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> I don't understand why people keep repeating that statement. He said that biological differences explain the different ratios of men and women, NOT that women

> I don't understand why people keep repeating that statement. He said that biological differences explain the different ratios of men and women, NOT that women are not suited for tech jobs. He explicitely did not say (nor mean) that a woman can't be a good software engineer. Just that on average, more men than women will show the features needed for software engineers. The problem is that his whole argument is based around biological determinism and those are the same arguments that true misogynists often use to discriminate against women. He even stated 'Neuroticism' as a trait women are predisposed to, which could've been pulled right out of an argument for why women shouldn't be allowed to vote. Damore devotes zero attention to the impact of culture on what fields women go into. And in a nutshell, that's a major reason this manifesto is problematic and got him fired. Women in IT sometimes have to contend with attitudes that 'women are bad at math' or 'women are irrational' or 'women only care about aesthetics'. These are the attitudes that make some technical fields unwelcoming to women. He hedges a little bit by saying 'distribution in traits between genders may be a part of why the gender gap exists' but then he proceeds to discuss that as the only reason the gender gap exists.

type0 9y ago
> The problem is that his whole argument is based around biological determinism It's not based on biological determinism, he provides references to the current state of psychological research and simply wants a discussion about the policy > this manifesto it's not a manifesto by any means unless you want to call everything a manifesto including your post. > Women in IT sometimes have to contend with attitudes that 'women are bad at math' or 'women are irrational' or 'women only care about aesthetics'. There were no such things in his text, not even remotely close > then he proceeds to discuss that as the only reason the gender gap exists. He explicitly questions those causes, please stop projecting your ideology on things you read
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> He even stated 'Neuroticism' as a trait women are predisposed to, which could've been pulled right out of an argument for why women shouldn't be allowed to vote. Did you read this article? Or references linked by the original memo? Even this article clearly points out that "neuroticism" thing is pretty much established, accepted, and uncontroversial science.
- xapata 9y ago
  No, I don't think it is. Not even the definition of neuroticism is uncontroversial.
jlouis 9y ago
The term "neuroticism" stems from the five factor model of psychological traits. The memo author doesn't really mention this too much, but if you know about the model, he uses the other factors throughout his work, which means he has read and understood the model. There have been several studies showing that women scores higher in the agreeableness and neuroticism factors, on average (and with a quite large variance and a rather small effect I might add). The memo author makes it clear by writing "in part" in multiple places: a moderate effect can't explain the whole story: either there is another factor which truly dominates, or we are just looking at one piece of the puzzle as a whole. Neuroticism has a very specific meaning in this case and it pertains to "negative emotion" in the sense that extremely high scores make you more likely to be stressed, anxious and so on. Likewise, extremely low scores make you overconfident and so stable you are unlikely to venture out into new ideas. From an evolutionary phsych. standpoint, any score which exist tend to serve a purpose some way or the other. There are no desirable or undesirable traits, because too much or too little of a trait will be challenging in some situations, but a great advantage in others. So the question to ask is: if women scores higher in neuroticism, what advantage does that buy them in what situations? More anxiety could for instance have you second-guessing yourself in more situations, and that could lead to you finding more bugs in programs up front, which is an excellent trait to have in software development. The other factor where there is a measurable gender difference, agreeableness, is a two-edged sword: High agreeableness scores are highly desirable for building coherent and working team/group structures. Low agreeableness allows people to pick an individualist/isolationist path when needed and make something great by ignoring the group consensus. Good group dynamic requires both traits to some extent. My hunch is that if you scored the women at Google on the five factor model, they'd be likely to fall somewhat outside the gender norms. There is a considerable selection bias if you only consider tech people who work for Google. You are easily looking at a small fraction of the population as a whole, and the hiring selection process is likely to skew the scores quite a lot from the average norm.
- GVIrish 9y ago
  The thing about pointing at the 5 factor psych model then applying it to something like gender disparity in tech, is that it's a pretty big leap to take scores from research studies to then draw conclusions about gender disparities in a given profession. Especially because at the core, it's very difficult to disentangle gender differences in psychological traits from learned social behaviors. You bring up a lot of questions about what effects predispositions have in this case and that is exactly why it creates problems when people take findings on predispositions and run with them.
99mistakes 9y ago
You're such an idiot that it's astounding. Neuroticism is the technical term in psychology. Women score higher in the neuroticism trait, end of story. Study up or shut up.

type0 9y ago

> The problem is that his whole argument is based around biological determinism It's not based on biological determinism, he provides references to the current state of psychological research and simply wants a discussion about the policy > this manifesto it's not a manifesto by any means unless you want to call everything a manifesto including your post. > Women in IT sometimes have to contend with attitudes that 'women are bad at math' or 'women are irrational' or 'women only care about aesthetics'. There were no such things in his text, not even remotely close > then he proceeds to discuss that as the only reason the gender gap exists. He explicitly questions those causes, please stop projecting your ideology on things you read

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> He even stated 'Neuroticism' as a trait women are predisposed to, which could've been pulled right out of an argument for why women shouldn't be allowed to vote. Did you read this article? Or references linked by the original memo? Even this article clearly points out that "neuroticism" thing is pretty much established, accepted, and uncontroversial science.

xapata 9y ago
No, I don't think it is. Not even the definition of neuroticism is uncontroversial.

jlouis 9y ago

The term "neuroticism" stems from the five factor model of psychological traits. The memo author doesn't really mention this too much, but if you know about the model, he uses the other factors throughout his work, which means he has read and understood the model. There have been several studies showing that women scores higher in the agreeableness and neuroticism factors, on average (and with a quite large variance and a rather small effect I might add). The memo author makes it clear by writing "in part" in multiple places: a moderate effect can't explain the whole story: either there is another factor which truly dominates, or we are just looking at one piece of the puzzle as a whole. Neuroticism has a very specific meaning in this case and it pertains to "negative emotion" in the sense that extremely high scores make you more likely to be stressed, anxious and so on. Likewise, extremely low scores make you overconfident and so stable you are unlikely to venture out into new ideas. From an evolutionary phsych. standpoint, any score which exist tend to serve a purpose some way or the other. There are no desirable or undesirable traits, because too much or too little of a trait will be challenging in some situations, but a great advantage in others. So the question to ask is: if women scores higher in neuroticism, what advantage does that buy them in what situations? More anxiety could for instance have you second-guessing yourself in more situations, and that could lead to you finding more bugs in programs up front, which is an excellent trait to have in software development. The other factor where there is a measurable gender difference, agreeableness, is a two-edged sword: High agreeableness scores are highly desirable for building coherent and working team/group structures. Low agreeableness allows people to pick an individualist/isolationist path when needed and make something great by ignoring the group consensus. Good group dynamic requires both traits to some extent. My hunch is that if you scored the women at Google on the five factor model, they'd be likely to fall somewhat outside the gender norms. There is a considerable selection bias if you only consider tech people who work for Google. You are easily looking at a small fraction of the population as a whole, and the hiring selection process is likely to skew the scores quite a lot from the average norm.

GVIrish 9y ago
The thing about pointing at the 5 factor psych model then applying it to something like gender disparity in tech, is that it's a pretty big leap to take scores from research studies to then draw conclusions about gender disparities in a given profession. Especially because at the core, it's very difficult to disentangle gender differences in psychological traits from learned social behaviors. You bring up a lot of questions about what effects predispositions have in this case and that is exactly why it creates problems when people take findings on predispositions and run with them.

99mistakes 9y ago

You're such an idiot that it's astounding. Neuroticism is the technical term in psychology. Women score higher in the neuroticism trait, end of story. Study up or shut up.