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I'm still making up my mind on this one, but for the sake of argument, I'll disagree with you. The workplace was the venue for this, because 'this' was evidenc

I'm still making up my mind on this one, but for the sake of argument, I'll disagree with you. The workplace was the venue for this, because 'this' was evidence was that Google(his workplace)'s diversity initiatives and censorship were harming the company. He attempted to go through the proper channels (HR) as discussed in another part of the comment section for this very article. Completely ignored by HR, and after some watercooler discussion in which he received confirmation that he was not the only one to have such thoughts, he decided to organize his thoughts into a memo, which from his perspective, introduced ideas that could explain the gender employment gap at Google and help make the company better by erasing the notion of being a 'diversity hire' among other things. What it did not do was claim that his female coworkers were inferior. I feel the need to reiterate that because that seems to be the disinformation that many take home with them and use for their arguments against him. With it, they vilified and ousted him. Going back and reading it now, it's hard to believe such a seemingly harmless claim (women aren't as well represented in tech because they're not as interested in it) has created such outrage. I blame this mainly on Gizmodo, and those who piggybacked their original article (that blatantly lied about what he wrote and presented his memo which they had quietly edited). Some credit also needs to go to whoever leaked the memo, which Damore probably did not mean to leave the relatively small group of people he originally introduced it to, at least at that point in time. Really, what he presented and how he presented it were not very controversial. It easily could have been addressed internally by HR, or discussed within the company by its employees without the dishonesty and witch hunting. My point is, what he presented should have been acceptable in the way he did it especially given Google's claims of free speech and the historical precedent of memos like these, but dishonesty and close-mindedness distorted it until it looked like he was calling for repealing women's suffrage.

EGreg 9y ago
It isn't a question of whether it's the right place to have it. A corporation may not be the best place to bring up these topics, if your goal is to avoid getting fired. Otherwise, it is a place full of smart engineers and the guy probably had some fantasy that he can have a constructive conversation in a corporate setting about a policy which Google as a corporation faces external and internal pressure about. But as far as receptiveness, yes Google was a great venue for this, given who works there. Do you think hacker news is a better venue in that respect? Even on this very board, that same exact seemingly harmless claim, given and elaborated on in a talk about men and women given by a professor of psychology at FSU, was downvoted and bashed in a TL;DR manner: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11844777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11844777 It fared better a year ago, but not by much: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8909954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8909954 EDIT: curious, why the downvotes?
- bostonscott 9y ago
  "A corporation may not be the best place to bring up these topics, if your goal is to avoid getting fired" Agree. In fairness to James, however, I believe HR solicited feedback. "[T]he guy probably had some fantasy that he can have a constructive conversation" Seriously, what a let down. The "Sergey" and "Larry" who created Google would not have stood for this. Either they have lost control of their company, or they have changed. Working proactively to address racism/sexism/n'ism: Good, not evil Demanding orthodoxy of thought (or enabling those who do): Bad; EVIL
  - moises_silva 9y ago
    Google was being already investigated/accused of extreme gender pay discrimination. I'm not sure how anyone could think they'd want to engage in any kind of discussion that could be interpreted as discriminating to women while being under investigation for discriminating women. sigh
    - EGreg 9y ago
      Exactly! Why did more people not mention this fact? The guy wrote on a topic that the corporation could not afford to indulge him on.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      Shutting down an honest discussion of something because there is an investigation and it might be revealing is pretty high up there on the immoral scale.
      - moises_silva 9y ago
        I think your mixing two separate things here. The discussion was shut down not because it "might be revealing". It's plain and simple because they think is more harmful to have the discussion at a point when they're in legal trouble (with the corresponding financial penalty) than the argued loss of honest discussion (whatever exactly that means for you). It's because work is not a frigging politics/social debate club. You go to work to do whatever it is you were hired to do, not to discuss topics that may actually reduce productivity on your diverse work force for feeling discriminated. I understand there's an inevitable social/political aspect of working together, but is not the focus and if you don't agree with the political views/decisions of a company, and you can't get them (through proper channels, your manager, HR) to change, no one grants you the right to say whatever you want in the work place, especially when what you say is widely considered (by the company) as harmful to their interests.
naasking 9y ago
> Going back and reading it now, it's hard to believe such a seemingly harmless claim (women aren't as well represented in tech because they're not as interested in it) has created such outrage I think the larger problem is that this is an overstatement. Women might not be interested in joining the current tech culture, but that doesn't mean they aren't interested in tech to a larger extent than the current numbers suggest. Part of the disconnect is that these initiatives are aimed at changing the culture to be more attractive to women, and the people who really like the culture don't see the need. Certainly the current tech culture is effective and fairly productive, but I certainly don't know that it will be more, equally, or less productive with these culture changes.
