly worse than similar assertiveness is men
This is your quote. "Women" are the subject of your sentence, meaning your sentence is about women. You then use the passive construction "is perceived", which avoids saying that, in this context, men are (largely) the ones who have trouble with assertiveness in women when it comes to leadership.
A different way of saying the same thing is what I responded with: "men are worse employees because they can't handle a women being assertive". "Men" are the subject of my sentence, and I use active verbs to clearly say their behavior is the issue.
Our sentences both address the same issue and, more or less, confront the same causes. But the difference is that my sentence emphasizes the fact that men are the problem, whereas your sentences emphasizes the fact that women are the victim of the problem. If we were to apply your emphasis to every social issue, we'd have a long list of problems with victims. But if we apply my emphasis, we'd have a long list of problems with perpetrators and, more importantly, behavior to correct.
We can't afford to not call out where the problems lie, we can't afford to dance around what the problem actually is, and we can't hem and haw when it comes time to say who should change their behavior. That's why I took issue with your sentence.
And again, you may feel like these are insufferably insignificant, but there's a long history of minimizing the experiences and feelings of women that also transcends every culture, and stuff like this is just more of it bubbling up. We minimize the transgressions of men by overlooking their behavior (not naming them as the subject) or not directly attaching them to their behavior (using the passive), but in the process we tie women to the issue (using them as the subject) and frame it like it's their inadequacy (tying them to the outcome).
Things like this are hard, complicated, and embedded in every part of our culture. It's uncomfortable but we need to look at things with this level of detail because sexism exists even here.
It's kind of a harsh phrase, but this is where "intent is irrelevant" comes in. I'm sure you didn't mean to do all the stuff I've pinned on you here, and maybe you still disagree that you have done it. But many people will feel that you have done these things when they read your sentence, and you should at least treat their feelings as valid, try to understand why they feel that way, and consider some changes to how you phrase things.
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying " women have a harder time leading " is a pretty bold, striking statement, and one that needs some damn solid evidence if you're going to say it. To back it up just by saying "women are less assertive" is not remotely evidence of that statement. And it is a statement , whether or not it's introduced as a single word. To claim that this is "nitpicking a single word" is like saying that an article that includes…
> Saying "women have a harder time leading" is a pretty bold, striking statement, and one that needs some damn solid evidence if you're going to say it. To back it up just by saying "women are less assertive" is not remotely evidence of that statement. I'll admit that this may not follow directly from the linked research. So he doesn't have 100% scientific coverage. But who does? I see though that you really find thi…
> Would you find it equally problematic if someone said "Men have a harder time showing empathy"?
Showing "Men have a harder time showing empathy," or "women are less assertive" is a heck of a lot easier to study than "women have a harder time leading". The first two are personalities, and the third is a judgement of effectiveness of a job. Judging job effectiveness is highly subjective, and it is likely difficult to disentangle biological influences from societal influences for all three of these statements.
The latter statement also takes direct issue with the Civil Rights Act, which says you can't discriminate on the basis of sex, among other protected classes. It was a big deal to pass that law, and has withstood 50 years of society and litigation.
So, we know (1) the author thinks some women have a harder time leading and has put this in writing, (2) this is not supported by any data, and (3) it's against the law to discriminate by gender when hiring.
Given these three things, if he were to interview a woman in the future at Google, then she could point to the unproven claims in his memo, say he's sexist, and maybe win a lawsuit against the company. That's a liability for Google. Keeping him on would expose them to more risk.
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#369Frankly, the CEO has more problems than this memo. Breitbart has been a garbage fire for a while, but if the screen shots and messages in the article[1] aren't fake then Google is going to have some problems. This is really not the thing you want going on when you already have a government labor investigation underway. I wish anyone impacted luck. 1) http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/07/revealed-inside-goo...
I don't know in what world whatever garbage comes out of Breitbart is anywhere near credible.
It's garbage news for people who don't care about journalistic integrity. Nothing there can be taken seriously.
Re: Note to Google Employees from CEO Sundar Pichai
#370Frankly, the CEO has more problems than this memo. Breitbart has been a garbage fire for a while, but if the screen shots and messages in the article[1] aren't fake then Google is going to have some problems. This is really not the thing you want going on when you already have a government labor investigation underway. I wish anyone impacted luck. 1) http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/08/07/revealed-inside-goo...
I don't know in what world whatever garbage comes out of Breitbart is anywhere near credible.
It's garbage news for people who don't care about journalistic integrity. Nothing there can be taken seriously.