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The best way to approach people who agree with Damore and will shut down at the mention of anything like "sexism" or "discrimination" is to just explain that so

The best way to approach people who agree with Damore and will shut down at the mention of anything like "sexism" or "discrimination" is to just explain that software engineering is really not a particularly stressful job. Many of Damore's arguments, if they were true, would apply to nearly any job in the world. Specifically, you can compare software engineering to something like surgery. It is not controversial to claim that surgery is more stressful, more detail oriented, requires more dedication, etc. than software engineering. Yet the gender ratio of surgeons is about 60-40 male to female, far more equal than software. How can this be, if Damore's arguments have any merit? Affirmative action can't explain this, because if you're a bad surgeon, you'll be sued for malpractice and fired. If you're a bad software engineer, it's much easier to kind of muddle through and do well enough to not get fired.

vkou 9y ago
Or, take PhDs. Working towards, writing, and defending your PhD is more stressful then anything half of Silicon Valley's engineers will ever do. Yet, more women receive PhDs in the US then men do.
- mnglkhn2 9y ago
  To truly analyze this you need to breakdown things by: * foreign vs local PhD candidates * STEM vs non-STEM categories
- burkaman 9y ago
  You're right, but if you're trying to win an argument, I would stick to on-the-job examples. You need to preemptively shut down any possibility of affirmative action explanations. If you talk about PhDs, I guarantee someone will claim that schools intentionally lower standards for women to inflate their diversity numbers.
humanrebar 9y ago
> The best way to approach people who agree with Damore and will shut down at the mention of anything like "sexism" or "discrimination" is to just explain that software engineering is really not a particularly stressful job. Except Damore didn't claim that stress was the overriding factor in the gender gap. Your rebuttal assumes that's his position.
- burkaman 9y ago
  Right, stress was just one of a few points, but the same argument can be used against each of the differences he references. Nothing he talked about was specific to software engineers. I think surgery is a perfect example because all of his arguments should apply even more to surgeons than they do to software engineers, but the numbers don't agree.

vkou 9y ago

Or, take PhDs. Working towards, writing, and defending your PhD is more stressful then anything half of Silicon Valley's engineers will ever do. Yet, more women receive PhDs in the US then men do.

mnglkhn2 9y ago
To truly analyze this you need to breakdown things by: * foreign vs local PhD candidates * STEM vs non-STEM categories
burkaman 9y ago
You're right, but if you're trying to win an argument, I would stick to on-the-job examples. You need to preemptively shut down any possibility of affirmative action explanations. If you talk about PhDs, I guarantee someone will claim that schools intentionally lower standards for women to inflate their diversity numbers.

humanrebar 9y ago

> The best way to approach people who agree with Damore and will shut down at the mention of anything like "sexism" or "discrimination" is to just explain that software engineering is really not a particularly stressful job. Except Damore didn't claim that stress was the overriding factor in the gender gap. Your rebuttal assumes that's his position.

burkaman 9y ago
Right, stress was just one of a few points, but the same argument can be used against each of the differences he references. Nothing he talked about was specific to software engineers. I think surgery is a perfect example because all of his arguments should apply even more to surgeons than they do to software engineers, but the numbers don't agree.