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10 page anti-diversity screed circulating internally at Google

151 points by cszerzo 9y ago

logronoide 9y ago
Somebody should explain this guy that companies hire individuals. And these individuals can be men or women, just like they can be tall or short, fat or thin.
- factsaresacred 9y ago
  He covers that right at the beginning: > you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions. His screed is instead concerned with distribution across populations (such as Google's).
  - olliej 9y ago
    Somehow I don’t see a guy who says that women “in general” aren’t as technically capable giving similar weighting’s to a woman who went to a women’s college to a man who went elsewhere.
    - jorgemf 9y ago
      I think it is clear that he complains the company promote women over men to increase the diversity and that the company should look to the individual skills. That the reason of the difference in the diversity could be biological and not gender bias and that the company should study this as a possibility too. Not ignore it and try to equally the number of females and males in the company
1337biz 9y ago
Makes me actually respect Google! Would have not expected them having such an open culture that lets controversial viewpoints survive.
- jorgemf 9y ago
  Do you think the person who wrote this will survive (not being fired)?
  - ehsankia 9y ago
    I surely hope so. I think people should be allowed to discuss things like this in an open and civil manner, no matter how wrong or flawed their arguments are. As long as they are not openly hurting or disrespecting their coworkers, I don't see the issue with a document like this exploring ideas. When we promote "challenging ideas" and discussion, it applies to everyone, not only those we agree with.
    - wpietri 9y ago
      That you don't see the harm doesn't mean there's harm. If you would care to do a little work, you can find plenty of people explaining what the particular harm here is. You might also try studying history; you can find many examples of people civilly discussing absolutely horrific ideas that resulted in enormous harm to people. That civil discussion enabled the harm.
      - jorgemf 9y ago
        I am scared of your response, do yo mean we cannot discuss things because of the consequences? even if we try to improve and fix things with the discussion?
        wpietri 9y ago
        It depends on the discussion. If you would like to civilly promote your notion that black people aren't really human and are only fit to be slaves, then no, we can't do that. If you bring it up I will tell you are an asshole, and if you persist, I will shun you and tell everybody else to shun you. You are free to say terrible things. I am free to exercise freedom of speech and freedom of association in response. Your freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. If you are scared of that, then maybe take some time to think about the opinions you're so excited to share. Maybe they're harmful to others.
joycey 9y ago
Anyone who says that this guy's opinion shouldn't matter should consider that he likely interviews female candidates, sits on hiring committees that evaluate female candidates, decides whether or not female engineers get promoted, etc.
- remarkEon 9y ago
  I'm sorry, but you're mischaracterizing what he wrote and by doing that making his point. There's no "genetic predisposition" for not liking tech, but there are biological differences between the sexes that affect a great many things and he's arguing that career choice might be one of them - which seems a pretty boring observation to me to be quite honest. I think it's weird that you've extrapolated that to conclude that he'll be discriminating against women in hiring decisions.
- jorgemf 9y ago
  This guy is saying he would hire the best candidate regardless of gender or other byas. He wont promote women over men just because they are women, he will look at the individual skills and select the fittest for the position. Note: He is also saying that leadership and tech skills are more frequent in men than in women and that the biology could be the reason. I once heard a scientist (female) in this area that it is stupid to think that the brains of males and females are the same when clearly the evolution make males and females so biological differents that the brain cannot be the only exception when it is the more complex organ in our bodies.
Moshe_Silnorin 9y ago
Deleted
- jazoom 9y ago
  Can you please expand on the moving to Singapore part?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jorgemf 9y ago
> I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions. What are your opinions about this? Do you think biological differences leads to social differences (not only gender but race, height, etc)? Do our "intelligences" [1] differ based on our gender? [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligenc... [2] https://www.elsevier.com/connect/can-brain-biology-explain-why-men-and-women-think-and-act-differently https://www.elsevier.com/connect/can-brain-biology-explain-w...
- remarkEon 9y ago
  How can they not? It's an optimization problem, of sorts, from an evolutionary psychology prospective.
- Noxchi 9y ago
  I recommend this documentary which goes into that question https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask
  - jorgemf 9y ago
    I already saw it and that is why I am asking people here. And thanks so much because I was searching for it and couldn't find it. This is my favorite part (her response): https://youtu.be/cVaTc15plVs?t=1851 https://youtu.be/cVaTc15plVs?t=1851
- freshhawk 9y ago
  I often ask people who talk about this two simple questions: - Is the extreme sex disparity in the prison population in the United States a result of a massive system of anti-male oppression or a result of population level sex differences between men and women. - How do you interpret the experiences of trans people on hormones who experience their personalities change after taking hormones. I'll admit it is a bit of a cheap shot, those are carefully chosen to cause cognitive dissonance, but that's an effective tool for getting people to clarify their opinions.
remarkEon 9y ago
>Microaggression training incorrectly and dangerously equates speech with violence and isn’t backed by evidence. This is something that's part of "training" at Google?
- trav4225 9y ago
  In my experience, this is standard "training" almost everywhere.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
sattoshi 9y ago
Diversity always seems like a silly objective. Of all things, why focus on race and gender? How about hairstyle? Why not height? Maybe I feel like my weight is not represented fairly! I'm just poking fun. Those aren't real questions. The author promotes the only diversity that matters: diversity of thought. Anything else should at worst a proxy to get some.
- jorgemf 9y ago
