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The site seems to be experiencing the 'hug of death' right now, Internet Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette.com/2017/08/0

The site seems to be experiencing the 'hug of death' right now, Internet Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette.... Prof. Schmitt gets it right here: gender differences don't have any significant impact on women's capacity to perform any job--even physically strenuous jobs, with the right training. Certainly for information work, bringing up gender differences is just going down the wrong rabbit hole. It's like asking a job candidate if they're American when all you need to know is if they're legally authorised to work in the US. The other scientists unfortunately go down this rabbit hole. Prof. Miller especially consistently asks the wrong questions throughout his piece. First, he establishes biological sex differences but doesn't ask if they have any significant impact on women's capacity to perform a job. Second, he goes off on a tangent about his pet 'paradox' theory about the American public, arguing that gender equality would make diversity moot from a business advantage perspective. Let's just clarify why we want diversity in the workplace: it's not because minorities will bring different skills and traits to the table; it's because (a) excluding minorities is inhumane, and (b) because minorities will (hopefully) keep the organisation from making dumb mistakes like leaving out the main protagonist of their new film series from a major marketing campaign ( https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15960372/hasbro-star-wars-monopoly-toys-wheresrey-insufficient-interest https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15960372/hasbro-star-wars... ), sending Kylie Jenner out with a Pepsi to mend race relations ( http://time.com/4726500/pepsi-ad-kendall-jenner/ http://time.com/4726500/pepsi-ad-kendall-jenner/ ), and pushing for a Game of Thrones-style show about a modern-day Confederate America which won the war and kept slavery intact ( https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/no-confederate/535512/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/no... ). These are just three things that come immediately to mind, you can imagine how much shit there is out there that hasn't even reached national level yet.

ad_hominem 9y ago
> gender differences don't have any significant impact on women's capacity to perform any job--even physically strenuous jobs, with the right training That seems just plain wrong considering so many women fail Marine fitness tests: http://thehill.com/policy/defense/284252-report-6-out-of-7-female-recruits-fail-new-marines-fitness-test-for-combat http://thehill.com/policy/defense/284252-report-6-out-of-7-f... And FDNY had to relax physical fitness requirements in order to hire more women firefighters: https://www.bustle.com/articles/53536-fdny-wants-more-women-firefighters-but-is-cutting-strength-requirements-the-way-to-do-it https://www.bustle.com/articles/53536-fdny-wants-more-women-... Women also have to be separated from men in professional sports, otherwise in many sports it wouldn't even be close (e.g. the aged, #203-ranked male tennis player walloping both Williams sisters in their prime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karsten_Braasch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karsten_Braasch). There's nothing wrong with admitting there are basic biological differences between men and women relating to strength.
- yawaramin 9y ago
  Sure. That's why I said women are capable of performing those jobs. Some women pass the Marine fitness tests and firefighter physical requirements. Hence, women are capable of performing any physically strenuous job. But again, this is completely the wrong rabbit hole in the context of this discussion. It has nothing to do with the fact that men and women have equal capacity to do any mental work.
  - mcappleton 9y ago
    Why does it all have to be equal? Why can't we acknowledge that men and women have different strengths and weaknesses in different areas? The whole point of diversity is not to make everyone the same, it is to appreciate the differences everyone brings.
    - yawaramin 9y ago
      Like I keep saying in this thread--you've misunderstood the point of diversity and have gone down the wrong rabbit hole. You can acknowledge and celebrate everyone's differences. You just need to realise that those differences don't make a solitary bit of difference in their capacity to perform a job.
      - canoebuilder 9y ago
        So differences exist, but those differences don't make any difference? Do any differences ever make a difference in performance? Like a particular tribe of Kenyans utterly dominate distance running events, west Africans utterly dominate sprinting events what accounts for those differences? What's lost in all this and that I have seen zero evidence presented for is that I am in no way convinced that the population groups that are "under-represented" as software professionals have much interest in being software professionals. Whatever differences in capacity that may exist among groups the differences in interests are surely just as big or bigger.
        9y ago
averagewall 9y ago
> (a) excluding minorities is inhumane, The author didn't propose excluding minorities. He proposed including them more by making the workplace more attractive to them. Nobody's suggesting Google should have a "males only" or "whites only" policy.
- yawaramin 9y ago
  Sorry, which author? I was talking about Prof. Miller's thought experiment here about his perceived conflict between gender equality and diversity.
7952 9y ago
The funny thing is that "diversity" really implies difference. And in a very unequal workplace it makes sense to focus on beneficial traits that diversity may bring. Those traits certainly exist in aggregate, which is why it is worth pursuing at an aggregate level. But individually it is ridiculous to use gender to imply that traits exist in one particular candidate.
inlined 9y ago
Yet at the same time this sounds like the only reason to hire someone is to represent their token minority. It's not an X person's responsibility to be an offensiveness safety net for the X community.

