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This feels like the blue and black (white and gold) dress. It boggles my mind that people don't see the fundamental and toxic misogyny in this 'manifesto'. Plea

This feels like the blue and black (white and gold) dress. It boggles my mind that people don't see the fundamental and toxic misogyny in this 'manifesto'. Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece. The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of years of doing just this in order to oppress and disenfranchise groups of people. Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach and working against institutionalized racism and sexism which has created the distribution of wealth and education and work culture that we have today. Given the massive disparity we see in tech it's ridiculous that this individual felt the need to lambast the relatively minimal amount of work being done to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture across the industry. If one of the things you have to deal with as a woman in tech is seeing 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles published at one of the premier tech companies in the world, and then see that piece supported on the most popular tech social sites then it's no wonder we have the gender gap we see today. When somebody's views are being attacked for being misogynistic and alienating to their female colleagues, it is not suppression of free speech and diverse political opinion it is common decency. Nobody is infringing on your free speech but they will respond. All of these cries of 'authoritarian left-wing thought-police' makes me think We need a manifesto on White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech. [disclaimer: I work at Google, my words are my own and not my employers]

hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach and working against institutionalized racism and sexism which has created the distribution of wealth and education and work culture that we have today. I guess the one challenge I would put to this is that I find it difficult to believe that East Asians or Indians have been on the receiving end of any less discrimination than, say, Hispanics in the US, but yet they are now vastly over-represented in tech compared to their population statistics at large. They are so over-represented that they are now clearly discriminated against in areas such as college admissions at top tier universities, where being Asian essentially raises the requisite SAT bar by about 50 points. You may think there needs to be a manifesto on a "White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech", but I'd be interested in why you didn't also write an "Asian Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech." Finally, I'll add that there is plenty of evidence it's not a "persecution complex". How do you square Github's reaction to their proposed Electron conference, where all the proposals were accepted in a completely blind process, but they decided they'd rather cancel the conference when it turned out all the proposals accepted were from men? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868
- ebola1717 9y ago
  Asians are overrepresented because of the way immigration laws shifted in 1965, combined with rapidly changing economic conditions in India and China. 50% of Asians in the US hold a college degree, compared to 1% in Asia, so this is not representative of Asians as a whole, but the well-off, high caste, etc. Not to mention if you look at subgroups (refugee populations like the Vietnamese or Cambodians) the numbers reflect those situations.
  - hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
    Thank you for your helpful and informative comment, I appreciate it.
  - puranjay 9y ago
    Asians are also over-represented because Asians are over-represented in the global population. Indians and Chinese along are nearly 40% of the world's population. Given the much, much larger pool to pick from, it's natural that they would be over-represented in tech too.
    - fiblye 9y ago
      And the pool of Asians that American companies can choose from isn't anywhere near the entirety of that 40% due to visa and language restrictions. A very large number of them are within the population already living in America. Despite universities putting higher standards on entry for Asians, they still enter tech and high-skill fields at disproportionate rates.
      - jasonx1e 9y ago
        And explain to me why some bureaucratic organization is responsible for correcting for this disproportion. On average in the United States (I say average because someone here is bound to call me an Asian supremacist when I am just taking statistics), Asians make up the highest percentage of college applicants [1], Asians have the highest average SAT scores [2], Asians are the most likely to enter and graduate college [3], and Asians make up the highest income bracket in the US [4]. Given these trends, we should, in fact, see a larger number of Asians in tech and it should not be surprising. Google's bureaucracy should not hire less Asians because "there are more." I would not mind if Google were 100% Black females. Just as long as it's a merit based system. [1] https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions-residency-and-ethnicity https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions... [2] https://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferen... [3] https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/Signature12-RaceEthnicity.pdf https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/Signature12... [4] https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/... [4] summary on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income#cite_note-byancestry-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...
ksk 9y ago
Holding an opposing view doesn't mean that they lack moral integrity.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  Holding a view that inherently biases them against a whole gender does make them a work liability. How can you trust this person to be fair when - god forbid - they manage people and have to decide who performed better in their mixed-gender group? If anything, by firing him Google might be saving money in future gender-based discrimination lawsuits. On that alone, the "laissez faire capitalists" should stop moaning about this.
  - ksk 9y ago
    >Holding a view that inherently biases them against a whole gender does make them a work liability. That is your own fabrication. Please stick to what was actually said. They simply showed a lack of faith in their companies hiring practices (making sure diversity candidates were not accidentally turned away) being in line with their stated goals (hiring on merit). On principle, its no worse than employees complaining a bunch of new employees "got in easy" through an aqui-hire. If additional evidence was to be unearthed that this person is actually a raging bigot, then sure, bring out the pitchforks. >If anything, by firing him Google might be saving money in future gender-based discrimination lawsuits. On that alone, the "laissez faire capitalists" should stop moaning about this. Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone, then firing this individual probably makes a lot of sense from a PR standpoint.