  I think we split based on gender and race because those are clear discriminators. Height or hairstyle are more fuzzy, and probably biologically less relevants to adapt to the environment. Probably height is more relevant for leadership than gender: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368430212437211 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368430212437211
  - sattoshi 9y ago
    How are those less clear discriminators? I am sure I could find a study showing that attractive people have a better shot at getting the job. Height is attractive.
    - jorgemf 9y ago
      When I said clear discriminator I mean they are binary: either make or female, either black or white. Height or attractiveness are more diffuse for some people you can be tall/attractive but not for others. Gender and race are clear. In my opinion height or attractiveness play a role in the society (a big role), but it is easier to talk about gender or race because the clear distinction, bigger represented groups and historical reasons.
      - sattoshi 9y ago
        >but it is easier to talk about gender or race It's intellectual laziness.
- skybrian 9y ago
mcphage 9y ago
Simple response to his thesis: there used to be more women in programming... back when it was harder.
- jorgemf 9y ago
  was it harder before? Are you sure? I think your response doesn't change his argument, before tech was less relevant for the economy, so it was less stressful and had less status. That is why it wasn't interesting for men to get into it and preferred other jobs with more status and stress (and bigger salaries). But now the top companies are tech companies.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    Less status, absolutely. But much harder. We work at such a high level of abstraction,we don't need to care about our resource usage much, we don't need to care much about what the machine is doing, we don't have to write everything ourselves because there are thousands of powerful libraries available for free. So yes. Before, programming was hard, and low status. Now it's easy and high status, and men think that women aren't there because it's too hard. No, they were there when it was hard.
    - jorgemf 9y ago
      > men think that women aren't there because it's too hard Who thinks that? Hard is something relative. The author says that men could be more prepared to tech because a biological predisposition that makes tech easier positions for them (better abstract thinking and more tolerance for stress, for example), while women are more prepared for other things likes taking care of others (because they are better in socializing and empathy). As tech became more competitive the women just left it for other things while men get into to get more status.
      - mcphage 9y ago
        If you think that programming is a more stressful job than traditionally female jobs like nurse, teacher, or childrearing, then I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
zilchers 9y ago
If you haven't, read and listen to this excellent podcast: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... The gender issues from this paper have been pretty well hashed out, but one really interesting thing, he makes the point about being conservative at a tech company. I actually think this is a bit misleading. I know a large number of tech people who would consider themselves libertarian (fiscally conservative), but NOT socially conservative. So, at least from my experience, I have to interpret his comments about conservatives vs. progressives as about social conservative, in which case I would say he does himself a disservice - a lot of the modern American social conservative movement is explicitly about exclusion and is anti-diversity. So, I think it's fair to say, if you're socially conservative and subscribe to the modern platform (believing LGBTQ individuals don't deserve full rights, for instance), it may be expected to feel a bit uncomfortable at a tech company, just like I would probably feel uncomfortable working for a defense contractor.
EGreg 9y ago
I recommend to all gender warriors on either side of the debate to read this talk given by Baumeister, which later became a book by Baumeister + Tice. It has a lot of insights into origins of the differences between men and women. http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm One should not discount the additional biased inherent in the discussion, by the way. This is the corporate world and people are talking about selling their time or money. Perhaps one answer to all this is to opt out of the full-time corporate treadmill, start your own business or be self-employed.
meowface 9y ago
This document conveys its message poorly and comes across as far less neutral than I think it's intending to be. It raises some valid points, but it kind of feels like an extremely hamfisted interpretation of a recent blog post by Scott Alexander: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-mostly-not-due-to-offensive-attitudes/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-m... I don't think Google's official response to it is very good either, though.
- wrinkl3 9y ago
  Yup, definitely sounded like a SSC reader attempting to channel Alexander.
- ElmntOfSurprise 9y ago
  "Not writing as well as Scott Alexander" is a pretty high bar you're setting there. While the document may have been influenced by that post, and while both authors seem to have a similar "non-feminist left" political position, it has a different focus: Acknowledge people's natural strengths, weaknesses, preferences and accept diversity of political views vs. influence of sexist microagressions on gender representation.
nyxtom 9y ago
Probably would of been a good idea to have references to all those claims.
- wolf550e 9y ago
  they were there but gizmodo removed them
amateurpolymath 9y ago
My impression when reading this was that the author intended it to be taken seriously. It is written with a decidedly "academic" tone. However, it is very light on actual research and evidence. Author says "Humans are inherently cooperative" is a bias on the Left. Where does this come from? More unsourced claims that strike me as suspect: "Respect for the strong/authority" is a bias on the Right. Women have more "Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness."
- billf1953 9y ago
  Really it's debatable that people work together? I get bias but seriously this is like saying I have a Left bias because I think the Earth is round.
  - thisiszilff 9y ago
    It seems to be saying that left bias is "people prefer to cooperation over pure self-interest/working on their own." Obviously sometimes cooperation is in your self-interest, but its the difference between thinking that employees will do what's best for the company and employees will do what's best for themselves. The right bias is that they are primarily self-interested while the left is that they see the groups interests as a priority.
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Turns out when software engineers try to do psych and sociology research they don't tend to know what they are talking about. These are real fields with real expertise and the author of this thing thinks that he has figured it all out.
