[turtleofdeath]

Yes, but this raises the issue of affirmative action causing bias about innate abilities, and that's absolutely true.

If you knew there were a lower bar for people who had red hair, for example, because there's a pay gap and their population ratio isn't represented equally, every time you'd have someone on your team with red hair, you'd wonder if they were there because of the exception made for them or if they got there on pure merit. Thus, affirmative action causes people to question that merit (bias).

Worse, the redhead who got in never knows if they got accepted based on merit or based on some quota, which contributes heavily Impostor syndrome, negative self image and confirmation bias based on that negative self image.

You combine these two things over time and there is absolutely an impact.

Damore's ultimate points were: let's discuss this and, by the way, please don't ignore me just because my opinion is unpopular.

[n4r9]

You can flip this argument on its head. As a man I'm often thinking about why the unequal gender distribution of roles and salary within my company is the way it is. I often wonder how much of my own success is due to opportunities and encouragement that women generally don't receive.