[ergothus]

> As someone who actually read what he wrote, I just had to bite my tongue. That's not what he said at all,

As someone that also read it, those arent the words he used, but that is very much what he was saying. A facade of misrepresented psuedoscience doesnt change the intent, motivation, or reality.

[koheripbal]

It's so disappointing to read this. I don't see how his thesis of "everyone needs to be treated by their individual merits because personal variances grossly outweigh any gender bias" can be interpreted as sexist.

He was literally preaching for equality. His point was that affirmative action programs do companies a disservice by making minority/women employees seem like they didn't get there through their own merit, and also punishes companies that don't have sufficient women due to a lack of interest women have in programming - which may or may not be innate.

...and he was fired for that. Crazy.

[ergothus]

Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives.

Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confidence. Choosing to ignore the quantities of good science on the topic in favor of what he did does not inspire confidence.

Then he chooses to widely declare this and demean large swathes of his coworkers. I'm all for open communication, but that doesnt absolve you of social consequences. When you make a big chunk of your company uncomfortable with you and how you view them....yeah, consequences, yeah, fired.

The only reason this is a surprise is because it happened to some like him and not the groups he was pretending to defend. I assure you most of them would be outraged and frustrated but nearly as surprised had the interaction gone the other way. All you have to do is watch and listen to know that.

[manigandham]

Men and women (biologically and socially) have different interests. This is different than capabilities. Countries with the most free choices see the most division between sexes in different professions.

Nobody seems to have a problem when it comes to auto mechanics, medical sciences, teachers, social services, lawyers, etc. Why are different interests such a controversial thing to accept?

[ergothus]

1) I'd argue that you arent paying much attention to those other industries. I certainly see issue commonly raised in a few you mention that are in my circles. Things that still make me double-take.

2) tech is just the latest in a series. Comp sci degree enrollment for women DROPPED for recent decades - that's not a biological lack of interest. This has occurred in many professions - when the profession becomes high profile, the women are driven out.

3) you are proving the problem in the original memo. Instead of looking into any of the research on the topic, you are repeating what feels true. You speak with such confidence on the different interests of different genders, without considering how you know what the actual interests might be. (You're assuming what you see must be the result of interests, and use that to prove a difference of interests is the cause. That's a tautology) You assert that "no one seems to have a problem" with imbalances in other professions, when it is trivial to find people definitely have problems.

[manigandham]

What other professions? What series? Computer science degrees and jobs are seeing a rise in women, but they're already the majority in biological sciences and other disciplines. Would you claim men are conditioned to not going into those fields?

The research on the topic covers what I state about different countries and societies showing how different interests affect professions. Here are some links:

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-...

https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Th...

https://www.nber.org/papers/w22173

[orwin]

Nah, in the late 50s and until the 90s, there was around 25% on women in computer science in the US, and close to 50% in some countries like France an UK (i think a book was written on why in 2017).

I've talked to Pr. Emeritus Mallard a lot three year ago, who was a biology researcher studying genotype and phenotype in animal/vegetal populations (for context, he got his degree around the time we discovered ADN). From what he remember, there was a lot more than 50% women when he started, at least as "programmers", although they were barely viewed as clever seamstress at the time.

Each time he wanted to do a computer-assisted statistical study in the early days, the programmer was a woman (again, from what he remembers) and he always thought the field was dominated by them, at least for grunts work.

[jhedwards]

> Countries with the most free choices see the most division between sexes in different professions

I've seen this idea around and I think it's quite problematic. Some countries may have relatively "free choices", but that is just one cultural dimension. A culture is an inconceivably complex phenomenon. A culture also has education strategies, gender roles, specific kinds of toys and games, specific languages and sub-languages, a myriad of sub-cultures that youth will cluster around, cultural specific concepts and ideas and so on.

I'm not ruling out that biological factors play a role, but I see biological factors as just one part of a complex, and, additionally, if you look at history, it's very clear that cultural factors can and will override just about any biological imperative, from the will to live to the will to procreate. This should make it clear that cultural factors need to be systematically ruled out before we can begin to consider that biology is to blame.

[fastball]

Have cultural factors not been ruled out?