- jack9 9y ago
  > However, it is very light on actual research No, the research exists in some cases, but the content of an internal informal document obviously doesn't require a rigorous (redundant) academic format. If you can't Google, it probably wasn't intended for you anyway. The comment about women ranking higher (in general) for agreeableness is statistically true. However, the reasoning for why is up for debate and has been well considered... A neuroscience/evolutionary theory in plain english: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewvqEqIXdhU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewvqEqIXdhU
abalone 9y ago
This is not merely sexist. Amidst his rambling "evolutionary psychology" argument he also protests racial diversity programs.[1] And his explanation for that? It's buried here: "Left tends to deny science concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ and sex differences)." (emphasis mine) So women are bad at programming because of evolution and non-whites/asians are bad at it because they're dumb. According to science. Does dressing this up in pseudo-academic prose make it any less racist? [1] "Stretch, BOLD, CSSI, Engineering Practicum (to an extent), and several other Google funded internal and external programs are for people with a certain gender or race"
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  Why did you say women are bad at programming because of evolution and non-whites/asians are bad at it because they're dumb? I read his paper 3 times, and from what I can tell, that claim didn't exist until you made it. This is why we can't have honest conversations. By all means, disagree with things that he is saying, and engage him on any points that you feel need to be corrected. But don't disagree with things he quite obviously isn't saying. That doesn't get us anywhere.
  - npxcomplete 9y ago
    Strawman bump
  - abalone 9y ago
    > I read his paper 3 times, and from what I can tell, that claim didn't exist until you made it. I literally directly cited the "paper", as you call it. Specifically "evolutionary psychology" and "IQ" explaining the gender and race performance gaps, respectively.
- brandonhsiao 9y ago
  I guess I don't understand this passionate need to immediately call statements sexist/racist simply because they relate to sex and race. Like, is the statement true or not? If not, why not first call it false (something we can all discuss), and then make inferences about the speaker's moral intentions (inherently speculative)?
npxcomplete 9y ago
My interpretation is that the author is cheifly concerned with two points: that biology impacts performance, and that dissenting views in Google are at time met with hostility that is more political reflex than it is critical countenance. The first point should be obviously true, however we live in a time were identity politics on the left tries to shout down any but the hard line reaction to biological determinism. Both extremes are false and saying so should not be controversial. "There are differences between the sexes." This is a statement about populations not individuals. It is also not a claim of causes only the current state of affairs. Of all the coworkers I've had in tech, women make up a strong majority of the top 10. Yet of all the women I've known most weren't driven to excel to the same level of most men I've known. Whether you blame culture or biology for that sexism play A role, not the ONLY role in creating the gender discrepancy we see in the fields of STEM and executive management.
- biocomputation 9y ago
  First you say this: >> for that sexism play A role, not the ONLY role in creating the gender discrepancy Then you say this: >> Yet of all the women I've known most weren't driven to excel to the same level of most men I've known. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in that I'm going to assume that it wasn't your intention to make a disturbingly sexist remark in a discussion about sexism. You can replace women with African-American, and what you wrote sounds an awful lot like the racist drivel that came out of the South for 200 years. If anything, the author of the memo's attempts to argue that there is some biological basis for discrimination only serve to weaken his position. Furthermore, this 'biological differences basis' for discrimination eventually leads us to eugenics if taken to its illogical extreme. And yes, people have taken it that far in the not so recent past. In the cases where what you wrote is even partially true, that some women (appear on the surface) to be less ambitious and less driven than men, did you ever stop to ask yourself why? I've worked in tech my entire career, and I've witnessed appalling sexism. I have watched with my own eyes while women suffered humiliations like being told things like "no one invites you to meetings because you can't keep anything secret". Then there are things like code reviews. At work we recently had to institute a 'no abusive code review' policy because a small cadre of the men were using the code review process to hammer several of the few female engineers we've managed to somehow convince to come work for us. Like most places, our workplace policies are required largely due to behavior that was originated by men. It seems like it's awfully easy to forget that women are half our species! How can anyone in their right mind think that sexism, unconscious or otherwise, is okay? How can anyone think that it's because 'women are less driven to succeed'? How can anyone think this when half their DNA comes from a man and the other half from a woman? As a gay man (a gender/sexual minority), I can actually relate to how awful it feels to be treated like a second class citizen simply because of something that I do not feel like I can change (my sexual orientation). I'm not sure how much money it has cost me, but at the very least it has cost me the difference in filing single vs. filing jointly for the first 17 years of my marriage. Women pay similar costs when they're paid less over the course of their career, and/or when they're denied promotions for 'being ambitious'. The attitude that underlies your comment -that you could actually believe that what you wrote is true and somehow justifies unequal treatment- is utterly, totally, and exactly why we need the programs the author of the now infamous memo argues against.
hw 9y ago
Let's take gender, race, food preference out of the equation. Say a person with qualities A and another person with qualities B both interview at a company. Turns out that at the company (and in the industry in general, type Bs are a minority), and there's a movement to hire more of type Bs. If type A did better in an interview than type B, but the company ended up hiring a type B because of the whole diversity thing, is that considered a bad thing? Wouldn't that be considered preferential treatment? Why are there company initiatives or programs for B but not for A. As someone who is of type B, I feel offended that there are 'initiatives' that help me get jobs at companies. I dont need my hand held or the job given to me just because i'm the only B applicant in a pool of 10 applicants
