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Damore said higher proportion of men in engineering positions wasn't because of explicit discrimination. And we know Google fired him afterwards stating he was

Damore said higher proportion of men in engineering positions wasn't because of explicit discrimination. And we know Google fired him afterwards stating he was wrong. But All 25 Finalists In Its Code Jam Coding Competition are Men. In fact, With the exception of 2011, in 14 years of Code Jam, no Female has ever made it to the finals. Google's own non-discriminatory machine tool that evaluates codes, which doesn't take into account one's age, gender, nationality or skin color into account, has shed some light on some embarrassing outcomes.

mpweiher 9y ago
Yes, this is a conundrum. The honest assumption has been that non-equal outcomes must be due to discrimination, because that has in fact been true in other fields and in the past. And so the further assumption was that if we do what other fields have done, make evaluations "blind" (the way it was done in Orchestras) those biases would not be able to express themselves and we would get equal outcomes. Or at least more equal outcomes. Easy peasy! The problem is it doesn't seem to be working out that way in tech. In fact, when we "blind" the processes, the needle appears to move the other way. Suggesting that, yes, there was bias, but not the bias we thought. But that's not in the set of politically permissible answers/outcomes. So companies are scrambling and trying their best to somehow bend reality to fit the accepted parameters. Which, well, leads to a lot of bending. Of rules, laws, reality.
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
One of commenters here on HN summed it up frankly in this way: "We are rejecting it not because it's not true, but because it's morally wrong." Yes, these facts are unpleasant. They may be depressing for some. How do you find a way out of this? Whatever Google does or says will be bad in one way or another.
yorwba 9y ago
It could very well be the case that the higher proportion of men in engineering positions is mostly because of discrimination, while the increase in the proportion of men among finalists in the Code Jam competition isn't. (Not claiming that is the case, just highlighting the possibility.) How? Assume for the sake of argument that discrimination is the only factor influencing the gender distribution among CS professionals. From kindergarten onwards the numbers are slowly winnowed down to 80% men and 20% women. But now this 80/20 population enters a highly selective but objective contest and comes out with 349/1 (assuming there have always been 25 finalists in the 14 years of the competition and there was only this one woman I can't see in the photo proof). Surely this means that men are just better at programming? But in fact men are just better at being outliers. The effect is not very strong at small deviations (i.e. the difference between an average person and an average programmer), but can absolutely become significant when you only look at the extreme ends of the distribution. (I have written a comment about that here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997524) When you only look at the 25 top performers, that is bound to influence the result. Again, I don't think things are nearly so black-and-white, but pointing at one extreme case of men performing better wouldn't be enough to completely validate Damore's memo, if anyone were so stupid to make that argument.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  Also possible that fewer women than the 20% would suggest are going to enter a public contest which may well lead to harassment (if the experience of literally any prominent woman in tech on the internet is any guide.)
- trolliloquy 9y ago
  It happened that I read about mpweiher's comments and I found out a linked medium article by [Ex-googler & entrepreneur Vidya Narayanan](https://medium.com/the-mission/im-an-ex-google-woman-tech-leader-and-i-m-sick-of-our-approach-to-diversity-17008c5fe999 https://medium.com/the-mission/im-an-ex-google-woman-tech-le...). I agree on your point that the discrimination begins very early on. The aforementioned article, although, bolsters the point that females may aspire to adopt different career options. Therefore, the organizations can't be held responsible for creating the gap/divide. And I seem to agree with Damores's memo because he mentions solutions to the problem of gender-ratio-gap by suggesting programs to attract women to tech. In conclusion, complaining about the gender ratio alone won't fetch us equality but collectively attacking the root of the problem may.

mpweiher 9y ago

Yes, this is a conundrum. The honest assumption has been that non-equal outcomes must be due to discrimination, because that has in fact been true in other fields and in the past. And so the further assumption was that if we do what other fields have done, make evaluations "blind" (the way it was done in Orchestras) those biases would not be able to express themselves and we would get equal outcomes. Or at least more equal outcomes. Easy peasy! The problem is it doesn't seem to be working out that way in tech. In fact, when we "blind" the processes, the needle appears to move the other way. Suggesting that, yes, there was bias, but not the bias we thought. But that's not in the set of politically permissible answers/outcomes. So companies are scrambling and trying their best to somehow bend reality to fit the accepted parameters. Which, well, leads to a lot of bending. Of rules, laws, reality.

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago

One of commenters here on HN summed it up frankly in this way: "We are rejecting it not because it's not true, but because it's morally wrong." Yes, these facts are unpleasant. They may be depressing for some. How do you find a way out of this? Whatever Google does or says will be bad in one way or another.

yorwba 9y ago

It could very well be the case that the higher proportion of men in engineering positions is mostly because of discrimination, while the increase in the proportion of men among finalists in the Code Jam competition isn't. (Not claiming that is the case, just highlighting the possibility.) How? Assume for the sake of argument that discrimination is the only factor influencing the gender distribution among CS professionals. From kindergarten onwards the numbers are slowly winnowed down to 80% men and 20% women. But now this 80/20 population enters a highly selective but objective contest and comes out with 349/1 (assuming there have always been 25 finalists in the 14 years of the competition and there was only this one woman I can't see in the photo proof). Surely this means that men are just better at programming? But in fact men are just better at being outliers. The effect is not very strong at small deviations (i.e. the difference between an average person and an average programmer), but can absolutely become significant when you only look at the extreme ends of the distribution. (I have written a comment about that here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997524) When you only look at the 25 top performers, that is bound to influence the result. Again, I don't think things are nearly so black-and-white, but pointing at one extreme case of men performing better wouldn't be enough to completely validate Damore's memo, if anyone were so stupid to make that argument.

zimpenfish 9y ago
Also possible that fewer women than the 20% would suggest are going to enter a public contest which may well lead to harassment (if the experience of literally any prominent woman in tech on the internet is any guide.)
trolliloquy 9y ago
It happened that I read about mpweiher's comments and I found out a linked medium article by [Ex-googler & entrepreneur Vidya Narayanan](https://medium.com/the-mission/im-an-ex-google-woman-tech-leader-and-i-m-sick-of-our-approach-to-diversity-17008c5fe999 https://medium.com/the-mission/im-an-ex-google-woman-tech-le...). I agree on your point that the discrimination begins very early on. The aforementioned article, although, bolsters the point that females may aspire to adopt different career options. Therefore, the organizations can't be held responsible for creating the gap/divide. And I seem to agree with Damores's memo because he mentions solutions to the problem of gender-ratio-gap by suggesting programs to attract women to tech. In conclusion, complaining about the gender ratio alone won't fetch us equality but collectively attacking the root of the problem may.