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Your comment is well-written, I appreciate it. Several states in the Midwest (Indiana, for example) are actually undergoing a manufacturing boom. Google may

Your comment is well-written, I appreciate it. Several states in the Midwest (Indiana, for example) are actually undergoing a manufacturing boom. Google may have just shot itself in the foot here by making it clear that Midwestern political views are not welcome. I would wager that a sizable chunk of Google's technical workforce hail from the Midwest.

whateveracct 9y ago
> Midwestern political views Is this sarcasm or are you serious? Please don't normalize this memo as if it's rational American political thought. Fwiw I grew up in and went to school in Indiana and it makes this google memo no less awful -.-
- someguydave 9y ago
  Midwestern folks respect competence without regard to race or sex. Google has clearly indicated that they think otherwise.
vkou 9y ago
Yet, making it clear that this form of behaviour is acceptable would not be shooting itself in the foot, when it comes to hiring and retaining women? "Come work for us - where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender!" does not sound like a great recruiting pitch. Never mind that it is also an incredibly shitty thing to do.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  >where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender! "We put a policy in place that dictates that hiring should be on the basis of something other than capability" "Oh my god why are employees questioning whether hires were made based on capability or something else?" Seems pretty reasonable. It is far from the first time this point has been made: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/58e/1a4/ae3/58e1a4ae36717528770103.pdf https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/5...
- someguydave 9y ago
  >"Come work for us - where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender!" "Senior SREs will privately doubt you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender/racial hiring preference" sounds so much better?
agildehaus 9y ago
Nice lumping everyone from a huge swath of a region into one group. I'm from the Midwest, currently living in the Midwest, do not hold anything close to these stupid views.
- lurker69 9y ago
  After reading this and some other comment sections and blogs I still haven seen single of his "stupid views" refuted in concise and logical manner, without relying on assumptions that only sexism and biases in hiring are cause of gab in distribution of sexes in tech. Based on my personal experience during my education I think his assumptions are quite accurate. Men are more inclined towards tech and science while women are more inclined towards education and social studies. But this is generalization. You also have women who excel in math and men who excel in education. Its just that there are less of them. Imo James was very careful with his words and stated multiple times that generalizing is harmful. He even included graphical representations of that: https://video-images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1502146696203-Screen-Shot-2017-08-07-at-65310-PM.png?resize=1050:* https://video-images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1502146696203-S...
  - Shivetya 9y ago
    You are up against irrational emotion driven reactions and that in turn means anything that does not agree with a person in that state is automatically hateful, stupid, or worse. My view is that is many parts of the fields I am in is that we are only beginning to see the benefits of women entering engineering and similar fields in significant numbers over a decade or more ago. There simply are not enough woman who came up through that process twenty plus years ago to have the experience many companies assign to a role; this artificial inflation of requirements also pushes out a lot of men as well. So diversity for the sake of diversity is wrong. not acknowledging we have a shortage of qualified candidates is wrong as well but try to remember this is because it took so long for society to accept women in these roles that it may not have been a dream of many until the last decade or two. anecdotal, I remember my own sister expressing an interest in science only after Sally Ride (hence the 80s). Seeing a woman in space was a big deal. Before the age of the internet young women only had TV for examples to aspire to and TV still had/has an influence of young people.

whateveracct 9y ago

> Midwestern political views Is this sarcasm or are you serious? Please don't normalize this memo as if it's rational American political thought. Fwiw I grew up in and went to school in Indiana and it makes this google memo no less awful -.-

someguydave 9y ago
Midwestern folks respect competence without regard to race or sex. Google has clearly indicated that they think otherwise.

vkou 9y ago

Yet, making it clear that this form of behaviour is acceptable would not be shooting itself in the foot, when it comes to hiring and retaining women? "Come work for us - where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender!" does not sound like a great recruiting pitch. Never mind that it is also an incredibly shitty thing to do.

FooHentai 9y ago
>where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender! "We put a policy in place that dictates that hiring should be on the basis of something other than capability" "Oh my god why are employees questioning whether hires were made based on capability or something else?" Seems pretty reasonable. It is far from the first time this point has been made: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/58e/1a4/ae3/58e1a4ae36717528770103.pdf https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/5...
someguydave 9y ago
>"Come work for us - where Senior SREs will publicly question whether or not you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender!" "Senior SREs will privately doubt you are capable of doing your job, based on your gender/racial hiring preference" sounds so much better?

agildehaus 9y ago

Nice lumping everyone from a huge swath of a region into one group. I'm from the Midwest, currently living in the Midwest, do not hold anything close to these stupid views.

lurker69 9y ago
After reading this and some other comment sections and blogs I still haven seen single of his "stupid views" refuted in concise and logical manner, without relying on assumptions that only sexism and biases in hiring are cause of gab in distribution of sexes in tech. Based on my personal experience during my education I think his assumptions are quite accurate. Men are more inclined towards tech and science while women are more inclined towards education and social studies. But this is generalization. You also have women who excel in math and men who excel in education. Its just that there are less of them. Imo James was very careful with his words and stated multiple times that generalizing is harmful. He even included graphical representations of that: https://video-images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1502146696203-Screen-Shot-2017-08-07-at-65310-PM.png?resize=1050:* https://video-images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1502146696203-S...
- Shivetya 9y ago
  You are up against irrational emotion driven reactions and that in turn means anything that does not agree with a person in that state is automatically hateful, stupid, or worse. My view is that is many parts of the fields I am in is that we are only beginning to see the benefits of women entering engineering and similar fields in significant numbers over a decade or more ago. There simply are not enough woman who came up through that process twenty plus years ago to have the experience many companies assign to a role; this artificial inflation of requirements also pushes out a lot of men as well. So diversity for the sake of diversity is wrong. not acknowledging we have a shortage of qualified candidates is wrong as well but try to remember this is because it took so long for society to accept women in these roles that it may not have been a dream of many until the last decade or two. anecdotal, I remember my own sister expressing an interest in science only after Sally Ride (hence the 80s). Seeing a woman in space was a big deal. Before the age of the internet young women only had TV for examples to aspire to and TV still had/has an influence of young people.