- closeparen 9y ago
  It doesn't make any sense in the context of an arbitrary type A and B free of historical baggage. The idea is that we type As have, on balance, experienced more "luck" and preferential treatment in our favor than type Bs because we are type As, so some artifically injected disfavor pushes the overall system closer to balance. It's fighting unfairness with unfairness in the opposite direction. I was born to well-employed, college-educated parents in a stable marriage, moved to my childhood home specifically for its excellent school district, had plenty of quiet space and encouragement to do homework, funded through a top-5 university, etc. I've capitalized on those advantages and done quite well, but I didn't earn them. I don't mind when some of the competitive power I merely inherited is transferred to someone who inherited none. Probably they worked even harder, they just started lower.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
    The white kids with single mothers in the trailer park who have fought for a chance to apply for these jobs might like a word with you.
    - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
ankushnarula 9y ago
A 2011 Norwegian documentary series had an episode called "The Gender Paradox"[1] that examined this very issue in depth with interviews with evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists and sociologists. It arrived at the conclusion that employment disparities increase in many professional fields due to natural divergent proclivities when socio-economic opportunities become equal for the sexes. ON AVERAGE in Norway (one of the top 5 most equal countries), females prefer more people-oriented fields such as medicine and males will favor more systems-oriented fields such as engineering. Again, this is ON AVERAGE. There are major overlaps in many fields (e.g. arts and research sciences) - and in some fields there is virtually none (e.g. nursing vs sanitation). This is not controversial amongst scientists who do their best to suspend ideological or wishful thinking. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70
wonderwonder 9y ago
I can understand the authors point of view but he presents several points as fact but provides no links to data supporting those points so they come across as stereotypical generalizations. That women and people of color have been historically discriminated against and in many cases still are cannot be denied, especially in my personal experience, women of color. I have seen this both in tech and outside of it. Is there a biological or chemical component to people excelling in certain fields? I have no idea but people must be judged as individuals not on any conceived notions of gender or race. I am a white guy and there are tons of women and people of color who are brighter than me or better than me at what I do. They should not be denied a role over me because an interviewer does not like their gender or ethnicity. If they are better than me they should get the position, period. On the other hand, I am white with two white sons. I in no way agree with hiring practices or college admission policies that would put my kids at a disadvantage based on the color of their skin or gender. If my kids want to go to an ivy league school, and they invest the time and effort to to attain entry they should be granted it. I would be furious if they were declined in favor of another student if that student had worse grades and entry test level scores but were chosen based on the color of their skin. I would be very resentful. If there is an issue with interviewers showing bias, we need to address that, not establish quotas which disadvantage others. A good solution should never involve pulling others down, a good solution lifts everyone. Bad solutions spread resentment. We need to stop judging others on what they are and focus on who they are. I don't claim to be smart enough or educated enough to know the solution but i do know what it should feel like, it should feel like a good thing to all individuals. All individuals, not parties because we are all unique and should be treated and judged as such. Edit: Personal story. I was in charge of hiring for a role in a non tech position. I interviewed several people for the position. My favorite was a black woman, she was awesome; smart and driven. I was over ruled by my director in favor of a decidedly less intelligent attractive white woman. His choice was fired after 6 months for poor performance and inappropriate behavior. Racism is absolutely alive and well in hiring. I think the solution needs to be addressed on the hiring manager level though, not by artificial quotas. By the same token that black woman was absolutely discriminated against. I don't have the answers and all of the above is just the opinion of one person.
- chippy 9y ago
nyxtom 9y ago
While some of the points are worth exploring, and have actually with Google's own research (aka psychology safety and Google's project Aristotle on what makes a great team), much of this essay becomes immediately discredited by creating suspect on the premise of questioning employment opportunities for women. I thought about this a bit but let's say it was indeed a factor of employment and advancements over some men in roles. There is signifant research on the benefits of a diverse culture. Decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups. I would argue that it isn't a problem that diverse members are indeed advanced because of ONE of the factors being their contribution to a diverse group. That doesn't negate the necessity that they must also be good at their job. Furthermore, great engineers are people oriented. Anyone can learn how to write code, but it takes skill to hone in on necessary insights that deal with people, interaction, and the nature of finding solutions that I suspect are meant to help people.
- marcell 9y ago
  > Decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups. Can you point to the two or three best studies showing this? It seems really hard to study objectively--how do you measure innovativeness? how do you control for all sorts of potentially confounding variable?
nyxtom 9y ago
It's hard to have a serious discussion on merit based employment in a culture of "rest and vest" where employees literally do nothing. http://www.businessinsider.com/rest-and-vest-millionaire-engineers-who-barely-work-silicon-valley-2017-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/rest-and-vest-millionaire-eng...
harvardanon 9y ago
For some context, you might be interested to know that the author "left" his PhD program in part due to fallout from a department-wide presentation where he discussed masturbating to his female colleagues.