Affirmative action policies literally make it easier for one group to get a spot in [insert institution here] than another group. And yet we still see discrepancies. We publicly shame and fire anyone who says "maybe biological differences play a role". And yet we still see discrepancies.

If we haven't ruled out cultural factors in the West at this point, I'm not sure how we can.

By effectively every metric, it is easier for a woman to become an engineer in 2020 than a man. There are many, many programs and initiatives which encourage women to get into STEM from an early age – the same do not really exist for men. Women get into (and graduate from) university at a higher rate. There is more funding available specifically to women that are pursuing STEM And yet still you have more men choosing to be engineers than women.

[jhedwards]

> Have cultural factors not been ruled out?

How could they be? That is an intractable problem. Cultural factors permeate our existence from birth. You'd literally have to catalogue every single thing influencing an individual's life from birth to the time they enter the workforce.

I have two daughters and I've seen just how powerful subconscious messages from media influence the way they think. My oldest daughter is only four and she is absolutely adamant that girls can _only_ marry boys. That's clearly because the Netflix shows and Disney movies she watches all have a "girl marries boy" narrative. Think about that: my daughter is only four, I've never talked to her about marriage, and she is already firm in her belief that same sex marriage is not OK.

You are talking about funding and affirmative action, but have you considered gendered advertising towards toddlers? Have you considered gendered concepts in TV shows and movies? How about in toys? Do you know how elementary school teachers, not to mention parents, are subtly encouraging and discouraging boys and girls by their words and actions? Children absorb these things and they are solidified into semi-permanent activation pathways in their developing brains.

There are a million factors here that we will never grasp. Affirmative action is useless if people's minds are already fully constructed by the time those programs take effect.

[ralfd]

> Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confidence.

I'm sceptic to this claim because discriminatory and derogatory behavior in medicine or law are much more widespread. And female students flock to these professions.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

If true, this is extraordinarily significant.

It could mean that woman who are driven away from software engineering by discriminatory and derogatory behaviour are somehow exhibiting differences to their law / medicine counterparts.

Is there any research in to this question?

[ralfd]

I don't know about any comparative studies, but sexism in medicine (even patients are calling female doctors honey or sweetie) is an ancient problem.

https://www.girlsglobe.org/2019/03/12/time-confront-sexism-m...

I can't imagine sexism or work environment (looong hours and exhausting shifts) are substantially worse in engineering.

What is different is, in my opinion, that medicine/law is perceived as higher status than nerd stuff. There are popular tv series idolizing the glamorous life of New York lawyers and the heroism of doctors/nurses. When are techies depicted favorably and not as social autists? The goth chic in Navy:CIS maybe, but not much else.

[humanrebar]

I'm not sure shopping exclusively at Hot Topic in your forties is idolizing tech in any way. If they wanted the character to be cool and edgy, they should have updated her look at least occasionally.

[dijit]

> Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested"

This is the absolute crux of the entire paper, and it's very easy to view it with whatever politicising lens you want.

So lets try to flippantly and dispassionately break down how he constructed the statement

1) Women in absolute aggregate seem to not like CompSci.

2) We want more women in CompSci.

3) We should make CompSci more attractive to women.

4) What do Women in aggregate seem to like?

5) Is there room in CompSci fields for things that women like?

6) Yes, lots, it would be absolutely amazing if we could promote the things women in aggregate prefer to do in the field compsci. Those tropes of introverted men sitting in the basement should be subverted.

7) The current method of attracting women is harmful, we should instead change our desired behaviour of engineering to incorporate feminine ideals which could easily be incorporated.

[ergothus]

> 1) Women in absolute aggregate seem to not like CompSci.

Based on what? They don't end up there, but we have evidence (based on decreasing enrollment in degrees) that they USED to be "more interested" (If you use that as criteria). Do you think they generationally are just more aware of what it really is now?

How would that happen without ALSO becoming more aware of the absolute vile GamerGate-type shit women have to face, from the smallest "let me assume you don't know anything" to the "let's make rape jokes" to the "Can a woman have confidence she probably won't be groped"?

If you start with the premise that women "seem to not like CompSci", you've already assumed the problem and normalized a lot of factors that don't have to be normalized.

[dijit]

I believe you already have a stance here and you're rather embroiled in the beliefs you already have. So I'm not going to comment to you- but to anyone who reads your comment.

