[matchu]

I haven't decided yet whether I think the memo is sexist. But I'm confident that, because of how it's written, sexist people who read it will feel validated in their sexism.

It uses the same core argument as sexism: women are less suited to certain tasks, perhaps biologically. And it reaches the same conclusion: we should roll back our pro-diversity and pro-empathy programs. A sexist person who reads this will therefore feel that it supports their views, and, because the argument seems rationalist, they'll conclude that their poor treatment of women is rationalist. That might not be the intent of the document, but it is a predictable outcome.

Words that validate sexist behavior, intentionally or unintentionally, contribute to the problem. Regardless of the merit of the underlying idea, or the valuable conversations it inspired, it's important to remember that the memo itself did harm. It's appropriate that some people are focusing on that.

[slavak]

This idea of avoiding saying something because of how horrible people might choose to interpret it is something I find, frankly, terrifying. This is going beyond just censorship and going into the realm of trying to censor reality.

Where do you draw the line on something like this? Are we allowed to publish statistics that show black people are proportionally more involved in crimes, or is this taboo because a white supremacist might use it to claim blacks are inherently criminal? What if you write something apparently neutral but some terrible person somehow finds a way to twist it to their ends? Do we get to condemn you ex-post-facto over this?

[matchu]

I'm not saying don't have these conversations. Rather, have them carefully, and choose your words with the consequences in mind. There are many good and thoughtful ways to talk about potential issues with Google's gender diversity programs, but instead this memo made some especially bad choices.

For one thing, the memo focuses on needlessly contentious issues, instead of sticking to actionable arguments. It's valid to say that decreasing stress in engineering and leadership positions might attract more women, because modern women tend that value that more. But framing it as a biological issue is hard to prove, and doesn't help support his logistical point. It only has the consequence of hurting people.

The memo also presumes that Google's full-time diversity experts haven't even thought of his concerns. He asserts that seeking out women necessarily lowers the hiring bar for them, instead of asking "How are we mitigating the risk that our pro-diversity push might itself introduce bias into our ideally gender-agnostic perf evaluations?" That's a valid question, and I'm sure Google's diversity team has answers, and I'm sure that some people wouldn't be satisfied with those answers. But jumping to the conclusion that Google's women must be less qualified than the men, just because he can't think of a way to mitigate bias in the hiring pipeline, is self-centered and disrespectful.

I'm very much in favor of a world where it's equally okay to express all ideas! But that doesn't mean we should be equally okay with all modes of expression. No matter which side we're on, we need to think first, then speak. Given the meta-thesis of the memo (especially the "prioritize intent" section), I'm not convinced that the author took much time to consider needs beyond his own.

[slavak]

> It's valid to say that decreasing stress in engineering and leadership positions might attract more women, because modern women tend that value that more. But framing it as a biological issue is hard to prove, and doesn't help support his logistical point. It only has the consequence of hurting people.

What it sounds like you're saying is that saying women are on average more sensitive to stress based on extensive scientific research which implies a strong biological basis, is contentious and hurtful. But then for some reason saying modern women tend to put more value on a stress-free environment, based on nothing but an unsupported assertion, is somehow better?

I don't have a crystal ball, but I suspect you're being naive and that the outrage would have been much the same no matter how he'd chosen to frame this statement. The very assertion that men and women have some innate differences that might be worth exploring seems to be tantamount to blasphemy -- particularly when coming from a man!

> The memo also presumes that Google's full-time diversity experts haven't even thought of his concerns. He asserts that seeking out women necessarily lowers the hiring bar for them, instead of asking "How are we mitigating the risk that our pro-diversity push might itself introduce bias into our ideally gender-agnostic perf evaluations?" That's a valid question, and I'm sure Google's diversity team has answers, and I'm sure that some people wouldn't be satisfied with those answers. But jumping to the conclusion that Google's women must be less qualified than the men, just because he can't think of a way to mitigate bias in the hiring pipeline, is self-centered and disrespectful.

This is just you projecting your presumed intentions on the author. At no point in the memo did he claim or imply that Google's women are less qualified than the men. The only paragraph that can really be taken to say that is the part about "lowering the bar" for diversity candidates; Which is, admittedly, an unfortunate choice of words in retrospect. However the same sentence clarifies that the bar is "lowered" by decreasing the false-negative rate for diversity candidates, meaning those that are accepted are still qualified at the same standards. The sentence also includes a reference for this claim, but this is unfortunately to an internal Google group so we don't know its contents.

On the other hand, right at the start of the document the author takes pains (including a big colorful picture to illustrate the point) to point out that "you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions," which should make it pretty clear that he's NOT claiming Google's female engineers are less qualified.

> I'm very much in favor of a world where it's equally okay to express all ideas! But that doesn't mean we should be equally okay with all modes of expression. No matter which side we're on, we need to think first, then speak. Given the meta-thesis of the memo (especially the "prioritize intent" section), I'm not convinced that the author took much time to consider needs beyond his own.

This is saying that one must choose his words like a politician and consider the reaction of the world at large when distributing a personal opinion document not intended for wide publication to a select group of individuals. The idea that one's career might hinge on using the proper newspeak in such a document is, frankly, terrifying to me. Do people have a right to be upset about his choice of wording or angry at his opinions? Sure, absolutely! But losing your career for this, over an opinion that is, arguably, not really harmful or hateful and expressed in a relatively considerate tone, is something else entirely.

[matchu]

Mm, thanks for calling out the false-negative thing! I think I misparsed that the first time around and got confused between decreasing false negatives and increasing false positives. That's embarrassing, sorry ^_^`

In any case, I think I made a mistake suggesting specific improvements to the memo; lemme pop off the stack a bit:

It's not okay to publish a document to your coworkers that will predictably make them feel unsafe. Full stop.

When you want to express an idea at work, you need to engage in empathy, and try to express yourself in such a way that your coworkers will still feel safe with you. If you can't figure out how to express an idea without hurting your coworkers, then, yeah, you don't get to express it unless you figure something out :/ That's an appropriate workplace policy, and I'm comfortable with the general idea that freedom of expression is subject to some conditions. I know not everybody agrees with that prioritization, though!

More importantly, I'm just tired of articles like this one dismissing the social consequences lens outright. There's more than one valid issue being raised in our community right now, and the importance of one doesn't invalidate the others. Let's have both conversations: how to enable expression of less common ideas, and how to ensure that we express them empathetically. If we approach the problem thoughtfully, I think we can optimize for both :)

(BTW I edited this comment a lot during the first 30 minutes, and pretty significantly changed its contents. Sorry if that ends up being an issue!)

[slavak]

I actually tend to mostly agree with you on this. I think the safest and most rational policy is just to avoid discussing sensitive topics at work so as not to risk creating a hostile atmosphere, and I don't consider this an unreasonable restriction on freedom of expression. Talk politics and immigration with your friends and family, not your teammates at the office.

My problem is that Google as a company, at least as far as the Mountain View campus goes, apparently disagrees. My understanding -- and it's possible I'm wrong -- is that Google supports and encourages openly discussing a variety of topics at work, and the internal tool he used to publish his memo was designed and used exactly for this purpose. (What Googlers apparently describe as "an internal-only Reddit.") If this is true then he was fired not for discussing inappropriate topics, but for holding opinions the hive-mind finds disagreeable.

Either you as a company support discussing sensitive topics in the office, or you don't. If you don't that should be made clear and enforced equally for everyone. If you do then you can't pick and choose which opinions you approve of based on what's popular, and expressing a dissenting opinion should not, at the very least, be a fireable offense!