- delroth 9y ago
  If this is a "current tech culture" problem, how do you explain the fact that this is a trend shared across most of the engineering professions? Example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11692996/Women-In-Engineering-Day-Gender-gap-in-male-dominated-industry-falls.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11692996/Wo... I don't think you can claim that "tech" and e.g. civil engineering have much in common in terms of culture, but they still share the lack of men/women parity.
  - csallen 9y ago
    Seems like you're arguing semantics, as the phrase could easily be changed to "current engineering culture" to invalidate your point. If you find it objectionable to change the phrase in such away, consider the fact that, as a computer scientist, I went to school and took classes with many mechanical, civil, and electrical engineers. I'm still friends with them today. The cultures are intertwined.
    - Const-me 9y ago
      But why does the same trend persists across cultures? The same is true for any developed country in the world. Do you think your tech culture is also interwined with that of Australia, Poland, Sweden and Italy?
ogun7 9y ago
People, especially groups used to enjoying privilege, always mistake what “free speech” is. Free Speech is the right to be free from GOVERNMENT suppression of speech, not prevailing attitudes, not private companies and institutions and not public sentiment. Expressing racist, homophobic and sexist ideas in a private company that has employee guidelines that forbade expressing hurtful speech has just consequences. Privileged people feel they are above repercussion because to admonish them encroaches on their sense of entitlement to privilege.
- backpropaganda 9y ago
  You're confusing free speech and first amendment. Free speech is an Enlightenment ideal much like the golden rule, i.e. "treat others the way you want to be treated". It's a good thing to strive for in a society, whether the first amendment exists or not.
ruraljuror 9y ago
> because 'this' was evidence was that Google(his workplace)'s diversity initiatives and censorship were harming the company. I am not sure I follow exactly. Is there evidence that Google's diversity efforts hurt the company? I don't find the memo offers any evidence. If evidence, even anecdotal evidence, were provided of that harm and of the ideological intolerance I might find the memo more compelling. As it stands, it seems like a book report.
- nicolashahn 9y ago
  The memo doesn't offer direct evidence of Google's diversity initiatives causing harm because the original audience for the memo solely consisted of employees of Google (who would have seen its effects and formed their own opinion from first hand experience). It's often forgotten that the memo wasn't originally meant for the general public.
- e9 9y ago
  I think he was just asking official investigation to see if there are problems: 1. he made point about ideological echo chamber and wanted everyone to look to see if it's true 2. he saw potentially illegal practices, produced what you call a book report and asked this to be officially discussed to figure out if there is any merit to it I see it as honest call for discussion but everyone is treating this as some malicious attempt to exercise sexism. We are all educated and civil people please have some dignity and apply Hanlon's razor to these kind of things: "Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Your '2' all by itself if you are not invited to do so by your employer is most likely going to get you fired especially if you document said potential illegal practices in a widely shared memo. Most companies would - right or not - try to keep their dirty laundry indoors and the right way to deal with such stuff is to first try to take it up the chain and if you are ignored you can decide if you're brave enough to become a whistle blower with all the fine consequences that tends to have, one of the most likely results of which is that you will find yourself suddenly unemployed and if you're unlucky also unemployable.
daotoad 9y ago
I don't think it was just the "harmless claim" that was the issue. Many of his points were objectionable if not outright offensive. The obvious example of an offensive claim is that women are more prone to be neurotic. Also, can you really assert that you've checked your biases if you claim that people who agree with you (conservatives) are "pragmatic" while those who disagree (liberals) are "idealistic". I'm sorry, but that is complete and total BS. It's not hard to see that there are pragmatists and ideologues in both the liberal and conservative political movements. As a white male engineer, I will tell you thing the that most white dudes like me fail to understand about micro-agressions- and the document was chock full of them-is that they are not really significant when they only happen once, in isolation, it is the constant, droning repetition of them that makes them harmful. Asking someone where they're from isn't offensive when considered in isolation. But if 90% of the white people you meet ask you this immediately, while it comes up only occasionally or late in the conversation when meeting other people, it makes you wonder. One thing my mixed race friends get asked a lot by white people is "what are you?". At first I found that hard to believe, but I've seen it happen over and over again--random chitchat at the park with a nice lady who stopped to pet my dog; for some reason she has to ask my friend "what are you?" She's too nice to say "not racist, how about you?" or anything harsh in response, but it makes my blood boil. Imagine being expected to defend and define your presence everywhere you go. So, yeah, the idea was harmless. The presentation was part of the constant barrage of gatekeeping behavior that women and people of color are sick of dealing with. That's why it's offensive, that's why people are angry.