Sorry for that.

> Based on what? They don't end up there, [...]

Well, yes, you can argue the factors here but there is a trend that something is off-putting. Either Gamer-gate (something which is absolutely mired in controversy of its own right) or 'rape jokes' but more likely the tropes of: long working hours with a dead end at the end of it, competitiveness, isolation and the notion that if you're in technology your job is your life.

Frankly to assume you and I know the true reason is rather arrogant, I'm not a sociologist I can only read the corpus of their work and believe that they came to the correct conclusions.

Your comment indicates that there is an aggressive amount of sexism in tech, rape jokes and groping not withstanding, and I'm not going to ask for evidence of that despite my conviction that this is not nearly as endemic as you indicate; instead I'd ask the question: If marketing is also inherently sexist (and definitely more "boys club groping the ladies" than tech) why is there a much stronger representation of Women there?

I think you have internalised a mistruth about the tech industry at large.

[searchableguy]

> We want more [singleton] in [x].

> We should make [x] more attractive to [singleton].

Why?

Unless the field is more toxic to [singleton] or there is more productivity due to "diversity" at which point you are admitting that people are different on biological (or social) level and have different interests, views etc.

[dijit]

Diversity is a desirable trait, especially in things that produce products that are designed to be used by the entire planet.

My mother explained diversity to me this way:

"We are each of us, unique but equal. Meaning that while you will grow up and be stronger than me, I will be able to produce children. This doesn't make either of us better, both should be respected as equal. There is value but difference in both." (not verbatim)

If we assume that on average women are more prone to overthinking, then it likely follows that having a women the team designing a product with a man (who, on average are more likely to be dismissive and flippant) then there's a necessary conflict, and the product will be better for everyone if it happens.

We should not be judging a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, we should instead be asking, how do we define the value of swimming and how do we ensure we have great swimmers working with us.

[DreamScatter]

Toilets are needed by all people on the entire planet, so by your logic we should have more diverse emoloyees in toilet manufacturing, since toilets are used by so many people. Wouldn't we also be better off if more women were working in the garbage industry? We need women's diversity in the garbage collecting industry because their diversity will help improve garbage collection for the entire planet.

Does it really make a difference if the same feature is implemented by a man versus a woman?

[searchableguy]

> This doesn't make either of us better, both should be respected as equal.

I think we are agreeing.

That's why I highlighted more attractive to [singleton] when you could be more inclusive by avoiding singletons.

Why shouldn't a field be attractive to everyone - blind, deaf, disabled etc equally?

Imo, focusing on singletons is detrimental because by doing so, you will end up discriminating automatically because there will always be other groups that you won't or don't see.

[darkerside]

Is it sexist to say men are on average stronger than women?

[searchableguy]

I would like to see source for your statements. I don't know much about Damore. I did glance through the manifesto and found it alright back then but I still don't understand why anyone needed to bring politics into question or write a manifesto.

You vote with your job. If you don't like things, quit. Either the people working at the company are discriminatory and don't care or you are the problematic one. If you think you are right that a big company discriminates openly, then wouldn't you have to admit that most people at your company don't care about discrimination as much as their paycheck or they are discriminatory themselves. If a company can easily replace employees, then the society doesn't value equality. We should fix that foremost.

If we had UBI, wouldn't discrimination of any kind be detrimental given that workers wouldn't be forced to work for low wages and companies which discriminate based on pseudoscience be at a disadvantage because they won't get talent that other companies can. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? Why are people not pursuing UBI for gender equality?

As for an opposing view point, check this - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more... which says fewer women take stem in developed countries than under developed countries. There will always be more differences. We shouldn't do a shut down case for either. It's not yet clear what percentage are affected by it. If it is, mention the source.

[coldtea]

>Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives.

"Biological sex plays no role in life choices / job preferences" (which is different than: "we should not prevent people from going into X choice/profession because of their biological sex". A priori considering the former as "truth" / "obvious" etc is also a political idea.

