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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

#61

Post by 52-6F-62 »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #52
hedgew wrote: post #21

Many of the more reasonable criticisms of the memo say that it wasn't written well enough; it could've been more considerate, it should have used better language, or better presentation. In this particular link, Scott Alexander is used as an example of better writing, and he certainly is one of the best and most persuasive modern writers I've found. However, I can not imagine ever matching his talent and output, even…

I think one thing that struck me from the linked article was the point that the memo wasn't structured to invite discussion. It wasn't "let's have a chat", it was "here's an evidence bomb of how you're all wrong". I think advancing points is fine, but if you're after productive discussion rather than an adversarial debate, you need to proactively invite discussion. And if an adversarial debate was what he was after,…

This is rather the page I've been on (outside of my personal disagreements).

You put it more concisely than I have previously.

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

#62

Post by nicolashahn »

tedivm wrote: post #26
rpiguy wrote: post #6

I really enjoyed the well reasoned discussion. I think a lot more constructive dialog is happening now that people have calmed down. Of all the sentiments expressed in the article, I mainly disagree with the comment that Damore did the company harm. He posted his thoughts on an internal discussion board and someone else leaked this internal document to the press. The leaker did harm to Google not Damore. In fact, I t…

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…

But Damore didn't do anything to make women think they were hired only because of diversity initiatives. It's common knowledge that Google makes an effort to hire more women. That was already the case, and Damore merely brought attention to the negative aspects of it.

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

#63

Post by sampo »

Why has this topic exploded like it did now especially in the software engineering context? Whatever talent or affinity to abstract and inanimate things we do or don't assume being correlated with gender, isn't software engineering just a lighter version, compared to mathematics and physics?

Did math and physics communities already have their internal crisis/debate on these things, perhaps a decade or two ago? Or have they been able to cope without lighting such a fire?

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

#64

Post by wcummings »

bufbupa wrote: post #40
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…

Are you arguing we should spare factual discourse for the sake of someones subjective feelings?

Not much about that memo was "factual", whatever that means.

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

#65

Post by SandersAK »

mmirate wrote: post #31
SandersAK wrote: post #14

Google, like all corporate structures is hierarchical. Corporations recognize "success" for employees through promotion. Promotion usually includes higher pay. Men are taught from a young age that they need to "compete" for "success" There is no way to win the game for all players inside corporate hierarchy. If you can't win the game, but wish to remain (or are trapped by your economic situation) you will have pressu…

> "success" isn't about being an individual that becomes rich Independent of the rest of your comment: the quoted concept is trivially false as long as resources are scarce. (i.e. the foreseeable future; barring severe, draconian and arguably-unethical controls on population size) ("Powerful" being an additional non-redundant qualifier, is merely a consequence of the monopoly called "government".)

Resources aren't actually that scarce and haven't been for quite a while. The Breadbasket of America can feed everyone. Population growth isn't really a scarcity problem, it's an organizational and structural one. Unless you think we're at max efficiency!

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

#66

Post by doubleshame »

tomp wrote: post #5
sremani wrote: post #2

with the recognition that gender and sex aren’t binary. Is there a biological basis for this? I do not want "Gender Studies" references. I want real BIOLOGICAL, you know code mother nature put in you.

I wonder about this as well. Specifically, how does one define "gender" as distinct from "opinion", without being recursive (as in "a man is someone who feels like a man")?

This is the worst damaging consequence of this whole charade.

The words themselves no longer have any meaning.

- "Man" is to no longer define any category except for people who self identify as men.

- And at the same time, it is sexist to say that girls prefer dolls.

Regardless of the correctness of either statement, to say both in the same breath is simply contradictory.

Here are some definitions:

Man: Adult human male

Woman: Adult human female

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

#67

Post by ahugebeach »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #52
hedgew wrote: post #21

Many of the more reasonable criticisms of the memo say that it wasn't written well enough; it could've been more considerate, it should have used better language, or better presentation. In this particular link, Scott Alexander is used as an example of better writing, and he certainly is one of the best and most persuasive modern writers I've found. However, I can not imagine ever matching his talent and output, even…

I think one thing that struck me from the linked article was the point that the memo wasn't structured to invite discussion. It wasn't "let's have a chat", it was "here's an evidence bomb of how you're all wrong". I think advancing points is fine, but if you're after productive discussion rather than an adversarial debate, you need to proactively invite discussion. And if an adversarial debate was what he was after,…

It was a politically charged topic, he would have been crucified either way.

But by phrasing the memo the way he did, he covered himself legally.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear everything was run by a lawyer first.

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

#68

Post by virtuabhi »

hedgew wrote: post #21

Many of the more reasonable criticisms of the memo say that it wasn't written well enough; it could've been more considerate, it should have used better language, or better presentation. In this particular link, Scott Alexander is used as an example of better writing, and he certainly is one of the best and most persuasive modern writers I've found. However, I can not imagine ever matching his talent and output, even…

There are many, many reasonable criticisms of the memo that do not focus on writing style. Here are a few examples -

https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/13/james-dam...

https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...

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

#69

Post by peterwwillis »

dragonwriter wrote: post #10
peterwwillis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best explanation you will get is from a medical doctor. They will explain to you how there are multiple sexes. Gender is not biological so there is no biological explanation. For people who are downvoting me and are either too lazy to talk to a doctor or use Google: Fine, here are some links. Please educate yourselves about simple biology you should have learned in school. https://www.quora.com/Scientifically-how…

> Gender is not biological so there is no biological explanation. There is considerable evidence of gender identity different from biological sex lining up with biological features in several areas more typical of the other sex, so it seems that gender identity is tied to biology. Which, if you think about it, it has to be: humans are biological machines, everything about them is biology, on one level or another. All…

Biology is the study of living organisms. Psychology is the study of the human mind and its functions. A mind is a part of an organism, not a discrete one itself. The study of the part is not the same thing as the study of the whole. Psychology is not biology. This is not a controversial thing, every person who has graduated college in the past 30 years should know this, besides it being illogical.

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

#70

Post by vertex-four »

angersock wrote: post #54
vertex-four wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intersex traits cover a fairly broad range of things, and there's a reasonable argument that up to 1.7% of people are intersex. Visibly atypical genitals are fairly rare (1 in 1500 births or so), on the other hand, but don't cover the entire range of intersex traits.

What sort of things typically fall into that range other than atypical genitals?

Complicated, but simplest explanation is from wikipedia:

In biological terms, sex may be determined by a number of factors present at birth, including:

the number and type of sex chromosomes; the type of gonads—ovaries or testicles; the sex hormones; the internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus in females); and the external genitalia.

People whose characteristics are not either all typically male or all typically female at birth are intersex.

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