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Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

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

#541

Post by dguaraglia »

AlexandrB wrote: post #510
humanrebar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...it’s an unequal burden my male coworkers don’t have to deal with every day. Maybe. There's a lot of diversity within the male gender. I know I'm an outlier at work due to my politics, my religious beliefs, and other details of my background. I sometimes wonder which of my coworkers have something against me. I know all of them don't (or at least they are professional regardless), but people from my background ar…

> I know I'm an outlier at work due to my politics, my religious beliefs, and other details of my background. Right. Now imagine being an outlier due to your biology in a way that's impossible to conceal. I'm an outlier in some ways from my peers as well. But I just don't talk about those beliefs or those parts of my life. You don't have the option to do that if you're female or a visible minority.

Beautifully put.

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

#542

Post by bduerst »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #475
tiles wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's stance, as stated in the article, is that they divert more energy in to finding minority candidates. That's not the same as a lower bar. Abilities are expected to be distributed equally still.

> Google's stance, as stated in the article, is that they divert more energy in to finding minority candidates. That's not the same as a lower bar. Abilities are expected to be distributed equally still. That has a very pernicious effect across the industry though. Think about what that policy does to other companies . The other companies won't have as many high quality women because Google scouted and hired them alr…

Only if you assume that finding qualified minority candidates is just as easy as finding other qualified candidates. Or that hiring chances are equally distributed.

HBR found there's an innate bias against any minorities in hiring pools [1], and considering that women make up a much lower percentage of potential CS positions, the deck is probably stacked against them. This means that for other companies, they have already passed on hiring the qualified minority candidates. Speculatively, Google could be trying to counteract this by diverting more energy into finding minority candidates.

Also, is it Google's responsibility to make sure other companies have the best candidates, minority or not?

[1] https://hbr.org/2016/04/if-theres-only-one-woman-in-your-can...

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

#543

Post by kristianc »

thinkfurther wrote: post #531
kristianc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems an odd approach tbh. Many 'Skeptics' groups (Skeptic / Rationalist YouTube) online at least would agree with his reasoning. It strikes me as odd that he was seeking to take down an ideological echo chamber but published it initially in the echo chamber most likely to agree with him.

> That seems an odd approach tbh. If that's odd, then what is firing just to prove him right?

> If that's odd, then what is firing just to prove him right?

Google is a company with shareholders and P/L. It's not a thought experiment, a family, a social commons, or a debating society. It exists to make money.

Google took the decision to fire him based on what was likely to create a conducive atmosphere for its workers.

His memo, however construed, made it likely that he could no longer be able to contribute as effectively to some teams.

Google's responsibility to Damore begins and ends at their mutual alignment of economic interests.

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

#544

Post by reitanqild »

jorgemf wrote: post #520
taysic wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The physical is different from the mental. Are you saying women are less mentally capable? I can't tell but this is basically exactly why women feel legitimizing this line of discussion is unproductive.

> The physical is different from the mental. Why? Can you probe it? Most researchers I read says the opposite.

Not sure what you mean here?

Women and men are different: agree.

Physical is different than mental: yes

Example of a sport that takes really strong mental skills and where women compete alongside men: competitive shooting.

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

#545

Post by baitbiter »

CydeWeys wrote: post #352
baitbiter wrote: post #135

Even more harm is done by Affirmative Action for women now being implemented in all companies. Feminism has given up on the aspect of competing and turned to shaming all men. There are several professions where women dominate with > 80%. Where's all this fucking outrage in those?

There are diversity efforts in the fields of teaching and nursing to hire more women, as the dominance of women in those fields in harmful in much the same way that the dominance of men in software engineering is harmful. Teaching especially needs more men, most especially at the elementary school level, as many children are not exposed to many positive male role models. An important factor here is that software engi…

The right way for women to do that is developing interest in the field and being good at it and working hard. Thats how women/men got into fields they respectively dominate now. Not by forcing affirmative action and shaming.