ad_hominem 9y ago

> gender differences don't have any significant impact on women's capacity to perform any job--even physically strenuous jobs, with the right training That seems just plain wrong considering so many women fail Marine fitness tests: http://thehill.com/policy/defense/284252-report-6-out-of-7-female-recruits-fail-new-marines-fitness-test-for-combat http://thehill.com/policy/defense/284252-report-6-out-of-7-f... And FDNY had to relax physical fitness requirements in order to hire more women firefighters: https://www.bustle.com/articles/53536-fdny-wants-more-women-firefighters-but-is-cutting-strength-requirements-the-way-to-do-it https://www.bustle.com/articles/53536-fdny-wants-more-women-... Women also have to be separated from men in professional sports, otherwise in many sports it wouldn't even be close (e.g. the aged, #203-ranked male tennis player walloping both Williams sisters in their prime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karsten_Braasch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karsten_Braasch). There's nothing wrong with admitting there are basic biological differences between men and women relating to strength.

yawaramin 9y ago
Sure. That's why I said women are capable of performing those jobs. Some women pass the Marine fitness tests and firefighter physical requirements. Hence, women are capable of performing any physically strenuous job. But again, this is completely the wrong rabbit hole in the context of this discussion. It has nothing to do with the fact that men and women have equal capacity to do any mental work.
- mcappleton 9y ago
  Why does it all have to be equal? Why can't we acknowledge that men and women have different strengths and weaknesses in different areas? The whole point of diversity is not to make everyone the same, it is to appreciate the differences everyone brings.
  - yawaramin 9y ago
    Like I keep saying in this thread--you've misunderstood the point of diversity and have gone down the wrong rabbit hole. You can acknowledge and celebrate everyone's differences. You just need to realise that those differences don't make a solitary bit of difference in their capacity to perform a job.
    - canoebuilder 9y ago
      So differences exist, but those differences don't make any difference? Do any differences ever make a difference in performance? Like a particular tribe of Kenyans utterly dominate distance running events, west Africans utterly dominate sprinting events what accounts for those differences? What's lost in all this and that I have seen zero evidence presented for is that I am in no way convinced that the population groups that are "under-represented" as software professionals have much interest in being software professionals. Whatever differences in capacity that may exist among groups the differences in interests are surely just as big or bigger.
      - 9y ago

averagewall 9y ago

> (a) excluding minorities is inhumane, The author didn't propose excluding minorities. He proposed including them more by making the workplace more attractive to them. Nobody's suggesting Google should have a "males only" or "whites only" policy.

yawaramin 9y ago
Sorry, which author? I was talking about Prof. Miller's thought experiment here about his perceived conflict between gender equality and diversity.

7952 9y ago

The funny thing is that "diversity" really implies difference. And in a very unequal workplace it makes sense to focus on beneficial traits that diversity may bring. Those traits certainly exist in aggregate, which is why it is worth pursuing at an aggregate level. But individually it is ridiculous to use gender to imply that traits exist in one particular candidate.

inlined 9y ago

Yet at the same time this sounds like the only reason to hire someone is to represent their token minority. It's not an X person's responsibility to be an offensiveness safety net for the X community.