151 points by cszerzo 9y ago

Somebody should explain this guy that companies hire individuals. And these individuals can be men or women, just like they can be tall or short, fat or thin.

factsaresacred 9y ago
He covers that right at the beginning: > you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions. His screed is instead concerned with distribution across populations (such as Google's).
- olliej 9y ago
  Somehow I don’t see a guy who says that women “in general” aren’t as technically capable giving similar weighting’s to a woman who went to a women’s college to a man who went elsewhere.
  - jorgemf 9y ago
    I think it is clear that he complains the company promote women over men to increase the diversity and that the company should look to the individual skills. That the reason of the difference in the diversity could be biological and not gender bias and that the company should study this as a possibility too. Not ignore it and try to equally the number of females and males in the company

1337biz 9y ago

Makes me actually respect Google! Would have not expected them having such an open culture that lets controversial viewpoints survive.

jorgemf 9y ago
Do you think the person who wrote this will survive (not being fired)?
- ehsankia 9y ago
  I surely hope so. I think people should be allowed to discuss things like this in an open and civil manner, no matter how wrong or flawed their arguments are. As long as they are not openly hurting or disrespecting their coworkers, I don't see the issue with a document like this exploring ideas. When we promote "challenging ideas" and discussion, it applies to everyone, not only those we agree with.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    That you don't see the harm doesn't mean there's harm. If you would care to do a little work, you can find plenty of people explaining what the particular harm here is. You might also try studying history; you can find many examples of people civilly discussing absolutely horrific ideas that resulted in enormous harm to people. That civil discussion enabled the harm.
    - jorgemf 9y ago
      I am scared of your response, do yo mean we cannot discuss things because of the consequences? even if we try to improve and fix things with the discussion?
      - wpietri 9y ago
        It depends on the discussion. If you would like to civilly promote your notion that black people aren't really human and are only fit to be slaves, then no, we can't do that. If you bring it up I will tell you are an asshole, and if you persist, I will shun you and tell everybody else to shun you. You are free to say terrible things. I am free to exercise freedom of speech and freedom of association in response. Your freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. If you are scared of that, then maybe take some time to think about the opinions you're so excited to share. Maybe they're harmful to others.

joycey 9y ago

Anyone who says that this guy's opinion shouldn't matter should consider that he likely interviews female candidates, sits on hiring committees that evaluate female candidates, decides whether or not female engineers get promoted, etc.

remarkEon 9y ago
I'm sorry, but you're mischaracterizing what he wrote and by doing that making his point. There's no "genetic predisposition" for not liking tech, but there are biological differences between the sexes that affect a great many things and he's arguing that career choice might be one of them - which seems a pretty boring observation to me to be quite honest. I think it's weird that you've extrapolated that to conclude that he'll be discriminating against women in hiring decisions.
jorgemf 9y ago
This guy is saying he would hire the best candidate regardless of gender or other byas. He wont promote women over men just because they are women, he will look at the individual skills and select the fittest for the position. Note: He is also saying that leadership and tech skills are more frequent in men than in women and that the biology could be the reason. I once heard a scientist (female) in this area that it is stupid to think that the brains of males and females are the same when clearly the evolution make males and females so biological differents that the brain cannot be the only exception when it is the more complex organ in our bodies.

Moshe_Silnorin 9y ago

Deleted

jazoom 9y ago
Can you please expand on the moving to Singapore part?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jorgemf 9y ago

> I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions. What are your opinions about this? Do you think biological differences leads to social differences (not only gender but race, height, etc)? Do our "intelligences" [1] differ based on our gender? [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligenc... [2] https://www.elsevier.com/connect/can-brain-biology-explain-why-men-and-women-think-and-act-differently https://www.elsevier.com/connect/can-brain-biology-explain-w...

remarkEon 9y ago
How can they not? It's an optimization problem, of sorts, from an evolutionary psychology prospective.
Noxchi 9y ago
I recommend this documentary which goes into that question https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask
- jorgemf 9y ago
  I already saw it and that is why I am asking people here. And thanks so much because I was searching for it and couldn't find it. This is my favorite part (her response): https://youtu.be/cVaTc15plVs?t=1851 https://youtu.be/cVaTc15plVs?t=1851
freshhawk 9y ago
I often ask people who talk about this two simple questions: - Is the extreme sex disparity in the prison population in the United States a result of a massive system of anti-male oppression or a result of population level sex differences between men and women. - How do you interpret the experiences of trans people on hormones who experience their personalities change after taking hormones. I'll admit it is a bit of a cheap shot, those are carefully chosen to cause cognitive dissonance, but that's an effective tool for getting people to clarify their opinions.

remarkEon 9y ago

>Microaggression training incorrectly and dangerously equates speech with violence and isn’t backed by evidence. This is something that's part of "training" at Google?

trav4225 9y ago
In my experience, this is standard "training" almost everywhere.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

sattoshi 9y ago

Diversity always seems like a silly objective. Of all things, why focus on race and gender? How about hairstyle? Why not height? Maybe I feel like my weight is not represented fairly! I'm just poking fun. Those aren't real questions. The author promotes the only diversity that matters: diversity of thought. Anything else should at worst a proxy to get some.

