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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

#991

Post by araneae »

dang wrote: post #629
chippy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most submissions about this topic have been flagged or moved off the front page. That this article hasn't been flagged and remains on the front page is because of it's provenance. Now, the discussions do tend to be good on the whole - but many users here are fed up with the topic and want to get back to hacking. I'm glad to see more reasoned discussions happening, and hope that people could look back at themselves wh…

> That this article hasn't been flagged and remains on the front page is because of it's provenance I'm not sure what you mean by provenance but people should know that HN moderators haven't touched this article (other than to turn off the flamewar detector, because the thread, against all odds, is not a flamewar). We're surprised that it made it to #1 and delighted that the discussion has mostly remained respectful,…

"Provenance" means origin, which in this case is the Ycombinator blog. It's very unlikely that anything from the ycombinator blog would get removed, given that this is itself a ycombinator site.

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

#992

Post by araneae »

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…

Some people are intersex (typically this means they have ambiguous genitalia or internal sex organs). Therefore, there are people who are neither entirely male or female biologically. You can have an XY person who outwardly has female genitals, but has internal testicles (Androgen insensitivity syndrome)

There is also some question whether some things we don't consider intersex are actually a form of intersex, such as homosexuality. A lot points to homosexuality being innate, not learned, and I personally think this points to it being a form of intersex that affects the brain, not the genitals.

Some disorders can cause both. For example, females with Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) can have ambiguous genitals and also are more likely to be lesbian.

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

#993

Post by foobar_femme »

mcfunk wrote: post #978
foobar_femme wrote: post #791

As a longtime female engineer at fintech startups, there was absolutely nothing new in Damore's memo. The only thing that gave these tired arguments any cachet at all was Google's name. And I really wish Google hadn't fired Damore. Special projects exists?! For years I have worked with and continue to work with guys who think just like this. In fact, thanks to Twitter, I now know all of my followers who also follow D…

When I give feedback on something important in the technology, I have to repeat myself, repeat myself, wait a week while you "think about it," and then finally have a male co-worker go over it with you so you can, in a 5 minutes' conversation, decide you agree ... Thanks for posting this.

Honestly, I found the best way round this was to use IM or now Slack to pre-game my male colleagues one-on-one to create a "cloud of agreement". Typing helps! It really is the most neutral way to present.

That way, one of them usually presents my ideas himself, or all I have to do is provide the seed and the whole idea crystallizes.

If you have any experience with the Socratic method, it's highly useful for convincing your less woke male colleagues they thought of it themselves while allowing them the pleasurable coup of answering your questions in front of others. Think of it as being a midwife to thought: a grubby job but try to think of the lovely babies...

The downside of this is it takes your managers a lot longer to figure out that you are an original thinker. The upside to me is that it's more important to see my ideas executed than to wring my hands over the details of how they gained consensus.

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

#994

Post by jessermeyer »

jblow wrote: post #887
jblow wrote: post #885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's false and nasty. I was thinking the same thing ... quite objectively. There were at least two discussions that I thought were very reasonable, and they got flagged into oblivion very quickly. So I don't know why the YC link gets to be the exception. It feels wrong. Maybe it is due to the users, but if that is so, it feels wrong enough to give me a pretty big loss of faith in the dynamics of the com…

It occurs to me, maybe this is another instance of the left engaging in silencing tactics and maybe that is a weakness in the flagging algorithm. I can't vote "don't flag this". So if there are approximately two sides to a discussion, and one side wants to flag it to silence the discussion, then the discussion is going to get flagged no matter what. So the side that wants to silence just selectively silences the opin…

Purely as an observation -

Ironically, but not surprisingly, you're down voted for sharing that possibility.

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

#995

Post by technologia »

weberc2 wrote: post #990
technologia wrote: post #962

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we need to treat James as a human being who is allowed to be flawed, but there's something to be said about why he added the biology component to his argument that wasn't necessary and simply distracted from the core argument. I would simply say that if he had cut that portion out, the conversation that is happening right now might become more productive and focused on hiring practices outside of Google.…

> there's something to be said about why he added the biology component to his argument that wasn't necessary and simply distracted from the core argument. I would simply say that if he had cut that portion out, the conversation that is happening right now might become more productive and focused on hiring practices outside of Google. I'm not sure I agree. First of all, the article by Scott Alexander referenced in th…

We'll have to agree to disagree then, I'm not trying to compare what he has written to others; I realize that others are reacting more strongly, but I only mentioned that point to move past it. The rest of what I said is more towards how it feels as a minority and how it feels to me being affected by diversity policies (that isn't to equate what every minority, race/gender/etc., experiences in the way of adversity, etc.).

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

#997

Post by dang »

bluecalm wrote: post #861

Now imagine how "we just randomly throw away some of the resumes from black people but we are not lowering the bar" would fare in court of law or public opinion.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15025340 and marked it off-topic.

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

#998

Post by alecco »

boobsbr wrote: post #929
alecco wrote: post #635

Every thread about the Google Memo in the past weeks got flagged (?) promptly out of the homepage but this one stays at the top with just 400 points. I wonder what's the difference. 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 And many more. Then people wonder how…

What's the relation with the Trump election, if you please?

Sorry I missed your reply.

To speak bluntly, white guys in US (not me!) are being shamed as being misogynists. Now the hardcore left "liberal" groups and media turned its eyes on STEM. See how they treated that poor guy in LHC a few years ago. See how they ousted Brendan Eich from Mozilla.

Sure, the Uber CEO and that other VC cases are real and I support that. But those are used as spearheads to take control. Hundreds of YouTube content producers are being demonetized or their Google accounts frozen, like Jordan Peterson's recently.

Bernie Sanders was attacked by BLM as an old white guy. The leftist media turned on him, even though he was the most honest guy aligned with what they theoretically support. It's all a big joke. So people vote something else, whatever, even Trump. (And I think Trump is a media player and incompetent businessman, never mind President of US).

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

#1000

Post by therealdrag0 »

hellopier wrote: post #810
Lon7 wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I think it's important to point out here that this argument is probably wrong. It is one of the many examples where Damore cites research, but puts his own spin on it. One of the researchers Danmore cited is David P Schmitt. Here [0] David states: "But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace. And even if sex differences in negative emotionality were relevant to occupati…

So he's wrong. People in google should have worked that out, made a point of pointing it out to others, and got on with their work. Instead they freaked out, leaked to the media, and got this guy fired.

For real. Being wrong and having data to back it up, is a pretty honest mistake. We don't need a witch hunt over it.
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