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      > Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone... If additional evidence was to be unearthed that this person is actually a raging bigot I'm sorry, but trying to bring up physical make up as an explanation of why women may or may not be interested in a subject that was denied to them until very recently is ill-informed at best. It'd be like concluding that "gay people aren't interested in getting married, based on the last 200 years of history until 2015." > Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone, then firing this individual probably makes a lot of sense from a PR standpoint. It's not PR, it's HR and legal. Nobody is trying to hang him in a public plaza, but there's a pretty solid argument about him being a future liability.
Method-X 9y ago
>manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles I never got that impression from the memo.
- postnihilism 9y ago
  Hence the white and gold, (er, blue and black dress). I'd reiterate and ask you to have a conversation with a female colleague or friend who works in tech and ask for their perspective.
sp527 9y ago
> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar As an Asian male who once upon a time had to apply to colleges, I'd like to see some evidence for that assertion. To be clear, I (and hopefully many other people commenting here) have no problem with outreach, anti-harrassment, and other such workplace training initiatives. It's unfortunate that we can't all achieve a baseline level of civility that abstracts away a person's biological character. But I personally find it inflammatory to equate the concept of diversity with differences in sex and race in the first place. This tends disturbingly towards institutionalized stereotyping (e.g. "all Asians are nerdy and softspoken, so we're going to lump them into the same cohort and exert an implicit negative bias against them"). It's also particularly vacuous in that our notion of 'diversity' is thereby premised chiefly on superficial appearances - 'you look different, therefore you must be the kind of different we need'. One would think the more equitable philosophy would be to strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead judge people on the content of their character and the value they can create. I find it highly reductionist to conflate people challenging biased hiring practices with people challenging diversity more generally. There are likely some in the tech world who are genuinely bigoted and misogynist. I would hope, however, that a larger share are simply perplexed that hiring practices in engineering would be predicated on anything other than an assessment of raw merit. My final point is this: as long as we continue to perpetuate diversity practices that emphasize sex and race in any way, some classes of people are going to be harmed. Sometimes that's more obvious to the Asian male who grew up in a tough part of NYC under difficult circumstances than it is to the affluent Black female who grew up in a world willing to bias opportunities unfairly in her favor (when some other less fortunate Black female really needed the leg up).
- postnihilism 9y ago
  I appreciate where you are coming from. And I agree we should, "strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead judge people on the content of their character and the value they can create." And I honestly believe that diversity and outreach programs are part of that process. The economic and social structure of the United States is the result of historical processes that were driven by racism and sexism; disparities in wealth and power between these groups continue to exist today due to that legacy. To take one example, "If average black family wealth continues to grow at the same pace it has over the past three decades, it would take black families 228 years to amass the same amount of wealth white families have today." [0] While it is a great sentiment that everyone should be treated purely as individuals and it is something to strive for, it completely ignores the economic reality of our country and is an ahistorical approach to public policy or the construction of a hiring pipeline. We can argue about to what role public companies can or should play to reduce these historical inequities. I think that outreach and education at all levels to increase the number of candidates from underrepresented groups in the tech hiring pipeline is a great step and that reducing these inequities, beyond being ethical, will create a stronger workforce. Others might disagree and have good reasons to disagree. That is a conversation worth having, but it needs to happen in the historical context in which we find ourselves. Writing a manifesto that claims that the disparity in tech is the result of biological differences that lead women to be inferior at performing in tech and leadership capacities is not the way to start this conversation. In fact this is the exact kind of sentiment that you call out by saying, "I personally find it inflammatory to equate the concept of diversity with differences in sex and race in the first place." [0] http://www.ips-dc.org/report-ever-growing-gap/ http://www.ips-dc.org/report-ever-growing-gap/
Banthum 9y ago
"The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of years of doing just this in order to oppress and disenfranchise groups of people." Just the opposite as far as I can tell. Every great evil in history came from grouping people and punishing based on collective guilt (whether the guilt was real or imagined). This includes the crimes of the left and the right. How is it even logically possible to disenfranchise a group of people by ignoring their group characteristics?
- postnihilism 9y ago
  We had racial policy in the form of slavery, then segregation and Jim Crow, to discriminatory housing policies, to inequitable application of drug laws but now, let's just ignore race and all of its historical context when it comes to outreach and public policy. That is how it is possible to logically disenfranchise a group of individuals by ignoring their group characteristics. The disenfranchisement already happened. Diversity programs are not about punishment it is about recognizing the historical context in which we are acting.
  - Banthum 9y ago
    Diversity programs are doing a lot more than "recognizing". Recognition is just perception and perhaps symbolic communication. Diversity programs are action. In this case, the action is to shift economic opportunity from one group to another based on visually-identifiable group characteristics. This is justified by the the idea you stated, which is that the group being disfavored is collectively guilty. Of course, we ignore how many people in that targeted group have no present or past connection to the sins that are being "recognized" by denying them a way forward in life. I'm sure a white male Ukrainian refugee passed over at Google for "diversity" would not be impressed. If you're in favor of a policy, you should be able to clearly state what that policy actually is, not hide it behind a linguistic smokescreen which minimizes and obscures what's really happening. Own it - the goals, the methods, the unintended consequences, and the victims. Every social policy has them, so own them.