[reroute1]

Great don't trust him don't like him don't feel comfortable... That doesn't change the fact he posted biological truths did NOT say women can't be good engineers which is what you exactly try to project on him over and over and makes you look silly and wrong. It was in response to him not getting traction via internal channels and only after he talks about his legit concerns in this memo does it finally blow up... Not surprising Google has very loud outspoken minority groups

What about all the people that were made uncomfortable by his firing? Can we fire those responsible for that? This got so silly so fast

[atdrummond]

I went to HS with James for a few years and have spoken to him on this topic a few times.

I don’t agree with how he went about pursuing the issue but your assessment does not comport with the views he’s shared with me or our contemporaries who stay in touch with him.

[aisengard]

Then he should have done a better job representing himself. At any time he could come out and say exactly what he means and doesn't mean, and apologize for any harm done. Instead, he allied himself with the very people whose views you claim he doesn't hold. At some point, your actions define you.

[JSavageOne]

> but that is very much what he was saying

No it's not. Nowhere in the paper did he say that women can't become good engineers. You're literally defaming his work. Either support your accusation with evidence, or don't comment.

[mabbo]

> those arent the words he used, but that is very much what he was saying

> Nowhere in the paper did he say that

You both are saying the same thing- he did not use those exact words.

The parent comment is saying that despite not saying "Women can't be engineers", the entire purpose of the paper, in the view of that reader, was to insinuate that women can't be engineers. It's not terribly hard to promote an idea without ever saying it explicitly. Perhaps you didn't read the deeper meaning out of the memo.

And demanding those who interpret things differently than you "don't comment" doesn't promote discussion, it ends it. When someone says something you disagree with, don't tell them to shut up, ask them why they see things differently. Debate. Discuss. Grow.

[h4l0]

> in the view of that reader, was to insinuate that women can't be engineers

Although his intentions were unclear by his vague approach to the subject, I believe he didn't mean to say women can't be engineers.

Most of the time he gave population-based examples of how women decided not to be engineers. His thesis was to show that forcing women in STEM fields is not a fair practice to both women and men who want to be STEM professionals.

[darkerside]

You're right that they both talked about exact words, but you're indexing too highly on it. Just because they used the same words in places doesn't mean they're saying the same thing. Reading again, I don't know why you start with that statement. It really muddies the rest of your comment.

Please take this idea with an open mind. When you arrive a singular purpose to the paper, it may say more about your views than it does about the author's. He didn't have a thesis that stated directly that he meant to "insinuate that women can't be engineers", so you're literally putting words in his mouth.

And the "don't comment" line explicitly said it was in response to statements that are unfounded, NOT statements that disagree.

Putting that all together, you seem to be having an argument with a ghost of your own making.

[dirtydroog]

Parent is essentially playing the 'so what you're saying is...' card.

[JSavageOne]

> the entire purpose of the paper, in the view of that reader, was to insinuate that women can't be engineers.

Ok, please explain to me how the memo suggests that women can't be engineers.

[icebraining]

No, ergothus is stating their interpretation based on disclosed facts, so it's quite unlikely to be considered defamatory (in the US).

[jpdb]

> You're literally defaming his work.

His "work" does a fine job of that on its own.

[look_lookatme]

That's not what he said. He said on average women do not prefer the field, and optimizing to change that observable fact is a fool's errand.

I don't have an opinion on whether he's right or wrong but I don't think he shouldn't be able to make that argument...

[amelius]

> He said on average women do not prefer the field, and optimizing to change that observable fact is a fool's errand.

Yes, it still leaves open whether the following is true:

> when women do prefer the field, they tend to be amazing engineers

Hence I'd say there is nothing wrong with the statement.

[_8j50]

Not just women but anyone. For any social group,the share of that group may never be at or close to their make up of the population. People come from an insanely diverse set of upbringing and social expectations.

If they think 50% of engineers should be women, I would like to hold them to an even higher standard by requiring that out if that 50% of women,each national origin,ethnicity,political/ideological upbringing and social status (mother,single,divorced,etc...) is also proportionally represented. If this is about making up for historical prejudice then let every women of a wronged group be equally represented. You will soon see the silliness of the pursuit.

It is the cause that needs policing and adjustment (upstream) not the effect.

[jashmatthews]

> Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate

Damore deliberately chose to cast doubt on whether the women Google hired were as good as the men. Otherwise, it's easier and less controversial to just argue that any form of discrimination is wrong.