- axlprose 9y ago
  > The obvious example of an offensive claim is that women are more prone to be neurotic. As a personality researcher, I feel obligated to chime in and clarify that the memo wasn't stating that women are "neurotic", neither in the colloquial nor clinical sense, but that they are on average higher in the trait of Neuroticism in the Big 5 personality dimensions[0], which is a very specific and well defined term, and the scientific literature actually does support that statement when it is presented using those academic definitions. There's nothing opinionated about this, just as much as saying that men on average test higher in the trait of 'Conscientiousness' according to the same model; they're just population statistics based on the most reliable personality measure we have in the field of psychology today. It is a plain misunderstanding of the academic term to suggest that the memo says women are "neurotic" in any other way. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
ryanobjc 9y ago
So, you say "what it did not do was claim his female coworkers are inferior". First off, that's your opinion of the paper, ok? That's not a fact about the document. That's your assessment. You might believe it in so strongly it's basically fact to you. But here's the deal, a bunch of other really smart people think it did do exactly what you claim it didn't. Now what? Are they wrong, you're right? On what basis? Besides which, if you write "effectively lowered the bar for 'diversity' candidates", actually yes you just claimed that women at Google are less qualified. Many voices are loudly explain why this memo is offensive. Shelve your own ideas of what you think this memo is saying, and consider them. As for the emotions, there's a huge veiled anti-woman slant to arguments that take the paper on it's "logical" face value and dismiss emotions. First off, dismissal of emotions is a classic anti-woman tactic. Secondly, you're a human male, you have as many emotions as anyone else. You can separate emotion and "rational" thought.
- Seenti 9y ago
  >First off, that's your opinion of the paper, ok? That's not a fact about the document. Of course it's a fact about the document. Damore does not say this. If you claim he did, you should easily be able to prove it by quoting him saying it. No one has done that, because the accusation is false. The burden of proof is on the accuser. The accuser is not presumed to be telling the truth on the basis of their social standing, gender or the emotional intensity of their reaction. >But here's the deal, a bunch of other really smart people think it did do exactly what you claim it didn't. Now what? Are they wrong, you're right? On what basis? On the basis of the content of the memo, they are wrong.
  - davidcbc 9y ago
    He claimed that Google's diversity policy lowered the bar for hiring, how can you read that and not think he was claiming that a portion of his female/minority coworkers were underqualified for their jobs?
    - manfredo 9y ago
      > He claimed that Google's diversity policy lowered the bar for hiring, how can you read that and not think he was claiming that a portion of his female/minority coworkers were underqualified for their jobs? This is the full quote, "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate." Latter emphasis mine. I read this the same way that he writes it: that Google takes steps to reduce the false negative rate for diverse candidates but does not take these steps with non-diverse candidates. Policies like re-trying failed phone interviews, or automatically passing resume review for diverse candidates are examples of this (these are examples I've witnessed, I don't know if they in place at Google). They still need to pass the final interview loop, so they're not underqualified. But extra steps earlier in the interview process reduce the false negative rate. Personally, I think these steps are an acceptable means of getting a more diverse group of candidates but I'd still respect my co-workers if they disagreed. To point out the fact that this results in some non-diverse candidates being denied when they could have gotten offers is factually correct. More importantly, to point this fact out is not to call the diverse candidates passed under such a system underqualified - as I pointed out earlier all candidates pass the final interview loop so all candidates are qualified.
camgunz 9y ago
> I'm still making up my mind on this one, but for the sake of argument, I'll disagree with you. OK :) I think some of Damore's complaints were, on the surface, about Google. But they're all rooted in some old and incorrect ideas. Damore advocates against Google's diversity programs, arguing that diversity programs can't be fully effective because fundamental biological differences between women and men are responsible for the gender gap, not social or cultural disadvantage, and further that these programs are discriminatory against men. This is an old idea. Women's rights activists have heard this time and time again, whether it was for the right to go to school (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_education_in_the_United_States#20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_education_in_the_Uni...), the right to have a job (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights#Equal_employment_rights_for_women_and_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights#Equal_employm...), or of course, the right to vote. The argument, every single time, is "women and girls aren't really interested in reading/writing/working/politics". But in each case, we discovered that women were discouraged (and often outright punished) in strong, varied, and complex ways from being involved in these things, and when we investigated and removed those impediments suddenly the "interest gap" disappeared. The "discriminatory against men" argument is essentially a reverse discrimination argument, and I'll leave it to Jamelle Bouie to explain why those are wrong: https://www.thenation.com/article/race-millennials-and-reverse-discrimination/ https://www.thenation.com/article/race-millennials-and-rever.... But the main reason that Damore's argument is outrageous is that the arguments about interest and fundamental biological differences have been used to hold women and people of color back since the inception of the US. Reverse discrimination belittles and dismisses the experiences of women and people of color by falsely equating systemic sexism and racism with isolated incidents, or in this case with gender-conscious diversity programs. I'd also like to address the free speech issue a little. The US concept of free speech protects citizens from government retaliation. It doesn't mean I have to tolerate speech of all kinds in my home, and it doesn't mean that businesses have to tolerate speech of any kind in the workplace. With that in mind, it's obvious that you can't say whatever you want at work even though e we may disagree on where the line is.