    - 9y ago
xor1 9y ago
>Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece. Do you have any women in tech in your life? Did any of them actually read it? Disclaimer: I did not read the entire piece. From what I've seen over the past 24 hours, the vast majority of people with an opinion on it did not read all (or any) of it either.
- icelancer 9y ago
  Until very recently, almost no one has read the entire piece, because Gizmodo intentionally stripped out all the citations and charts the original author had in the document. Hmm. I can't imagine why.... https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
  - darkblackcorner 9y ago
    Also here: http://diversitymemo.com http://diversitymemo.com
Meditato 9y ago
>It boggles my mind that people don't see the fundamental and toxic misogyny in this 'manifesto'. It boggles my mind that ANYONE sees "toxic misogyny" in this document. I saw really offensive internal emails directed at this guy. Are you really so sure you're on the right side? I'm not asking if you think you have the right ideology, I'm asking you if you think you're still on the right side.
kromem 9y ago
If we're so concerned with the advantages of wealth and education inequality, why are we still using race (a bad proxy, given the spread and distribution around the averages - the whole point of the original document) as the determining factor instead of just asking for tax returns/education records for special programs? And regarding gender - let's consider the example of salary negotiation. Now, if you research, you'll see that statistically women are less likely to negotiate as high a salary as men. It would make sense, given that research, to create a women-only program for teaching salary negotiation skills, right? Except what if the bell curve around those averages was wide? Well then there's a number of men that suck at negotiation, and a number of women for whom those classes would be a waste of time. So the likely better program would be one where negotiation ability was evaluated at the start, and only candidates that needed training received it. Statistically, this program would have more women than men in it, but an exclusive program would not have been ideal. Maybe I missed the part where he called women inferior?? The gist of his document as I saw it was that only looking at deltas between averages is a myopic approach (makes sense), and that programs need to consider that there's often a wide spread between those averages (also makes sense). There's a huge difference between creating a safe work environment so you don't alienate otherwise interested talent, versus artificially stacking the deck to create diversity for diversity's sake. The latter approach, particularly when poorly evaluating the data (as the author points out) can cause significant damage to an organization. Case and point - how is it that a Googler discussing "White Male Persecution Complex" and "majority privilege" is contributing to the discussion of workplace diversity dynamics, but a (now ex-) Googler internally writing about dogmatic diversity and the need for nuance should be fired? Are any of your co-workers white? Male? How is it that your assumption that they've had a silver spoon in their mouths their whole life not insensitive and inflamitory? Are your comments here not alienating? Either no one should be able to write on the subject and any discussion a fireable offence, or perhaps rational, respectful, and data-driven discussion should be encouraged (and so far today I've only seen one Googler having written such on workplace diversity).
- postnihilism 9y ago
  My comment about 'White Male Persecution Complex (PC)" was tongue and cheek. I should have known that would be a mistake in this conversation. I have many white male coworkers (as you'd expect given the demographic statistics for tech) and I have nothing but the utmost respect for their ability. I don't harbor any assumption that, "that they've had a silver spoon in their mouths their whole life." I don't think that believing that there are groups that have been more economically and socially marginalized than white males is alienating. I also don't think that it implies that I believe my white male coworkers have been given a free pass to the positions they are in today. Everyone I work with has had to pass the same bar. As I've stated, all of the statements I've made here are my own, made on my own time, on a public site and do not represent the views of my employer. I leave my politics at home.
bayonetz 9y ago
Clearly you strongly reject the writings overall. Curious if you see any merit or truth to any of the sub sections or smaller kernels of ideas found within? Is there any version of this kind of thing you would encourage and engage with or is it just too sensitive/triggering of a subject to really be tackled in this style? Several commenters have chalked the author up to basically being a privileged incumbent waking up to the existential crisis of watching one's privilege being slowly taken from them and trying to figure out a way to stem the tide. Do you see it as something similar and therefore it doesn't really make sense to engage or lend it any legitimacy? It seems a lot behind the opposition to this guy is based on people's assumptions about his motivations. OP or anyone else willing to weigh in would be appreciated.
- lurker69 9y ago
  Yeah, I havent seen any concise and rational debunking of any of his points. I did see a lot of partisanship and accusation of misogyny that I cant find in memo at all. To me this looks like some smart guy saying that google doesnt tolerate views that are not perfectly aligned with left leaning echo chambers, and getting fired for exactly that. Looks like SJWs at google, like thy often do, forced HR to fire him. I have read that he was chess champion, so I would call this forcing your opponent to check mate himself. I think he planned this since I am seeing this: > Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal.
colordrops 9y ago
The problem is that all these programs address large grossly defined groups, leaving many individuals lost in the cracks. There are countless repressed and underrepresented groups that are barely acknowledged let alone accounted for by these programs. Even some large groups miss out. For example you regularly see black comedians thanking Arabs for being the new class of people everyone hates, yet they are considered white in the census and garner no benefit from any programs. White privilege without any of the privilege. Why are a Yemeni and an Englishman bucketed in the same category?
cropsieboss 9y ago