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

#546

Post by bronson »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #350
bronson wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like some very unreasonable thing are being said in a reasonable/polished way. That's a decent description of Damore's memo. > I would think hostility would require some form of visible action. Nope. My dad's tech workplace in the '70s was hostile to black people even though there was almost no visible action. > Isn't the whole point of science is to move the debate away from opinion to fact. Yes, but cherry…

>> Nope. My dad's tech workplace in the '70s was hostile to black people even though there was almost no visible action. What do you mean? They didn't hire, fire, promote, or speak differently? >> Yes, but cherry-picking results and selectively quoting articles isn't rigorous science. There is a long history of misusing science to promote preconceived agendas (tobacco industry, new age quantum garbage, eugenics, etc)…

> They didn't hire, fire, promote, or speak differently?

Sure, now prove it. Other than the lack of black engineers in his department and some comments made at non-work-related functions, there wasn't anything you could point to and say "a-ha!" It can be insidious.

> nobody seemed to dispute innate differences between men and women

I think everyone agrees there are innate differences. At least, the women who wrote this article do as well.

Now, do those innate differences make women inferior engineers? (I know, Damore never explicitly said this, but he implied it. Maybe it's just poor writing? I wish he'd run his memo past some interested women before posting internally so he'd have a chance to clarify.)

The "core" of which you speak is basically Google's exec staff. It's not a conspiracy, it's just the company.

They fired Damore because, whether it's due to unfair implications or just bad writing, his presence had become hostile to a good percentage of Google's workforce. He's not going to be in a position to manage many female engineers after posting that.

Personally, I wish Google could have condemned the memo and let HR handle it. Their reaction seemed over the top. Ah well, sometimes life isn't fair, even for white male engineers. :)

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

#548

Post by sornaensis »

dguaraglia wrote: post #246
mastazi wrote: post #185

So the takeaway is: you should become extremely proficient at writing memos and back them up with vast amounts of research, or be fired. But all of the above applies only if your memo expresses conservative ideas. I don't consider myself a conservative but I find all of this disturbing.

Maybe the takeaway is: you shouldn't write "memos" that generate a lot of noise and lost productivity in your work environment and affect your company's external image. If you have political points you want to make, go find a group of like-minded individuals and discuss with them first.

As far as I understand, the memo was submitted to an area of google's internal google+ that was specifically meant for controversial/contrary opinions and discussions.

It's not as if he submitted the article in an inappropriate place in an attempt to shock and offend. He spoke his mind in a place that was seemingly designated for that purpose... Yet another person leaks the memo to drum up outrage and that's somehow ok..?

I'm really disappointed in the culture of mob outrage that's been taking over the Internet in recent years...

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

#549

Post by mejari »

totalZero wrote: post #183
Blackthorn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then the correct way to handle it is to drop another refutational evidence bomb attacking his primary points instead of picking the low hanging fruit of claiming it's "too confrontational," "poorly written," "naive," or whatever other secondary problems exist (this is aside from wilfully misrepresenting his claims, which is definitely a bigger problem). This was addressed in the article. This burden has fallen on w…

The burden of responding to something that is (at the very least presented as) evidence? I don't think it's possible to have a discussion if you don't expect and allow pro-affirmative-action stakeholders to respond with their own evidence and reasoning, in turn.

It's not just "pro-affirmative-action stakeholders" that are expected to respond. _As referenced in the article_, it's extending to expecting women to come up with responses just because they are women. You're talking about a situation where one side (the side of the manifesto) has dropped an "evidence bomb", some of which may be valid, some not, and is now complaining "why won't you have a discussion?" They weren't invited to a discussion, they weren't talked _to_, they were talked _at_, and are now being looked to as the defenders of their gender when they just want to do their damn job.

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

#550

Post by turtleofdeath »

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #224
tedivm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets assume that we're in an alternative universe where the document was never leaked. The document still did harm. Just read this quote from the posted article- > When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? How do I prove myself to people one way or another? Th…

>When I walk into my job at a tech company, how do I know which of my colleagues thinks I’m an outlier among women versus someone who was hired because I’m female that doesn’t deserve the job they have? That is a result of affirmative action, not of the memo. Shooting the messenger, if you will.

Exactly. Affirmative action causes everyone, including the person, to question whether they got there on merit or based on filling some quota. Multiple biases are created.
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