- diedyesterday 9y ago
  >But the main reason that Damore's argument is outrageous is that the arguments about interest and fundamental biological differences have been used to hold women and people of color back since the inception of the US What you do with the information that science provides is your problem. If a society (such as a workplace) doesn't have the capacity to logically process the scientific facts, and uses them to enforce psycho-sociological diseases like racism or discrimination, the solution is not to deny the scientific facts or erase the question. The solution is to foster capacity in society to process and respond to scientific facts in a logical manner
scierama 9y ago
Damore should sue Gizmodo. Big companies like Google and IBM and the military though, they usually have CoC requirements that essentially boil down to don't embarrass them in public.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  It isn't clear, and actually highly unlikely, that Damore leaked the memo to the public.
  - jedmeyers 9y ago
    And leaking is a fireable offence at Google, yet those leakers are nowhere to be found, for some reason.
    - andybak 9y ago
      Why the sinister implication? Unless I've misunderstood your tone, you seem to be implying complicity even conspiracy. Surely the obvious explanation is "anyone could have leaked it and it's very hard to prove who did it"?
arihant 9y ago
Women aren't interested in tech because they grow up with social blockers, such as his memo. That's the point everyone seems to miss. Imagine a girl interested in tech when only a handful of her peers understand her interest. Then, she reads such an article and bullshit social studies passed on as evidence and gets socialised that tech really isn't for women. Until you remove social blockers that prevent women from entering tech, you cannot claim legitimacy of any social survey in regards to that. This letter belongs to a time when a generation of women are equally pushed to enter tech as men. Then we can debate whether it's their lack of interest of not.
- chmike 9y ago
  I strongly disagree with the claim that there is no gender difference (implied by what you wrote) and that imbalance in gender representation is 100% due to social blocking. When I was a student in computer science more than 30 years ago, in our class of more than 30 students there was only one female. There was no entrance selection or any filter or money involved (not in USA). We are dealing with overlapping gaussians. Girls and boys are today educated without making a difference through all their childhood, and I think that this may give the false impression to them that there is no difference. But whoever had children or has seen many children will see that some differences in behavior and interest are blattan and can't be socially induced. I do not deny that blocking MAY exist and some men are sexists, I have seen such discusting behavior. I considr them disfunctional. But this is not 100% the cause of gender imbalance in tech. There is no blocking to contribute to OSS, and good programmers get hired regardless of gender. You should read back the [Donner Kruger effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect) to remind you of you own bias when evaluating your competence.
  - grey-area 9y ago
    I strongly disagree with the claim that there is no gender difference I sincerely don't think that anyone is proposing that there is no difference between men and women, the discussion is over the extent of the differences. We are dealing with overlapping gaussians. The question is the extent of the overlap. If the overlap is very close on many abilities, men exceed women on some (like say maths), and women exceed men on some others required for a programming job (like say, empathy), then you'd expect distribution of jobs to be around 50% with slight variations. There is no indication that they vary by the amount required to explain the disparity of jobs in tech, indeed, this is easily refuted by looking at the number of women in technical jobs in the US in the 70s. PS It's Dunning-Kruger
wsy 9y ago
> it's hard to believe such a seemingly harmless claim (women aren't as well represented in tech because they're not as interested in it) has created such outrage His claim is much stronger: he claims that women _working at Google as engineers_ are less interested in tech than their male colleagues. This debate is about stopping internal diversity programs within Google, not about women in general in tech.
- fuzzybeard 9y ago
  > women _working at Google as engineers_ are less interested in tech than their male colleagues I wonder if this argument could be made? Stats show that men work more hours than women whereas women prefer a more of a work-life-family balance. So given that, you could say that the women in tech there are less interested. At least, in terms of hours and dedication to the job. I don't think it holds too much water. You can be interested in the subject matter but not work as much. But there is some truth to it in a way.