> If one of the things you have to deal with as a woman in tech is seeing 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles published at one of the premier tech companies in the world, and then see that piece supported on the most popular tech social sites then it's no wonder we have the gender gap we see today. Could you provide citations in the manifesto that were oppressive to women? Manifesto was pretty neutral and pretty clear that this was not at all a text about the abilities of women and how they are inferior. It was about motivations women have given their biological traits. Google, Facebook run unconscious bias training which has no support in scientific research. At best it does not work at all. It really was not misogyny. The manifesto is inspired by Jordan B Peterson, and that guy is not a misogynist or a racist or whatever. He's a psychologist that complains about HR departments of the world that are filled with other psychologists and sociologists. He thinks they have to start looking at science and get to the root of the issue. Unfortunately, they use methods that have no support in science and misuse their position to push their ideology. One good example is Iran. Where women are oppressed. Yet they choose STEM more often than not. How come our free/tolerant culture allows women to move away from STEM fields, and their oppressive culture pushes women towards STEM fields? Maybe motivations of free and oppressed women are different and free women just don't want to work in STEM? Abilities of men and women are identical (or at least the bell curves overlap significantly). Motivations depend on biology and culture. Motivations are what is differing and no unconscious bias training will fix that. For example, I know plenty IT women that don't want to work in offices that don't have dress code. They all went working in banks. How is anyone going to fix that bias if women just like dressing well (on average) and being in a dressed up fancy environment.
- lurker69 9y ago
  Yeah I also didnt get feeling from reading the memo that is was misogynistic. James just tried to point out that reasons for gender gab in tech might not be only sexism as current left leaning agenda dictates. I understood memo more like complaining that employees with opinions that differ from "current left leaning agenda" are afraid to express them. And google proved him right by firing him. This political correctness has brought us very close to Orwellian double think. Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote: > “We strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it.” And used this as basis to fire guy who expressed his concerns. His appeal to replace diversity of gender and race with diversity of thought is completely valid and reasonable.
emanreus 9y ago
> We need a manifesto on White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech. Why don't you write one? Would that get you fired?
peak_body_yo 9y ago
> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach What if all you are achieving is rearranging the dirt (ignore the negative connotations to dirt)? Skilled URM engineers who meet the Google hiring bar will find a place to work regardless of outreach efforts. The URM outreach efforts will just shift the talented URMs from other companies to its company.
- thex10 9y ago
  > Skilled URM engineers who meet the Google hiring bar will find a place to work regardless of outreach efforts. I'm not so convinced that'd be true! If there are no concerted outreach efforts what's stopping the majority of companies from hiring their mediocre non-URM friends of friends instead?
pokemongoaway 9y ago
You're the one making assumptions. 1) That one can't find plenty of professional females that oppose mainstream gender politics is an unfounded assumption 2) That the author is a misogynist or his view are based in his hatred of women. Many people who oppose mainstream gender politics due so because they believe it is hurting women. How is it you're able to tell they're all lying about not having bad intentions? Do you think women are so weak and inferior that any male who writes words you perceive to be against them should be fired, silenced, or not debated? I think grown-up men and women can handle the truth and don't need some "safe space" to insulate them from information.
moduspol 9y ago
> 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles Is there any way to discuss generalized differences that won't be perceived as absolute and insulting? The memo clearly did not make any claims about all women, and the topic at hand (gender representation in roles) is a general one. If there are general differences between men and women, we could expect general differences in their representation in various roles. That doesn't mean any individual woman is inferior, or even different relative to men. It's really confusing why so many media stories and comments race to phrase this as claiming women are worse at their job, or can't code as well. Did they read it?
- faceplanted 9y ago
  >Is there any way to discuss generalized differences that won't be perceived as absolute and insulting? Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it in an internal memo, I don't want to hear anyone's opinions in a memo unless it's about the product. Honestly, in a workplace, if I didn't ask for your opinion on something and we're no talking about it in person, I don't care.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    This is about a hiring policy at work. It's relevant to work.
strken 9y ago
Apparently, half the world read "all women are bad at writing software, and we should never hire them", when the other half saw "lots of women don't want to work for google, and we should hire only the ones who do". When the lines are so far apart, reading between them is basically a Rorschach test. In this sense, it would have been a much better outcome for him to have ended up debating his views in front of a studio audience rather than packing his belongings into a box, because then we'd know exactly what he thinks, and google would have either a solid reason to fire him or a way of mitigating the PR damage.
belorn 9y ago
We can simply inverse the logic to get the statements about men, so why aren't they fundamental and toxic misandry? To inverse the quotes: Men, on average, are more closed towards feelings and aesthetics. Men are not social or artistic. Men are more disagreeable, leading to men being more combative, getting into fights, and being argumentative. Men are emotional cold and don't have positive emotions. You can't have a "women are in comparison to men ..." without getting "men are thus in comparison to women". How is those statements promoting men over women?
lr4444lr 9y ago
You're eloquent, but I'm sorry - you lose me at "institutionalized racism". That's a very testable thing: find the policy, directive, or law that is racist and cite it. Don't throw out the term as a kind of pervasive but subtly intangible miasm that we have to expunge from our midst like Satan's influence on 16th century New England.
- jvdizzle 9y ago
  It's also your responsibility to educate yourself. It's not like institutionalized racism is some "subtly intangible miasm". For an example, read up on African Americans and the G.I. Bill after WW2. Heck, the Civil Rights Bill was passed only a little over 50 years ago, after centuries of marginalization. If you want a more modern example, read up on studies of racism in the justice and education systems.
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    Being "educated" about what happened historically is also acknowledging what's changed for the better. Pre 1964 I'd certainly agree institutional racism existed, because you could point to policy, directives, and laws that were used to actively discriminate. I challenge you to find that now in Google or any other U.S. company, educational institution, or government agency. The G.I. Bill issue is largely rooted in Disparate Impact, which continues to be a gray area.