jorgemf 9y ago
I think we split based on gender and race because those are clear discriminators. Height or hairstyle are more fuzzy, and probably biologically less relevants to adapt to the environment. Probably height is more relevant for leadership than gender: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368430212437211 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368430212437211
- sattoshi 9y ago
  How are those less clear discriminators? I am sure I could find a study showing that attractive people have a better shot at getting the job. Height is attractive.
  - jorgemf 9y ago
    When I said clear discriminator I mean they are binary: either make or female, either black or white. Height or attractiveness are more diffuse for some people you can be tall/attractive but not for others. Gender and race are clear. In my opinion height or attractiveness play a role in the society (a big role), but it is easier to talk about gender or race because the clear distinction, bigger represented groups and historical reasons.
    - sattoshi 9y ago
      >but it is easier to talk about gender or race It's intellectual laziness.
skybrian 9y ago

mcphage 9y ago

Simple response to his thesis: there used to be more women in programming... back when it was harder.

jorgemf 9y ago
was it harder before? Are you sure? I think your response doesn't change his argument, before tech was less relevant for the economy, so it was less stressful and had less status. That is why it wasn't interesting for men to get into it and preferred other jobs with more status and stress (and bigger salaries). But now the top companies are tech companies.
- mcphage 9y ago
  Less status, absolutely. But much harder. We work at such a high level of abstraction,we don't need to care about our resource usage much, we don't need to care much about what the machine is doing, we don't have to write everything ourselves because there are thousands of powerful libraries available for free. So yes. Before, programming was hard, and low status. Now it's easy and high status, and men think that women aren't there because it's too hard. No, they were there when it was hard.
  - jorgemf 9y ago
    > men think that women aren't there because it's too hard Who thinks that? Hard is something relative. The author says that men could be more prepared to tech because a biological predisposition that makes tech easier positions for them (better abstract thinking and more tolerance for stress, for example), while women are more prepared for other things likes taking care of others (because they are better in socializing and empathy). As tech became more competitive the women just left it for other things while men get into to get more status.
    - mcphage 9y ago
      If you think that programming is a more stressful job than traditionally female jobs like nurse, teacher, or childrearing, then I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

zilchers 9y ago

If you haven't, read and listen to this excellent podcast: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... The gender issues from this paper have been pretty well hashed out, but one really interesting thing, he makes the point about being conservative at a tech company. I actually think this is a bit misleading. I know a large number of tech people who would consider themselves libertarian (fiscally conservative), but NOT socially conservative. So, at least from my experience, I have to interpret his comments about conservatives vs. progressives as about social conservative, in which case I would say he does himself a disservice - a lot of the modern American social conservative movement is explicitly about exclusion and is anti-diversity. So, I think it's fair to say, if you're socially conservative and subscribe to the modern platform (believing LGBTQ individuals don't deserve full rights, for instance), it may be expected to feel a bit uncomfortable at a tech company, just like I would probably feel uncomfortable working for a defense contractor.

EGreg 9y ago

I recommend to all gender warriors on either side of the debate to read this talk given by Baumeister, which later became a book by Baumeister + Tice. It has a lot of insights into origins of the differences between men and women. http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm One should not discount the additional biased inherent in the discussion, by the way. This is the corporate world and people are talking about selling their time or money. Perhaps one answer to all this is to opt out of the full-time corporate treadmill, start your own business or be self-employed.

meowface 9y ago

This document conveys its message poorly and comes across as far less neutral than I think it's intending to be. It raises some valid points, but it kind of feels like an extremely hamfisted interpretation of a recent blog post by Scott Alexander: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-mostly-not-due-to-offensive-attitudes/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/01/gender-imbalances-are-m... I don't think Google's official response to it is very good either, though.

wrinkl3 9y ago
Yup, definitely sounded like a SSC reader attempting to channel Alexander.
ElmntOfSurprise 9y ago
"Not writing as well as Scott Alexander" is a pretty high bar you're setting there. While the document may have been influenced by that post, and while both authors seem to have a similar "non-feminist left" political position, it has a different focus: Acknowledge people's natural strengths, weaknesses, preferences and accept diversity of political views vs. influence of sexist microagressions on gender representation.

nyxtom 9y ago

Probably would of been a good idea to have references to all those claims.

wolf550e 9y ago
they were there but gizmodo removed them

amateurpolymath 9y ago

My impression when reading this was that the author intended it to be taken seriously. It is written with a decidedly "academic" tone. However, it is very light on actual research and evidence. Author says "Humans are inherently cooperative" is a bias on the Left. Where does this come from? More unsourced claims that strike me as suspect: "Respect for the strong/authority" is a bias on the Right. Women have more "Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness."