[waheoo]

It doesnt cast doubt though..

You cant have so much more women than the rest of the industry without that being true. There literally is not enough women coming through engineering schools to allow for that without you a) discriminating against men based on sex, and b) lowering the bar for women.

There is no doubt. It is a mathematical given.

[sz4kerto]

I see what you mean I think but it's really not a mathematical given. If you have two groups where group 1 with size S scores X with variance V==0.4X on average in a given skill (score means competence), and group 2 with size S/2 scores 0.8X with variance V on average; then it's possible to recruit a set of people from group 2 and the same number of people from group 1 so that the average competence level of people hired from group 2 is higher. All you need to do is to pick more carefully (invest more resources, etc.).

So even if we accept that the average female engineer is not as good as the average male, and there are less female engineers than male, and that Google hires more female engineers than other players in the industry (relative to male hires), it is still absolutely possible that the bar is not lower. Maybe they look harder, maybe they pay more to female engineers with a given competence level, maybe there's no difference, etc.

[waheoo]

I dont think you understand the hiring pool available to mountain view at all.

The rate of female attendance in comp sci has been in decline since the 70s. At my university it was quite literally 100 to 1.

You cant have a 50-50 hiring pool without some fuckery there.

And for what its worth i absolutely do not accept that the avergage female engineer is not as good as the average male engineer.

If anything, they are anecdotally better equiped.

> All you need to do is to pick more carefully (invest more resources, etc.).

So what amounts to increase their total comp because theyre female and you have a quota to fill?

Thats sexual discrimination is it not?

I really need to say while im passionately pissed off about the way identity politics has infected this industry i am more than welcome to more females joining the industry and more than hapoy to see the broculture fuck right off.

[albinofrenchy]

What University has 100 to 1? That's way, way more unbalanced than the typical cs program.

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

> All you need to do is to pick more carefully (invest more resources, etc.).

This needs fleshing out. One goal is to give equal preference to equally deserving candidates, say candidates with individual score x, regardless of their group membership. It's not clear that you can pick based solely on score x and still achieve that goal, no matter how carefully you pick. If you're picking on x and group membership, you're harming one group of people with score x (assuming a fixed headcount, where advantaging one person means disadvantaging another).

[jashmatthews]

It’s not hard to imagine that Google simply hired an enormous outsized chunk of the top female talent via outreach and just making vastly better offers to industry leading women.

[jashmatthews]

At the time, a Googler explained here how they did it without doing either a or b https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14957764

[dx87]

Their description of what recruiters do seems like discrimination. They said that recruiters would deliberately go out of their way to find diversity candidates, instead of treating everyone equal. That matches up with a leaked email where the recruiters were told to stop processing candidates who weren't diversity hires.

[mrep]

Dropbox gives recruiters a diverse bonus equal to the difference between hiring an entry level IC1 and an IC6 (senior staff engineer) [0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22741024

[waheoo]

Google and where i work both benefit greatly from having increased diversity. It massively improves business outcomes over the monoculture culture we used to strive for.

My take is that when you optimize for equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity you break something at the opportunity end (its either or, not both.)

Regarding a or b, this is mostly b, lowering the bar. But its also a, sexual discrimination.

If you think its not, please explain how you think it would go down if google was focusing hiring efforts to hire white males because they wanted to match the current male to female ratio seen in engineering schools and currently have too many females in the office.

Because i fail to see how aiming to hire more females than the industry schools can bare simply because there are too many men in the office is anything but sexist.

[manigandham]

Maybe one day people can stop looking at immutable physical characteristics like sex and skin color. Until then it's all discrimination by another name.

[xiphias2]

At Google casting doubt was a good in the early days. Even in search relevance of the results were the most important factor, even if it meant much less clicks, and the culture that Eric Schmidt created with the founders reflected that.

Nowadays I think it's a better strategy at Google to not discuss if you don't agree with its policies. It's still a great workplace as long as you can discard politics.

[jpdb]

> It's still a great workplace as long as you can discard politics.

There are large swathes of people who can't just "discard politics" because they are directly affected by the current political status quo.

[free_rms]

Sorry, but if you're talking about Googlers, that's bullshit, they're fine. 200k/yr, 300k/yr+ worth of fine.