hn_throwaway_99 9y ago

> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach and working against institutionalized racism and sexism which has created the distribution of wealth and education and work culture that we have today. I guess the one challenge I would put to this is that I find it difficult to believe that East Asians or Indians have been on the receiving end of any less discrimination than, say, Hispanics in the US, but yet they are now vastly over-represented in tech compared to their population statistics at large. They are so over-represented that they are now clearly discriminated against in areas such as college admissions at top tier universities, where being Asian essentially raises the requisite SAT bar by about 50 points. You may think there needs to be a manifesto on a "White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech", but I'd be interested in why you didn't also write an "Asian Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech." Finally, I'll add that there is plenty of evidence it's not a "persecution complex". How do you square Github's reaction to their proposed Electron conference, where all the proposals were accepted in a completely blind process, but they decided they'd rather cancel the conference when it turned out all the proposals accepted were from men? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480868

ebola1717 9y ago
Asians are overrepresented because of the way immigration laws shifted in 1965, combined with rapidly changing economic conditions in India and China. 50% of Asians in the US hold a college degree, compared to 1% in Asia, so this is not representative of Asians as a whole, but the well-off, high caste, etc. Not to mention if you look at subgroups (refugee populations like the Vietnamese or Cambodians) the numbers reflect those situations.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
  Thank you for your helpful and informative comment, I appreciate it.
- puranjay 9y ago
  Asians are also over-represented because Asians are over-represented in the global population. Indians and Chinese along are nearly 40% of the world's population. Given the much, much larger pool to pick from, it's natural that they would be over-represented in tech too.
  - fiblye 9y ago
    And the pool of Asians that American companies can choose from isn't anywhere near the entirety of that 40% due to visa and language restrictions. A very large number of them are within the population already living in America. Despite universities putting higher standards on entry for Asians, they still enter tech and high-skill fields at disproportionate rates.
    - jasonx1e 9y ago
      And explain to me why some bureaucratic organization is responsible for correcting for this disproportion. On average in the United States (I say average because someone here is bound to call me an Asian supremacist when I am just taking statistics), Asians make up the highest percentage of college applicants [1], Asians have the highest average SAT scores [2], Asians are the most likely to enter and graduate college [3], and Asians make up the highest income bracket in the US [4]. Given these trends, we should, in fact, see a larger number of Asians in tech and it should not be surprising. Google's bureaucracy should not hire less Asians because "there are more." I would not mind if Google were 100% Black females. Just as long as it's a merit based system. [1] https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions-residency-and-ethnicity https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions... [2] https://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferen... [3] https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/Signature12-RaceEthnicity.pdf https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/Signature12... [4] https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/... [4] summary on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income#cite_note-byancestry-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

ksk 9y ago

Holding an opposing view doesn't mean that they lack moral integrity.

dguaraglia 9y ago
Holding a view that inherently biases them against a whole gender does make them a work liability. How can you trust this person to be fair when - god forbid - they manage people and have to decide who performed better in their mixed-gender group? If anything, by firing him Google might be saving money in future gender-based discrimination lawsuits. On that alone, the "laissez faire capitalists" should stop moaning about this.
- ksk 9y ago
  >Holding a view that inherently biases them against a whole gender does make them a work liability. That is your own fabrication. Please stick to what was actually said. They simply showed a lack of faith in their companies hiring practices (making sure diversity candidates were not accidentally turned away) being in line with their stated goals (hiring on merit). On principle, its no worse than employees complaining a bunch of new employees "got in easy" through an aqui-hire. If additional evidence was to be unearthed that this person is actually a raging bigot, then sure, bring out the pitchforks. >If anything, by firing him Google might be saving money in future gender-based discrimination lawsuits. On that alone, the "laissez faire capitalists" should stop moaning about this. Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone, then firing this individual probably makes a lot of sense from a PR standpoint.
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    > Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone... If additional evidence was to be unearthed that this person is actually a raging bigot I'm sorry, but trying to bring up physical make up as an explanation of why women may or may not be interested in a subject that was denied to them until very recently is ill-informed at best. It'd be like concluding that "gay people aren't interested in getting married, based on the last 200 years of history until 2015." > Indeed, if we're operating on feelings and perception alone, then firing this individual probably makes a lot of sense from a PR standpoint. It's not PR, it's HR and legal. Nobody is trying to hang him in a public plaza, but there's a pretty solid argument about him being a future liability.

