Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
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Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#2Damore said higher proportion of men in engineering positions wasn't because of explicit discrimination. And we know Google fired him afterwards stating he was wrong. But All 25 Finalists In Its Code Jam Coding Competition are Men.
In fact, With the exception of 2011, in 14 years of Code Jam, no Female has ever made it to the finals. Google's own non-discriminatory machine tool that evaluates codes, which doesn't take into account one's age, gender, nationality or skin color into account, has shed some light on some embarrassing outcomes.
Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#3Damore said higher proportion of men in engineering positions wasn't because of explicit discrimination. And we know Google fired him afterwards stating he was wrong. But All 25 Finalists In Its Code Jam Coding Competition are Men. In fact, With the exception of 2011, in 14 years of Code Jam, no Female has ever made it to the finals. Google's own non-discriminatory machine tool that evaluates codes, which doesn't tak…
Yes, this is a conundrum. The honest assumption has been that non-equal outcomes must be due to discrimination, because that has in fact been true in other fields and in the past.
And so the further assumption was that if we do what other fields have done, make evaluations "blind" (the way it was done in Orchestras) those biases would not be able to express themselves and we would get equal outcomes. Or at least more equal outcomes.
Easy peasy!
The problem is it doesn't seem to be working out that way in tech. In fact, when we "blind" the processes, the needle appears to move the other way. Suggesting that, yes, there was bias, but not the bias we thought.
But that's not in the set of politically permissible answers/outcomes.
So companies are scrambling and trying their best to somehow bend reality to fit the accepted parameters. Which, well, leads to a lot of bending. Of rules, laws, reality.
Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#4This story so neatly sums up the debate. Here's Google's cunning solution to their problem:
http://valleywag.gawker.com/google-drops-i-o-ticket-prices-f...
Not only making a version of the competition where males are excluded (lowering the bar) but also tying it to financial rewards that men are not eligible for (free Google IO tickets with travel).
This is Google's problem in a nutshell. When one step removed from the the legally constrained hiring process, they openly and publicly engage in sexism against men. The game is rigged to ensure women win even though they can't compete, and women are granted special privileges that men are denied simply because of their chromosomes.
If Google wants to spend its money that way, it can. But its management can't then turn around and be shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that male employees are drawing the obvious conclusions: women are less interested in coding and there seem to be fewer of them at the top levels of skill.
Also note the hilariously misleading way Valleywag reported this: "Now the tech giant has a meritocratic pricing plan to encourage more women to attend their banner Google I/O conference ... the company is going to cover ticket and travel costs to Google I/O for women who performed well in its "CodeJam" coding competition."
1. Preventing men from competing is not meritocratic almost by definition.
2. They disguise this fact by making the link be "CodeJam" although it doesn't go to CodeJam, it goes to the separate "CodeJam to I/O for Women" site.
Followup edit
Clicking a link from the ValleyWag story brings me to madewithcode.com which seems to be some website designed by Google to encourage girls to code. This website is astounding. It essentially buys into Damore's view of the science wholesale. The top featured project is "Design a ZAC Zac Posen dress that turns heads", other projects are "Accessorizer: take your selfies to the next level", "Help Riley from Pixar's Inside Out solve some of life's problems", "Help a robot", "Code a heart to bring people together", "Dance visualiser" ... all on a bright pink background.
These projects are very clearly designed to appeal to teenage girls. They're about clothes, helping people, relationships etc. It seems to me like an open admission that girls do have different interests to boys, before they got anywhere near a hiring pipeline with "unconscious biases".
Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#5Anyone know what the gender ratio is like for the participants? Is it 50/50?
Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#6This story so neatly sums up the debate. Here's Google's cunning solution to their problem: http://valleywag.gawker.com/google-drops-i-o-ticket-prices-f... Not only making a version of the competition where males are excluded (lowering the bar) but also tying it to financial rewards that men are not eligible for (free Google IO tickets with travel). This is Google's problem in a nutshell. When one step removed from t…
I'm not much concerned about the sexism against men- others even argued that Google doesn't try to fill a finite set of positions, they basically hire whoever passes the bar.
However, I'm very concerned about ideological denial of reality, in any field and every form. It's scary to realise that people can basically convince themselves to see anything they want, to the point of deeming any other view as unacceptable, if there is enough peer pressure to do so.
Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#7Betteridge's Law
Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#8There is a debate in contemporary feminism central to competition that revolves around theories of dominance and opression by masculinity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism#Men_and_masculinity
Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#9Damore said higher proportion of men in engineering positions wasn't because of explicit discrimination. And we know Google fired him afterwards stating he was wrong. But All 25 Finalists In Its Code Jam Coding Competition are Men. In fact, With the exception of 2011, in 14 years of Code Jam, no Female has ever made it to the finals. Google's own non-discriminatory machine tool that evaluates codes, which doesn't tak…
One of commenters here on HN summed it up frankly in this way: "We are rejecting it not because it's not true, but because it's morally wrong." Yes, these facts are unpleasant. They may be depressing for some. How do you find a way out of this? Whatever Google does or says will be bad in one way or another.
Re: Was James Damore Right? All 25 Finalists in Google Code Jam Are Men
#10There is a debate in contemporary feminism central to competition that revolves around theories of dominance and opression by masculinity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism#Men_and_masculinity
That's a good argument, I don't understand why you're being downvoted.
However, if we assume that the reason why only men made it because they're competitive, and this is a part of the "social construct" of masculinity, wouldn't women in tech, who are often fighting with discrimination in the workplace, do their best to and try to participate too? Being among the finalists of a prestigious coding competition means you no longer need to prove anything to your male co-workers.