Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

If people were willing to apply such meticulous criticism and high standards to the Women in Tech movement in the first place, there wouldn't be an issue. While the sober opening and acknowledgement is a refreshing start in a sea of shitty takes, I have yet to see anyone bother to show the same kind of psychological concern for the men in tech and the same kind of rigor for scientific standards, when the shoe is on the other foot.

What would it do to your confidence and comfort to know you can't state certain scientific truths without being labelled a sexist and a misogynist? To know that there is a whole network of eager feminist writers ready to label you a troglodyte techbro and scoff at the notion you might have something interesting to say on an industry you've been part of for 10+ years? To know that, if speaking at a conference, every single word out of your mouth will be dissected for possibly implying the wrong thing, even as a first time speaker? To carefully weigh socializing with your coworkers against the chance of being accused of impropriety, with no practical defense accepted?

The people who complain about "an unequal burden my male coworkers don’t have to deal with every day" are showing an utterly stunning lack of empathy in the other direction. They are wilfully ignoring the disastrous effect these efforts can have on the people who do not share their views.

Similarly, if people are supposed to actively seek out dissenting views and avoid cherry picking research, why is it feminists are notorious for protesting anyone who dares to disagree? Seminars, men's centers, documentaries, ... really, their track record in silencing and misrepresenting dissent is impressively consistent, the Google Memo included.

The women cited in this interview feel "emotionally drained". "The onus is on me to prove to men in tech that I’m not an “average” woman". Strange, because all I hear from tech feminists is that men need to constantly prove themselves to be "good allies". No amount of previous piety is sufficient to avoid being lynched when you draw their ire. Their track record in eating their own is equally impressively consistent.

"Who might I talk to who could tell me about their experiences working within a system that is biased against them, so I can understand better?"

Start with James Damore, an autist who worked at a company biased against him, sharing his experiences, and getting roasted for it. They complain his memo wasn't written in an inquisitive enough tone, well guess what, that sort of difference in preferred communication style is exactly the kind of thing you should expect in a diverse environment.

On the other hand, the numerous articles in the style of "I'm a woman in tech, let me ladysplain the google memo to you" leave no question about who is actually parading around with the attitude of "let me tell you what’s up, all you wrong people."

Contemporary feminism is 90% projection, this article is more of the same.

It's the school system, imo.

When you spend 12+ formative years telling kids to sit down, be quiet and do nothing but listen to authority or else, they aren't going to somehow come out of it as stellar, well-rounded debaters.

They will, of course, project how they were treated onto others, by holding deeply ingrained beliefs such as, "When someone is being disruptive they need to be punished."

> I see plenty of opinions on this subject in this thread, as in the other threads

Funny, I see a dominant opinion in the other (flagged) threads and an another dominant opinion in this one.

1695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14952787

754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15009759

590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14968626

448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14959601

> Is it just impossible to stay out of the issue[...]?

Yes, it's impossible to stay out of this issue. It's impossible to stay out of most issues. Certainly the ones that affect ourselves and our colleagues in everyday life.

You don't have a moral obligation to throw yourself into "the fight" on one side or another, but you do have a moral obligation to consider the impact of your behavior. If you were to witness a coworker being discriminated against, silence is not the same as ignorance.

To keep your head down and not get involved is going to favor one sides' agenda. If you want to do that, it's your right, but you should own that. We all have the capacity to get involved at whatever level we happen to be on. In our social circles, in our companies or in the public discourse. By interacting with those spheres, by choosing what we mention and acknowledge and consider we push on one side or the other.

It's fine to not be, "in the streets," but it's not fine to pretend these issues have nothing to do with you.

Edit: I've read some accounts suggesting people ask their parents what they were doing during the civil rights movements of the 1960s. People might have protested, they might have been appalled from afar. They might have thought it was much to do about nothing. Ten years from now, how would you explain how you felt today at a cocktail party? However you see it, I think we all have a responsibility to decide and not simply drift through society.