It's great to have empathy for people in a less fortunate position, and yes we have a lot of problems in our society, but FAANG software engineers are arguably the least oppressed people on the planet.

[jpdb]

Is this a class reductionist argument? Are you saying, for example, a black women at Google doesn't deal with adversity and is no longer effected by politics because they make a large amount of money?

[dragonwriter]

> FAANG software engineers are arguably the least oppressed people on the planet.

Heterosexual cisgender white christian male FAANG software engineers may be. Racism and other bigotry doesn't stop affecting you because of economic class or other social position of advantage orthogonal to the basis of the bigotry.

Similarly, police officers are also a relatively privileged group of people, but 90% of mistaken identity shootings of off-duty police by police between 1982 and 2010 were shootings of black or hispanic officers.

[zozbot234]

That's actually not what "false negative rate" means - what he's trying to say is that you can find more candidates which are just as good, because you're putting more effort into searching for them. But of course it's an easy thing to miss, especially if you're not familiar with that terminology - and with existing tech-hiring practices that accept a higher false-negative rate to begin with. Damore never expected his memo to be spread as widely as it was, and this ongoing confusion is part of how it became such a political hot potato.

[koheripbal]

"cast doubt". That's a weasel word, because he said nothing of the sort.

[smitty1e]

And the lady engineers should put out some great work in reply and refute him.

[Nitramp]

That's not good.

Imagine how you'd feel. Imagine people would generally claim that someone who looks like you is a bad engineer (say, someone with your hair color). And then imagine that people would expect you to constantly disprove that assumption, just because of your hair color.

You'd be on the edge all the time. You'd never feel at home in the field. And whenever you interact with someone who doesn't have past work experience with you, they'd still assume you're a bad engineer.

[smitty1e]

I can't understand how doing great work isn't a great thing.

As the moderation bears witness, we live in an age where positive is somehow negative.

[Udik]

But don't you think that the fairer the selection (blind to things such as gender, race or politics) the more confidence you'd have that you deserve to be in the position you are? How does a woman engineer should feel, knowing she was given a boost in the selection process by some kind of affirmative action? Isn't that in itself a source of uncertainty?

[JoeSmithson]

Have a lot of female programmers told you about the unfair advantages they feel they have in the field?

[Udik]

Not sure what you mean. All the female programmers I've come across had been hired without receiving any boost from an affirmative action program. Had I worked in a company that gave a score boost to candidates belonging to any group X, I could have the legitimate doubt that without the boost some of the people in the group X wouldn't have been hired. It's simply a necessary consequence of the affirmative action.

[manigandham]

No, the summary is that men and women have different interests (in average across billions) which creates a tendency to choose different professions. This division is even more pronounced in the most egalitarian and free societies.

Lack of interest in a subject does not mean a lack of capability.

[dirtydroog]

Would you hire someone who was really good at something but hated doing it?

[manigandham]

How would I know someone hated doing something? How would they be really good at something by investing time and effort if they hated it? Any why would they apply for that position?

But all things being equal, I would rather hire the person who is more motivated and interested in the field than the person who isn't because skills can be learned and motivation produces results.

[magic5227]

If a society tells a woman she's not likely as interested in something, guess what profession she is more likely to choose? Not the one she's being told she won't be happy with.

[alexpetralia]

Is there any evidence that would convince you that interests can diverge, independent of society (nurture)? Your argument relies on the assumption (yes, an assumption, not evidence) that society exclusively determines our interests. You do not admit a role for biology. There is little scientific evidence that supports this view.

[magic5227]

I didn't say "society exclusively determines our interests"

my point was pretty simple. If society at large, in ways small and big, encourage women from joining a field, I think it's likely fewer will participate.

This is the argument behind Sheryl Sandberg creating stock photos that demonstrate more inclusion. If all I see are white men with grey hair in photos as doctors, don't you think that might bias women to think that's who doctors are? That's not 100% of what influences an interest, but it's an important one.

https://www.gettyimages.com/collections/leanin

[magic5227]

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-11115-001

Current research generally does not find evidence that variations in preferences, psychology, or personality stem from genetic or biological factors. Rather, they’re primarily attributed to culture and socialization.

