[budde]

> fired from a tech company for "perpetuating gender stereotypes"...

Fired from a tech company for publishing a company-wide memo insinuating that some of his coworkers are, on average, at a biological disadvantage for the type of work they do and suggesting that some subset of them haven't achieved their position based on merit.

[PKop]

And listed data and studies to back up his claim. That it is controversial, does not mean it isn't true, and you haven't refuted it, simply stated it as if on it's face should have been grounds for dismissal.

All we really know is that the Silicon Valley thought bubble, and political intolerance is extreme to such a degree that people have to watch what they say and think at all times so as not to anger the thought police. The moral superiors.

No room for discussion. No room for debate. Just fall in line and be sure to advertise your virtue and 100% agree with views that the political left mandates you to hold.

[budde]

> And listed data and studies to back up his claim. That it is controversial, does not mean it isn't true, and you haven't refuted it, simply stated it as if on it's face should have been grounds for dismissal.

He listed references that indicate, when viewed broadly, that men and women can exhibit different observable personality characteristics. That was not the argument of his memo. His argument was that, because of this broadly measurable difference, this leads to women being less interested in computer science (although not to the degree of similar STEM fields, oddly enough!) and therefore he shouldn't have to be subjected to bias training or be burdened with any other sort of program that suggests maybe, perhaps, potentially the social culture in tech/SV could be exacerbating this.

> All we really know is that the Silicon Valley thought bubble, and political intolerance is extreme to such a degree that people have to watch what they say and think at all times so as not to anger the thought police. The moral superiors.

Did the thought police make this guy write and publish a work memo suggesting some women are too neurotic to be software engineers?

> No room for discussion. No room for debate. Just fall in line and be sure to advertise your virtue and 100% agree with views that the political left mandates you to hold.

How about don't write a company-wide memo that insinuates some of your coworkers aren't there by merit because they don't have the biological composition to stomach the job? It's not like somebody was having a conversation with this guy in the break room, asked his opinion on diversity and ran to the press to start a witch hunt against some random Google engineer.

[bloaf]

> That was not the argument of his memo. His argument was that, because of this broadly measurable difference, this leads to women being less interested in computer science (although not to the degree of similar STEM fields, oddly enough!)

I mean, he titled the section of the document that talks about those effects "Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech." But hey, those are sinful ideas, so he must have been a sinful man to have even entertained them in the first place.

[pacala]

Women have graduated computer science at a less than 20% rate (which is the ratio of women in tech at Google) for more that a decade. Why?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2015/01/27/wo...

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...

[agentdrtran]

Listed "data" and "studies" doesn't suddenly make you right. Studies are far from perfect, especially in this field, and even more so when tons of other studies contradict these conclusions. You don't get to wave a magic want and say "I'm using FACTS so you're wrong!!"

[PKop]

So what we have is a debate or a discussion.. a disagreement.

Implying that should result in this guy getting fired is pretty ridiculous.

[mpweiher]

> tons of other studies[1] contradict these conclusions

[1]citations needed

[maxlybbert]

> You don't get to wave a magic want and say "I'm using FACTS so you're wrong!!"

You just described a large portion of my Facebook feed. (Yes, I will admit my own guilt here as well).

[0xBA5ED]

>publishing a company-wide memo

But was it "published" as a "company memo"? Or was it spread virally through individuals?

[imron]

> insinuating that some of his coworkers are, on average, at a biological disadvantage for the type of work they do

That's not what he actually said. In fact the memo had a chart and a paragraph or two specifically stating that taking average traits of a group of people and applying them to individuals was wrong and misleading due to large overlaps of traits between groups.

He was not implying anything about his colleagues that are already working for Google, rather he was pointing out potential biological differences in averages at the population level that possibly cause fewer women to enter tech (and hence making it difficult to get an even ratio of male/female employees).