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Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

blog.ycombinator.com

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

#851

Post by goldbeck »

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 do not think that anyone's ability to write should disbar them from discussion.

And perhaps it shouldn't! It might, however, limit their ability to write at length about sensitive, culturally-deep issues at work without getting fired and having their career stained.

Similarly, perhaps one's ability to write code shouldn't disbar them from a hackathon, but if they write a bunch of hacky code for a quadcopter and it flies into the audience, well, then they're in a bit of a pickle indeed.

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

#853

Post by dang »

frik wrote: post #831
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…

Interesting is that all Google related news (in the last two weeks) got flagged/hidden ("it's the algorithm", "it's the user", blabla). And now HN had time to post their own opinion piece - this one stays.

That's false and nasty. You've made up so many groundless insinuations against us over so many years that at some point I'm just going to give up and ban you; I don't think it's reasonable to expect patience with false accusations to be infinite.

In the meantime, here are three comments that explain how moderators had nothing to do with this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023538

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023498

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15023486

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

#855

Post by Bahamut »

nicolashahn wrote: post #253
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…

I'm not talking about a woman having to prove her technical ability to her male coworkers at work because of their prejudices. I know that that's bullshit and I'm sorry they have to do so. I'm talking about handling what Damore claimed in an intellectually honest way. You can't dismiss his points just because you're tired of talking about them (or what you think are the same points you've always been talking about, b…

Isn't the onus on Damore to put forth supported arguments? He made a lot of claims that were completely unsupported.

The worst offense though was that a lot of the assertions were completely disconnected from supporting the original claim that Google's diversity efforts were misguided. In order to have an honest intellectual discussion, first there would have had to have been an honest effort at putting together a coherent argument with such controversial/incendiary points/implications made. Damore failed that miserably.

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

#856

Post by adekok »

Blackthorn wrote: post #156
nicolashahn wrote: post #124

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). Plenty of far more aggressive articles and essays have been writ…

> 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…

> This burden has fallen on women since they were teenagers. To expect them to do it yet again, to have to defend themselves at work this time, is ridiculous.

See "Self made man" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Made_Man_(book), for a real-life experience of living as a man vs as a woman. Her conclusion at the end was that women have it much, much, easier, and she would much rather live as a woman than as a man.

i.e. maybe work is sexist and makes women prove themselves more than men have to. But that's only one aspect of peoples daily lives.

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

#857

Post by belorn »

azernik wrote: post #570
belorn wrote: post #242

A common criticism by each four of the female engineers is how the memo effected them in their job and how they had to prove themselves afterward. This strongly reminds me of about a case a year ago when a kindergarten teacher was tried and charged for rape against several children. After a lot of media attention, many male teachers all over the nation reported to constantly having prove to parents and fellow female…

The feminist movement as a whole is very much against gendered norms about who should and shouldn't be a kindergarten teacher. Which feminist movements did you see fanning these particular flames?

To be fair, movements are generally made up from people self-identify as members and thus movements get judged based on what those people say.

This happened in Sweden, and in one article I recall reading the comment that "there is no need for male kindergarten teachers" from local politician from the left block which identify as feminist (current left block call themselves as a feminist government). The left block was also in power during that time which created those restriction for male teachers. One argument used to defend those restriction was that science showed that most criminals of this kind is male, and thus argued that male employees were higher risk.

It would be hard to say anything about "The feminist movement as a whole". At the time, no movement was stepping up in support of the male kindergarten teachers.

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

#858

Post by mpweiher »

izacus wrote: post #617
mpweiher wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that CS isn't a science, it's engineering. And it tracked down to the level of other engineering fields. http://news.janegoodall.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/perce... So the mystery is not why it went down, it was why it was higher initially.

Hmm, Computer Science is most definetly a science (which shares quite a bit with maths as expected). A lot of algorithms and data structures you use under the hood when doing engineering were born as a paper in academic CS sphere. Of course, most CS graduates don't do science, but actual engineering work. That doesn't make CS any less of a science though, it just means that most people employed in private companies d…

My bad, I should have been more precise: natural science, which is part of a "liberal arts" education.

"Academic areas that are associated with the term liberal arts include:

Arts (fine arts, music, performing arts, literature)

Mathematics

Natural science (biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, earth science)

Philosophy

Religious studies

Social science (anthropology, economics, geography, political science, psychology, sociology, Linguistics, history)"

Note the absence of engineering disciplines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education

Vs. engineering or engineering sciences.

See for example how Stanford groups things (CS is part of the "School of Engineering").

https://registrar.stanford.edu/everyone/enrollment-statistic...

And then note the difference in enrollment in "chemistry" (the science) and "chemical engineering"

https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/membership/acs/welcom...

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

#859

Post by Dylan16807 »

dandare wrote: post #434
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.

This argument reminds me of the "waterboarding is not torture" argument, both suffer from slothful induction fallacy. If waterboarding is not torture then why would you apply it to detainees to confess information they otherwise wouldn't? Equally, if diverting more energy in to finding minority candidates is not lowering the bar for them then why would you need to divert more energy to find them?

> If waterboarding is not torture then why would you apply it to detainees to confess information they otherwise wouldn't?

Actually effective techniques like building rapport aren't torture, and they get applied to get information out.

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

#860

Post by wilde »

Cogito wrote: post #823
PrimHelios wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

James also argued that women are biologically inferior for STEM fields, which is objectively and demonstrably incorrect. With that, I think he'd disagree with absolutely all of it. He clearly has a confirmation bias, and is actively cherry picking articles (from fucking Wikipedia I might add) and misrepresenting their contents to make women seem inferior.

I keep hearing people say this but didn't read it in the memo. Can you point to the bit where he says they are biologically inferior, or the sources he links to that say it? The best I can come up with is the bit where he says Google lowers the bar by reducing the false-negative rate, meaning that a greater percentage of qualified men are rejected than qualified women. [Edit] Reading through again to see more about b…

I think it comes back to how you read this part of the TL;DR. "Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership."

Google currently has an 80M/20F split. Does that mean that very few women have the traits to work in CS at Google? If so, another way to phrase that might be "the large majority of women do not possess the innate biological traits necessary to work in CS at Google". From which it's not a far leap to "the large majority of women are biologically inferior for CS work at Google." Etc.

Normally, one might soften that by asking what population the distribution is drawn from. Sadly, the memo author makes it explicitly clear that he thinks it's largely due to biology: "Be open about the science of human nature. Once we acknowledge that not all differences are socially constructed or due to discrimination, we open our eyes to a more accurate view of the human condition which is necessary if we actually want to solve problems."

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