Method-X 9y ago

>manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles I never got that impression from the memo.

postnihilism 9y ago
Hence the white and gold, (er, blue and black dress). I'd reiterate and ask you to have a conversation with a female colleague or friend who works in tech and ask for their perspective.

sp527 9y ago

> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar As an Asian male who once upon a time had to apply to colleges, I'd like to see some evidence for that assertion. To be clear, I (and hopefully many other people commenting here) have no problem with outreach, anti-harrassment, and other such workplace training initiatives. It's unfortunate that we can't all achieve a baseline level of civility that abstracts away a person's biological character. But I personally find it inflammatory to equate the concept of diversity with differences in sex and race in the first place. This tends disturbingly towards institutionalized stereotyping (e.g. "all Asians are nerdy and softspoken, so we're going to lump them into the same cohort and exert an implicit negative bias against them"). It's also particularly vacuous in that our notion of 'diversity' is thereby premised chiefly on superficial appearances - 'you look different, therefore you must be the kind of different we need'. One would think the more equitable philosophy would be to strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead judge people on the content of their character and the value they can create. I find it highly reductionist to conflate people challenging biased hiring practices with people challenging diversity more generally. There are likely some in the tech world who are genuinely bigoted and misogynist. I would hope, however, that a larger share are simply perplexed that hiring practices in engineering would be predicated on anything other than an assessment of raw merit. My final point is this: as long as we continue to perpetuate diversity practices that emphasize sex and race in any way, some classes of people are going to be harmed. Sometimes that's more obvious to the Asian male who grew up in a tough part of NYC under difficult circumstances than it is to the affluent Black female who grew up in a world willing to bias opportunities unfairly in her favor (when some other less fortunate Black female really needed the leg up).

postnihilism 9y ago
I appreciate where you are coming from. And I agree we should, "strive towards a world in which we stop making exactly those kinds of distinctions and instead judge people on the content of their character and the value they can create." And I honestly believe that diversity and outreach programs are part of that process. The economic and social structure of the United States is the result of historical processes that were driven by racism and sexism; disparities in wealth and power between these groups continue to exist today due to that legacy. To take one example, "If average black family wealth continues to grow at the same pace it has over the past three decades, it would take black families 228 years to amass the same amount of wealth white families have today." [0] While it is a great sentiment that everyone should be treated purely as individuals and it is something to strive for, it completely ignores the economic reality of our country and is an ahistorical approach to public policy or the construction of a hiring pipeline. We can argue about to what role public companies can or should play to reduce these historical inequities. I think that outreach and education at all levels to increase the number of candidates from underrepresented groups in the tech hiring pipeline is a great step and that reducing these inequities, beyond being ethical, will create a stronger workforce. Others might disagree and have good reasons to disagree. That is a conversation worth having, but it needs to happen in the historical context in which we find ourselves. Writing a manifesto that claims that the disparity in tech is the result of biological differences that lead women to be inferior at performing in tech and leadership capacities is not the way to start this conversation. In fact this is the exact kind of sentiment that you call out by saying, "I personally find it inflammatory to equate the concept of diversity with differences in sex and race in the first place." [0] http://www.ips-dc.org/report-ever-growing-gap/ http://www.ips-dc.org/report-ever-growing-gap/

Banthum 9y ago

"The "treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group" sentiment of the author is fine except that we have hundreds of years of doing just this in order to oppress and disenfranchise groups of people." Just the opposite as far as I can tell. Every great evil in history came from grouping people and punishing based on collective guilt (whether the guilt was real or imagined). This includes the crimes of the left and the right. How is it even logically possible to disenfranchise a group of people by ignoring their group characteristics?

postnihilism 9y ago
We had racial policy in the form of slavery, then segregation and Jim Crow, to discriminatory housing policies, to inequitable application of drug laws but now, let's just ignore race and all of its historical context when it comes to outreach and public policy. That is how it is possible to logically disenfranchise a group of individuals by ignoring their group characteristics. The disenfranchisement already happened. Diversity programs are not about punishment it is about recognizing the historical context in which we are acting.
- Banthum 9y ago
  Diversity programs are doing a lot more than "recognizing". Recognition is just perception and perhaps symbolic communication. Diversity programs are action. In this case, the action is to shift economic opportunity from one group to another based on visually-identifiable group characteristics. This is justified by the the idea you stated, which is that the group being disfavored is collectively guilty. Of course, we ignore how many people in that targeted group have no present or past connection to the sins that are being "recognized" by denying them a way forward in life. I'm sure a white male Ukrainian refugee passed over at Google for "diversity" would not be impressed. If you're in favor of a policy, you should be able to clearly state what that policy actually is, not hide it behind a linguistic smokescreen which minimizes and obscures what's really happening. Own it - the goals, the methods, the unintended consequences, and the victims. Every social policy has them, so own them.
  - 9y ago

xor1 9y ago

>Please have a woman you care about in your life, preferably one in tech, read this and then ask their opinion of the piece. Do you have any women in tech in your life? Did any of them actually read it? Disclaimer: I did not read the entire piece. From what I've seen over the past 24 hours, the vast majority of people with an opinion on it did not read all (or any) of it either.

icelancer 9y ago
Until very recently, almost no one has read the entire piece, because Gizmodo intentionally stripped out all the citations and charts the original author had in the document. Hmm. I can't imagine why.... https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
- darkblackcorner 9y ago
  Also here: http://diversitymemo.com http://diversitymemo.com

Meditato 9y ago

>It boggles my mind that people don't see the fundamental and toxic misogyny in this 'manifesto'. It boggles my mind that ANYONE sees "toxic misogyny" in this document. I saw really offensive internal emails directed at this guy. Are you really so sure you're on the right side? I'm not asking if you think you have the right ideology, I'm asking you if you think you're still on the right side.

