Some useful ideas in that post which were buried:
Google itself has unexamined biases; There's real fear among some people that they can't speak their mind on sensitive issues because they might be ostracized for fired for them (which the author was); Google needs to have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs; Google needs to focus on psychological safety, not just race/gender diversity.
By my count, zero of those were discussed after the memo. Related to the content of the linked article we're discussing -- the author tried to actually promote diversity with some ideas (albeit in a hamfisted, and potentially offensive, way)
The memo is pushing a fairly outdated and unsupported notion of fundamental biological differences between the genders. The memo did not out and out say "women can't code" but it sure did seem like that's what he meant.
The memo author did not for even an instant think about what affect his memo would have on other people, and so whether misinterpreted or not, he may be guilty of creating a hostile work place.
The memo called for "De-emphasize empathy". This would validly seem to many people like a really bad idea.
On a sensitive cultural issue, engineers will tend to get upset if what they write/think is misinterpreted. But on emotional issues, you'd best pay attention to how your message arrives, because it's always more important than what you intended your message to mean.
His opponents are currently drowning him out, but the way that even they are doing it isn't terribly intellectually honest. For example, making simple claims that all of his claims are refuted by decades of science but neglecting to proffer that science is a fairly normal but annoying intellectually dishonest thing to do in a debate.
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Google got put in a bad situation here. Diversity is a very important cultural value to them. So they couldn't do nothing. And I also think it's a terrible idea to fire a person who was explicitly writing about how the company won't permit open discussion of hard issues. This is what makes him a culture war football, because the extremes on both sides will be able to look at this case, and see all of their worst fears.
I do not see "women can't code" anywhere in that memo. I see "women are less likely to take interest in coding (for biological reasons possibly)" which is completely different thing.
Granted. To this point, I'd say this: more than half the internet read his memo and understood "women can't code". At some point, it doesn't matter if that's not what he said. The impact of his work is how people perceive it, not what he meant. This isn't really fair, but it is so.
One thing that's obvious: the author clearly did engage in broad generalizations about half of the population; your quoted sentence is proof. He hedged these statements with others, saying that of course it always depends on the individual. But when a person makes broad generalizations about populations, they're always playing with emotional fire. And once people get bothered and emotional, all of the rational hedging in the world won't save your job.
Some useful ideas in that post which were buried: Google itself has unexamined biases; There's real fear among some people that they can't speak their mind on sensitive issues because they might be ostracized for fired for them (which the author was); Google needs to have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs; Google needs to focus on psychological safety, not just race/gender diversity.
By my count, zero of those were discussed after the memo. Related to the content of the linked article we're discussing -- the author tried to actually promote diversity with some ideas (albeit in a hamfisted, and potentially offensive, way)
His opponents have some points too... (here's a typical response: https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man...)
The memo is pushing a fairly outdated and unsupported notion of fundamental biological differences between the genders. The memo did not out and out say "women can't code" but it sure did seem like that's what he meant. The memo author did not for even an instant think about what affect his memo would have on other people, and so whether misinterpreted or not, he may be guilty of creating a hostile work place. The memo called for "De-emphasize empathy". This would validly seem to many people like a really bad idea.
On a sensitive cultural issue, engineers will tend to get upset if what they write/think is misinterpreted. But on emotional issues, you'd best pay attention to how your message arrives, because it's always more important than what you intended your message to mean.
His opponents are currently drowning him out, but the way that even they are doing it isn't terribly intellectually honest. For example, making simple claims that all of his claims are refuted by decades of science but neglecting to proffer that science is a fairly normal but annoying intellectually dishonest thing to do in a debate.
--
Google got put in a bad situation here. Diversity is a very important cultural value to them. So they couldn't do nothing. And I also think it's a terrible idea to fire a person who was explicitly writing about how the company won't permit open discussion of hard issues. This is what makes him a culture war football, because the extremes on both sides will be able to look at this case, and see all of their worst fears.