billf1953 9y ago
Really it's debatable that people work together? I get bias but seriously this is like saying I have a Left bias because I think the Earth is round.
- thisiszilff 9y ago
  It seems to be saying that left bias is "people prefer to cooperation over pure self-interest/working on their own." Obviously sometimes cooperation is in your self-interest, but its the difference between thinking that employees will do what's best for the company and employees will do what's best for themselves. The right bias is that they are primarily self-interested while the left is that they see the groups interests as a priority.
UncleMeat 9y ago
Turns out when software engineers try to do psych and sociology research they don't tend to know what they are talking about. These are real fields with real expertise and the author of this thing thinks that he has figured it all out.
jack9 9y ago
> However, it is very light on actual research No, the research exists in some cases, but the content of an internal informal document obviously doesn't require a rigorous (redundant) academic format. If you can't Google, it probably wasn't intended for you anyway. The comment about women ranking higher (in general) for agreeableness is statistically true. However, the reasoning for why is up for debate and has been well considered... A neuroscience/evolutionary theory in plain english: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewvqEqIXdhU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewvqEqIXdhU

abalone 9y ago

This is not merely sexist. Amidst his rambling "evolutionary psychology" argument he also protests racial diversity programs.[1] And his explanation for that? It's buried here: "Left tends to deny science concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ and sex differences)." (emphasis mine) So women are bad at programming because of evolution and non-whites/asians are bad at it because they're dumb. According to science. Does dressing this up in pseudo-academic prose make it any less racist? [1] "Stretch, BOLD, CSSI, Engineering Practicum (to an extent), and several other Google funded internal and external programs are for people with a certain gender or race"

lawnchair_larry 9y ago
Why did you say women are bad at programming because of evolution and non-whites/asians are bad at it because they're dumb? I read his paper 3 times, and from what I can tell, that claim didn't exist until you made it. This is why we can't have honest conversations. By all means, disagree with things that he is saying, and engage him on any points that you feel need to be corrected. But don't disagree with things he quite obviously isn't saying. That doesn't get us anywhere.
- npxcomplete 9y ago
  Strawman bump
- abalone 9y ago
  > I read his paper 3 times, and from what I can tell, that claim didn't exist until you made it. I literally directly cited the "paper", as you call it. Specifically "evolutionary psychology" and "IQ" explaining the gender and race performance gaps, respectively.
brandonhsiao 9y ago
I guess I don't understand this passionate need to immediately call statements sexist/racist simply because they relate to sex and race. Like, is the statement true or not? If not, why not first call it false (something we can all discuss), and then make inferences about the speaker's moral intentions (inherently speculative)?

npxcomplete 9y ago

My interpretation is that the author is cheifly concerned with two points: that biology impacts performance, and that dissenting views in Google are at time met with hostility that is more political reflex than it is critical countenance. The first point should be obviously true, however we live in a time were identity politics on the left tries to shout down any but the hard line reaction to biological determinism. Both extremes are false and saying so should not be controversial. "There are differences between the sexes." This is a statement about populations not individuals. It is also not a claim of causes only the current state of affairs. Of all the coworkers I've had in tech, women make up a strong majority of the top 10. Yet of all the women I've known most weren't driven to excel to the same level of most men I've known. Whether you blame culture or biology for that sexism play A role, not the ONLY role in creating the gender discrepancy we see in the fields of STEM and executive management.

biocomputation 9y ago
First you say this: >> for that sexism play A role, not the ONLY role in creating the gender discrepancy Then you say this: >> Yet of all the women I've known most weren't driven to excel to the same level of most men I've known. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in that I'm going to assume that it wasn't your intention to make a disturbingly sexist remark in a discussion about sexism. You can replace women with African-American, and what you wrote sounds an awful lot like the racist drivel that came out of the South for 200 years. If anything, the author of the memo's attempts to argue that there is some biological basis for discrimination only serve to weaken his position. Furthermore, this 'biological differences basis' for discrimination eventually leads us to eugenics if taken to its illogical extreme. And yes, people have taken it that far in the not so recent past. In the cases where what you wrote is even partially true, that some women (appear on the surface) to be less ambitious and less driven than men, did you ever stop to ask yourself why? I've worked in tech my entire career, and I've witnessed appalling sexism. I have watched with my own eyes while women suffered humiliations like being told things like "no one invites you to meetings because you can't keep anything secret". Then there are things like code reviews. At work we recently had to institute a 'no abusive code review' policy because a small cadre of the men were using the code review process to hammer several of the few female engineers we've managed to somehow convince to come work for us. Like most places, our workplace policies are required largely due to behavior that was originated by men. It seems like it's awfully easy to forget that women are half our species! How can anyone in their right mind think that sexism, unconscious or otherwise, is okay? How can anyone think that it's because 'women are less driven to succeed'? How can anyone think this when half their DNA comes from a man and the other half from a woman? As a gay man (a gender/sexual minority), I can actually relate to how awful it feels to be treated like a second class citizen simply because of something that I do not feel like I can change (my sexual orientation). I'm not sure how much money it has cost me, but at the very least it has cost me the difference in filing single vs. filing jointly for the first 17 years of my marriage. Women pay similar costs when they're paid less over the course of their career, and/or when they're denied promotions for 'being ambitious'. The attitude that underlies your comment -that you could actually believe that what you wrote is true and somehow justifies unequal treatment- is utterly, totally, and exactly why we need the programs the author of the now infamous memo argues against.