[reroute1]

Actually the abstract points out that this hypothesis is one going against the largely held scientific view of biological factors and gender differences...

A rebuttal a year later in the related section points out omissions from this paper and offers a deeper perspective on the differences

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-11202-013

[Khaine]

You mean like that in more gender equal societies, women are less likely to pursue a degree in STEM. Its a well known phenomenon called the gender-paradox[1]

[1] http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/4753/6/symplectic-version....

[XorNot]

Is there any evidence (say, the numerous studies on this very topic) that would convince you that the pipeline of many careers has systemic discriminatory effects driving particular genders and races out of those fields?

[alexpetralia]

In fact, quite a bit! I am already convinced. If tribal associations would clarify, then I am more than likely "on your side."

Can you direct me to where I suggested there is no systematic career discrimination towards minorities? If that's how you interpreted my comment, then I apologize for that. There is absolutely substantial structural discrimination; I don't intend to minimize that.

The comment I was replying to did in fact specify as an assumption (the antecedent of the conditional) that "society tells a woman she's not likely as interested in something." This framing excludes the possibility that something else (namely biology) may affect a person's preferences.

I don't think that's a reasonable assumption - again, little scientific evidence supports that view. (Even intuition does not support that view: I don't think most people would argue that men for the most part are "brainwashed" by society to have sexual preferences for women. Likely some of this is biological; in fact, there is a good evolutionary reason for it!)

[amazingman]

What an oddly paternalistic point of view.

[joelhoffman]

People do form a lot of their personalities as small children, after all.

[james_s_tayler]

It also has a large genetic component at the same time.

[bobmcbobface]

Seriously, who in society is doing this?

20 years ago there was a lot less of a push for women in tech and you actually did hear lots of people espouse this view, now the programmes and encouragement is everywhere and the social cost of a different view is your job.

What is being argued and and what is happening don't seem to correlate.

[magic5227]

I don't think having a few programs or pr campaigns solves systemic bias. I guess to answer your question, ask women who are in tech or considered it if they experience bias.

I have, and I regularly hear depressing and disturbing examples.

[manigandham]

Wouldn't that apply to both sexes? Can you really tell someone what their interests are?

"happy with" is not the same as "interested in" however it seems like the last 2 decades have had a lot of focus on letting people follow their passion.

[jashmatthews]

The original memo is poorly written, poorly reasoned, and thinly veiled:

> Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

There is a huge difference between "women can't be good engineers" and "women are less likely to be good engineers", and he said the latter (while, IIRC, explicitly acknowledging that variance is high enough that it shouldn't influence decisions about individuals).

Edit: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideo... page 4 has a diagram at the top explicitly explaining that.

[high_derivative]

No, that's your political interpretation of it. You __choose__ to read it that way because then his punishment can be justified.

[coldtea]

>As someone that also read it, those arent the words he used, but that is very much what he was saying.

Ah, the classic "so you mean (something not said, and never meant)"...

[lawnchair_larry]

You can’t do that. You have to judge based on what was written, not what you’ve convinced yourself was an ulterior motive and dismissing his actual words as a facade. This behavior is so perplexing.

It is not what he was saying. Why do so many people absolutely insist on misinterpreting it to the point of willful distortion?

[ergothus]

You are literally describing critical thinking. To assume no one would lie, mislead, or even just be blind to their own biases is to be part of the problem.

How did I "convince myself of an ulterior motive"? I read what was written, and then I asked questions and did research. Are these studies he cites credible? [No]. Why would he bring these up? What motivations would be involved? How do the people he is talking about feel? Did he consider their feelings? If I were Google, what are my options, and what are the results of those options?

Dog-whistles and micro-aggressions thrive on failure to ask these questions. It empowers the status quo to entrench so long as they avoid the absolute most stark of statements.

[lawnchair_larry]

I tend to tune out once I see words like micro-aggression and dog-whistle. It has been my experience that people throwing these phrases around are too deeply immersed in their ideological war to assume any good faith at all in who they perceive as their opposition, which tends to a preclude any productive discussion. You’re wrong, by the way.

[reroute1]

That's not what he said it's what you project and transform his arguments into. What he said was factual and his concerns were legit and the over reaction was hilarious