kromem 9y ago

If we're so concerned with the advantages of wealth and education inequality, why are we still using race (a bad proxy, given the spread and distribution around the averages - the whole point of the original document) as the determining factor instead of just asking for tax returns/education records for special programs? And regarding gender - let's consider the example of salary negotiation. Now, if you research, you'll see that statistically women are less likely to negotiate as high a salary as men. It would make sense, given that research, to create a women-only program for teaching salary negotiation skills, right? Except what if the bell curve around those averages was wide? Well then there's a number of men that suck at negotiation, and a number of women for whom those classes would be a waste of time. So the likely better program would be one where negotiation ability was evaluated at the start, and only candidates that needed training received it. Statistically, this program would have more women than men in it, but an exclusive program would not have been ideal. Maybe I missed the part where he called women inferior?? The gist of his document as I saw it was that only looking at deltas between averages is a myopic approach (makes sense), and that programs need to consider that there's often a wide spread between those averages (also makes sense). There's a huge difference between creating a safe work environment so you don't alienate otherwise interested talent, versus artificially stacking the deck to create diversity for diversity's sake. The latter approach, particularly when poorly evaluating the data (as the author points out) can cause significant damage to an organization. Case and point - how is it that a Googler discussing "White Male Persecution Complex" and "majority privilege" is contributing to the discussion of workplace diversity dynamics, but a (now ex-) Googler internally writing about dogmatic diversity and the need for nuance should be fired? Are any of your co-workers white? Male? How is it that your assumption that they've had a silver spoon in their mouths their whole life not insensitive and inflamitory? Are your comments here not alienating? Either no one should be able to write on the subject and any discussion a fireable offence, or perhaps rational, respectful, and data-driven discussion should be encouraged (and so far today I've only seen one Googler having written such on workplace diversity).

postnihilism 9y ago
My comment about 'White Male Persecution Complex (PC)" was tongue and cheek. I should have known that would be a mistake in this conversation. I have many white male coworkers (as you'd expect given the demographic statistics for tech) and I have nothing but the utmost respect for their ability. I don't harbor any assumption that, "that they've had a silver spoon in their mouths their whole life." I don't think that believing that there are groups that have been more economically and socially marginalized than white males is alienating. I also don't think that it implies that I believe my white male coworkers have been given a free pass to the positions they are in today. Everyone I work with has had to pass the same bar. As I've stated, all of the statements I've made here are my own, made on my own time, on a public site and do not represent the views of my employer. I leave my politics at home.

bayonetz 9y ago

Clearly you strongly reject the writings overall. Curious if you see any merit or truth to any of the sub sections or smaller kernels of ideas found within? Is there any version of this kind of thing you would encourage and engage with or is it just too sensitive/triggering of a subject to really be tackled in this style? Several commenters have chalked the author up to basically being a privileged incumbent waking up to the existential crisis of watching one's privilege being slowly taken from them and trying to figure out a way to stem the tide. Do you see it as something similar and therefore it doesn't really make sense to engage or lend it any legitimacy? It seems a lot behind the opposition to this guy is based on people's assumptions about his motivations. OP or anyone else willing to weigh in would be appreciated.

lurker69 9y ago
Yeah, I havent seen any concise and rational debunking of any of his points. I did see a lot of partisanship and accusation of misogyny that I cant find in memo at all. To me this looks like some smart guy saying that google doesnt tolerate views that are not perfectly aligned with left leaning echo chambers, and getting fired for exactly that. Looks like SJWs at google, like thy often do, forced HR to fire him. I have read that he was chess champion, so I would call this forcing your opponent to check mate himself. I think he planned this since I am seeing this: > Damore plans to sue Google; he had previously complained to NLRB and wants to argue that his dismissal was a revenge which would be illegal.

colordrops 9y ago

The problem is that all these programs address large grossly defined groups, leaving many individuals lost in the cracks. There are countless repressed and underrepresented groups that are barely acknowledged let alone accounted for by these programs. Even some large groups miss out. For example you regularly see black comedians thanking Arabs for being the new class of people everyone hates, yet they are considered white in the census and garner no benefit from any programs. White privilege without any of the privilege. Why are a Yemeni and an Englishman bucketed in the same category?

cropsieboss 9y ago

> If one of the things you have to deal with as a woman in tech is seeing 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles published at one of the premier tech companies in the world, and then see that piece supported on the most popular tech social sites then it's no wonder we have the gender gap we see today. Could you provide citations in the manifesto that were oppressive to women? Manifesto was pretty neutral and pretty clear that this was not at all a text about the abilities of women and how they are inferior. It was about motivations women have given their biological traits. Google, Facebook run unconscious bias training which has no support in scientific research. At best it does not work at all. It really was not misogyny. The manifesto is inspired by Jordan B Peterson, and that guy is not a misogynist or a racist or whatever. He's a psychologist that complains about HR departments of the world that are filled with other psychologists and sociologists. He thinks they have to start looking at science and get to the root of the issue. Unfortunately, they use methods that have no support in science and misuse their position to push their ideology. One good example is Iran. Where women are oppressed. Yet they choose STEM more often than not. How come our free/tolerant culture allows women to move away from STEM fields, and their oppressive culture pushes women towards STEM fields? Maybe motivations of free and oppressed women are different and free women just don't want to work in STEM? Abilities of men and women are identical (or at least the bell curves overlap significantly). Motivations depend on biology and culture. Motivations are what is differing and no unconscious bias training will fix that. For example, I know plenty IT women that don't want to work in offices that don't have dress code. They all went working in banks. How is anyone going to fix that bias if women just like dressing well (on average) and being in a dressed up fancy environment.