hw 9y ago

Let's take gender, race, food preference out of the equation. Say a person with qualities A and another person with qualities B both interview at a company. Turns out that at the company (and in the industry in general, type Bs are a minority), and there's a movement to hire more of type Bs. If type A did better in an interview than type B, but the company ended up hiring a type B because of the whole diversity thing, is that considered a bad thing? Wouldn't that be considered preferential treatment? Why are there company initiatives or programs for B but not for A. As someone who is of type B, I feel offended that there are 'initiatives' that help me get jobs at companies. I dont need my hand held or the job given to me just because i'm the only B applicant in a pool of 10 applicants

closeparen 9y ago
It doesn't make any sense in the context of an arbitrary type A and B free of historical baggage. The idea is that we type As have, on balance, experienced more "luck" and preferential treatment in our favor than type Bs because we are type As, so some artifically injected disfavor pushes the overall system closer to balance. It's fighting unfairness with unfairness in the opposite direction. I was born to well-employed, college-educated parents in a stable marriage, moved to my childhood home specifically for its excellent school district, had plenty of quiet space and encouragement to do homework, funded through a top-5 university, etc. I've capitalized on those advantages and done quite well, but I didn't earn them. I don't mind when some of the competitive power I merely inherited is transferred to someone who inherited none. Probably they worked even harder, they just started lower.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  The white kids with single mothers in the trailer park who have fought for a chance to apply for these jobs might like a word with you.
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago

ankushnarula 9y ago

A 2011 Norwegian documentary series had an episode called "The Gender Paradox"[1] that examined this very issue in depth with interviews with evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists and sociologists. It arrived at the conclusion that employment disparities increase in many professional fields due to natural divergent proclivities when socio-economic opportunities become equal for the sexes. ON AVERAGE in Norway (one of the top 5 most equal countries), females prefer more people-oriented fields such as medicine and males will favor more systems-oriented fields such as engineering. Again, this is ON AVERAGE. There are major overlaps in many fields (e.g. arts and research sciences) - and in some fields there is virtually none (e.g. nursing vs sanitation). This is not controversial amongst scientists who do their best to suspend ideological or wishful thinking. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

wonderwonder 9y ago

I can understand the authors point of view but he presents several points as fact but provides no links to data supporting those points so they come across as stereotypical generalizations. That women and people of color have been historically discriminated against and in many cases still are cannot be denied, especially in my personal experience, women of color. I have seen this both in tech and outside of it. Is there a biological or chemical component to people excelling in certain fields? I have no idea but people must be judged as individuals not on any conceived notions of gender or race. I am a white guy and there are tons of women and people of color who are brighter than me or better than me at what I do. They should not be denied a role over me because an interviewer does not like their gender or ethnicity. If they are better than me they should get the position, period. On the other hand, I am white with two white sons. I in no way agree with hiring practices or college admission policies that would put my kids at a disadvantage based on the color of their skin or gender. If my kids want to go to an ivy league school, and they invest the time and effort to to attain entry they should be granted it. I would be furious if they were declined in favor of another student if that student had worse grades and entry test level scores but were chosen based on the color of their skin. I would be very resentful. If there is an issue with interviewers showing bias, we need to address that, not establish quotas which disadvantage others. A good solution should never involve pulling others down, a good solution lifts everyone. Bad solutions spread resentment. We need to stop judging others on what they are and focus on who they are. I don't claim to be smart enough or educated enough to know the solution but i do know what it should feel like, it should feel like a good thing to all individuals. All individuals, not parties because we are all unique and should be treated and judged as such. Edit: Personal story. I was in charge of hiring for a role in a non tech position. I interviewed several people for the position. My favorite was a black woman, she was awesome; smart and driven. I was over ruled by my director in favor of a decidedly less intelligent attractive white woman. His choice was fired after 6 months for poor performance and inappropriate behavior. Racism is absolutely alive and well in hiring. I think the solution needs to be addressed on the hiring manager level though, not by artificial quotas. By the same token that black woman was absolutely discriminated against. I don't have the answers and all of the above is just the opinion of one person.

chippy 9y ago

nyxtom 9y ago

While some of the points are worth exploring, and have actually with Google's own research (aka psychology safety and Google's project Aristotle on what makes a great team), much of this essay becomes immediately discredited by creating suspect on the premise of questioning employment opportunities for women. I thought about this a bit but let's say it was indeed a factor of employment and advancements over some men in roles. There is signifant research on the benefits of a diverse culture. Decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups. I would argue that it isn't a problem that diverse members are indeed advanced because of ONE of the factors being their contribution to a diverse group. That doesn't negate the necessity that they must also be good at their job. Furthermore, great engineers are people oriented. Anyone can learn how to write code, but it takes skill to hone in on necessary insights that deal with people, interaction, and the nature of finding solutions that I suspect are meant to help people.

marcell 9y ago
> Decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups. Can you point to the two or three best studies showing this? It seems really hard to study objectively--how do you measure innovativeness? how do you control for all sorts of potentially confounding variable?

nyxtom 9y ago

It's hard to have a serious discussion on merit based employment in a culture of "rest and vest" where employees literally do nothing. http://www.businessinsider.com/rest-and-vest-millionaire-engineers-who-barely-work-silicon-valley-2017-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/rest-and-vest-millionaire-eng...

harvardanon 9y ago

For some context, you might be interested to know that the author "left" his PhD program in part due to fallout from a department-wide presentation where he discussed masturbating to his female colleagues.