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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

#891

Post by mentallimits »

sologoub wrote: post #659
rayiner wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not think that anyone's ability to write should disbar them from discussion. We can not expect perfection from others. Instead we should try to understand them as human beings, and interpret them with generosity and kindness. I'm a huge proponent of the principle of charity, but I found it impossible to apply to the Google Memo. Not because I'm deeply mired in political correctness (I have a range of views peo…

Here's an actual citation to prove the USSR anecdote as true: http://www.asee.org/public/conferences/20/papers/6985/downlo... > Since the Communist Revolution of 1917 and during the ensuring Soviet times, the role of women in engineering and engineering education was strong with almost 60% of the engineers being women. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian women in these engineering careers has fallen to below…

does this not provide support for Damore? Once Russian women had a greater choice of career opportunities in post-soviet russia STEM participation declined.

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

#892

Post by josteink »

> 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's a question which will keep popping up as long as you have discriminatory practices in the hiring process.

This memo changed nothing in this regard.

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

#893

Post by saimiam »

Let's see:

1. women are underrepresented in politics despite nearly a hundred years of suffrage and handwringing about female participation.

2. men are underrepresented in high school teacher cohorts. Maybe men are just not interested in teaching.

3. men don't attend pta meetings at the same levels as women (I don't know how true this is - I'm going by the movies). Men don't care about their kids' education!

Looks like James Damore over fit his personal views into his personal career niche of technology.

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

#894

Post by ATsch »

ltrcola wrote: post #825
ATsch wrote: post #331

I think it's interesting how the Edith stated Damore had said women were worse at their job, while one of the other women explicitly said he didn't, and the other only mentioned interest in programming. This is similar to the divide I've seen in the media. I have not read the memo in it's entirety, but since the impression I got from reading a few news stories was that Damore had only made his controversial statement…

By gender, she's referring to gender identity which is certainly not binary. There is a pretty high correlation between someone's chromosomes, "equipment", and gender identity but it's not 100% and any of those can vary on a spectrum. I've been doing some reading on transgender individuals, and the current knowledge is that gender identity has some kind of durable biological basis, we just don't know quite what it is…

Don't get me wrong, I accepted gender not being binary, I just wondered how that was relevant to the discussion.

I did not know about AIS, really interesting stuff.

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

#895

Post by scandox »

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’m just exhausted by having this same damn argument over and over again since I was a teenager and the amount of time and energy I keep having to spend to counter it.

This is a human being and a colleague. I really think people ought to satisfy a very, very high evidential and expressive bar before they do this to other people. I don't say this as a dictum or law, but as an ethical suggestion.

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

#897

Post by stefek99 »

I have nothing valuable to say.

Roughly the same time I've created #hck2fck - an analogy to pwn2own as I was going to SHA2017 hacker camp.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to handle all the controversy related to the project.

Intention - get some free press, media attention, eyeballs, hit to the actual website.

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

#898

Post by UK-AL »

dymk wrote: post #806
Danihan wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the vast majority of things in this article that the interviewees said they "disagree with" are things the author never said.

This again? The memo is out in the open for you to read. > "Women, on average, have more:" > - "Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs" > - "Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness" > - "Openness directed towards feel…

Aren't all of these part of the Big Five personality traits that psychologists use to discuss differences?

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

#899

Post by Aeolun »

joe_the_user wrote: post #75
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'd actually say just the opposite - the memo seemed to be written as well and in as conciliatory manner as it could be written and the memo made good (or at least plausible) point and bad points. But the bad points were so bad that it was appropriate and necessary to fire Damore. Essentially, as analogy, there's no way for a person to say "Black people are inferior and shouldn't be hired", as a message broadcast thr…

> If that person says "here's a study which says this, we should consider this in an open minded fashion" it doesn't matter. The message is unacceptable.

Ah, the famous, "I don't agree with it so it must be wrong" argument. I can see how the smart and well-reasoning people on HackerNews would use that. Yes...

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

#900

Post by kutkloon7 »

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 actually think it was written really well. It could have been better, of course. But I probably would have done a worse job at it.
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