lurker69 9y ago
Yeah I also didnt get feeling from reading the memo that is was misogynistic. James just tried to point out that reasons for gender gab in tech might not be only sexism as current left leaning agenda dictates. I understood memo more like complaining that employees with opinions that differ from "current left leaning agenda" are afraid to express them. And google proved him right by firing him. This political correctness has brought us very close to Orwellian double think. Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote: > “We strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate, regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it.” And used this as basis to fire guy who expressed his concerns. His appeal to replace diversity of gender and race with diversity of thought is completely valid and reasonable.

emanreus 9y ago

> We need a manifesto on White Male Persecution Complex Culture in Tech. Why don't you write one? Would that get you fired?

peak_body_yo 9y ago

> Diversity programs are not about lowering the bar, they are about outreach What if all you are achieving is rearranging the dirt (ignore the negative connotations to dirt)? Skilled URM engineers who meet the Google hiring bar will find a place to work regardless of outreach efforts. The URM outreach efforts will just shift the talented URMs from other companies to its company.

thex10 9y ago
> Skilled URM engineers who meet the Google hiring bar will find a place to work regardless of outreach efforts. I'm not so convinced that'd be true! If there are no concerted outreach efforts what's stopping the majority of companies from hiring their mediocre non-URM friends of friends instead?

pokemongoaway 9y ago

You're the one making assumptions. 1) That one can't find plenty of professional females that oppose mainstream gender politics is an unfounded assumption 2) That the author is a misogynist or his view are based in his hatred of women. Many people who oppose mainstream gender politics due so because they believe it is hurting women. How is it you're able to tell they're all lying about not having bad intentions? Do you think women are so weak and inferior that any male who writes words you perceive to be against them should be fired, silenced, or not debated? I think grown-up men and women can handle the truth and don't need some "safe space" to insulate them from information.

moduspol 9y ago

> 10 page pseudo-intellectual manifestos about your inherent inferiority at performing in technical and leadership roles Is there any way to discuss generalized differences that won't be perceived as absolute and insulting? The memo clearly did not make any claims about all women, and the topic at hand (gender representation in roles) is a general one. If there are general differences between men and women, we could expect general differences in their representation in various roles. That doesn't mean any individual woman is inferior, or even different relative to men. It's really confusing why so many media stories and comments race to phrase this as claiming women are worse at their job, or can't code as well. Did they read it?

faceplanted 9y ago
>Is there any way to discuss generalized differences that won't be perceived as absolute and insulting? Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it in an internal memo, I don't want to hear anyone's opinions in a memo unless it's about the product. Honestly, in a workplace, if I didn't ask for your opinion on something and we're no talking about it in person, I don't care.
- moduspol 9y ago
  This is about a hiring policy at work. It's relevant to work.

strken 9y ago

Apparently, half the world read "all women are bad at writing software, and we should never hire them", when the other half saw "lots of women don't want to work for google, and we should hire only the ones who do". When the lines are so far apart, reading between them is basically a Rorschach test. In this sense, it would have been a much better outcome for him to have ended up debating his views in front of a studio audience rather than packing his belongings into a box, because then we'd know exactly what he thinks, and google would have either a solid reason to fire him or a way of mitigating the PR damage.

belorn 9y ago

We can simply inverse the logic to get the statements about men, so why aren't they fundamental and toxic misandry? To inverse the quotes: Men, on average, are more closed towards feelings and aesthetics. Men are not social or artistic. Men are more disagreeable, leading to men being more combative, getting into fights, and being argumentative. Men are emotional cold and don't have positive emotions. You can't have a "women are in comparison to men ..." without getting "men are thus in comparison to women". How is those statements promoting men over women?

lr4444lr 9y ago

You're eloquent, but I'm sorry - you lose me at "institutionalized racism". That's a very testable thing: find the policy, directive, or law that is racist and cite it. Don't throw out the term as a kind of pervasive but subtly intangible miasm that we have to expunge from our midst like Satan's influence on 16th century New England.

jvdizzle 9y ago
It's also your responsibility to educate yourself. It's not like institutionalized racism is some "subtly intangible miasm". For an example, read up on African Americans and the G.I. Bill after WW2. Heck, the Civil Rights Bill was passed only a little over 50 years ago, after centuries of marginalization. If you want a more modern example, read up on studies of racism in the justice and education systems.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  Being "educated" about what happened historically is also acknowledging what's changed for the better. Pre 1964 I'd certainly agree institutional racism existed, because you could point to policy, directives, and laws that were used to actively discriminate. I challenge you to find that now in Google or any other U.S. company, educational institution, or government agency. The G.I. Bill issue is largely rooted in Disparate Impact, which continues to be a gray area.