  - CodeCube 9y ago
    > You can be interested in the subject matter but not work as much. But there is some truth to it in a way. c'mon, pick a side ... you can't argue both ways. The constructive takeaway from this is not that women are a "lesser" value because they crave work-life-family balance. The takeaway should definitely be that we should figure out how to help the overworked individuals who work too much, find a better balance.
    - 794CD01 9y ago
      Who are you to decide what the right balance for other people should be? If they are happy working 11 hours a day while you only work 8, what is wrong with that? Are you actually intervening because you are concerned for them or are you simply worried that their choice to work more than you will result in them correctly being valued more than you by your mutual employer?
      - 9y ago
wpietri 9y ago
> Going back and reading it now, it's hard to believe such a seemingly harmless claim (women aren't as well represented in tech because they're not as interested in it) has created such outrage. It is only hard to believe if you are entirely unfamiliar with the history of this discussion. Let's take a more obvious example: the common racist claim that black people are lazy. It is possible to dress this up in neutral, scientific-sounding language. Someone ignorant of the history of racism in America could be fooled into saying, "Gosh, we should consider that as an explanation for why tech is disproportionately white." (That someone could harbor racial bias, but that need not be true.) That would correctly generate outrage, because a) one should not be ignorant about the history of these things when jumping into a discussion with such impact on people's lives, and b) there is a long, long history of virulent racists edging their way into the mainstream by dressing up their prejudices just enough to sound reasonable to the ignorant. Returning to Damore, the fact that a bunch of white men ignorant of the history of gender bias can't spot the patterns does not mean the patterns aren't there. The benefit of the doubt only applies to educated doubt, not the doubt that comes from not knowing what's going on. That you were surprised by the outrage only means you haven't been paying attention.
- Brockenstein 9y ago
  And these are all points that apologists don't seem to understand. Why we can't just have rational discourse, debate about these issues, come to a middle ground. You know middle ground and compromise means in issues like gender and race inequality? That at the end of the day, the minority is still treated as less than. Hey there's been some progress, isn't that good enough? No, of course not. We've been discussing these issues for generations. At some point the discussion has been had. No one is saying anything new. But every new group of people believe they have something worthwhile to say about it and until they get to regurgitate their own brand of ignorance they'll whine and cry about how they're being oppressed for not being able to maintain the status quo.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    Spot on. People's humanity and civil rights are not topics that should be open for debate. But the people who want to debate that start with "science" as the thin end of the wedge. Of course, the thing that's always up for question is the participation of minorities. It's never a guy saying, "Fellas, the science shows that men are poor at cooperating and highly prone to aggression and violence, so let's debate whether we men should be allowed to manage or supervise other people." It's highly motivated reasoning.
nimblegorilla 9y ago
> What it did not do was claim that his female coworkers were inferior. I feel the need to reiterate that because that seems to be the disinformation that many take home with them and use for their arguments against him. With it, they vilified and ousted him. He didn't say it directly, but he strongly implied that female coworkers were inferior. Among other things he claimed that women were less able to handle stress and have a harder time speaking up. The document claims a lot more than just "women aren't interested in tech".

EGreg 9y ago

It isn't a question of whether it's the right place to have it. A corporation may not be the best place to bring up these topics, if your goal is to avoid getting fired. Otherwise, it is a place full of smart engineers and the guy probably had some fantasy that he can have a constructive conversation in a corporate setting about a policy which Google as a corporation faces external and internal pressure about. But as far as receptiveness, yes Google was a great venue for this, given who works there. Do you think hacker news is a better venue in that respect? Even on this very board, that same exact seemingly harmless claim, given and elaborated on in a talk about men and women given by a professor of psychology at FSU, was downvoted and bashed in a TL;DR manner: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11844777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11844777 It fared better a year ago, but not by much: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8909954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8909954 EDIT: curious, why the downvotes?

bostonscott 9y ago
"A corporation may not be the best place to bring up these topics, if your goal is to avoid getting fired" Agree. In fairness to James, however, I believe HR solicited feedback. "[T]he guy probably had some fantasy that he can have a constructive conversation" Seriously, what a let down. The "Sergey" and "Larry" who created Google would not have stood for this. Either they have lost control of their company, or they have changed. Working proactively to address racism/sexism/n'ism: Good, not evil Demanding orthodoxy of thought (or enabling those who do): Bad; EVIL
- moises_silva 9y ago
  Google was being already investigated/accused of extreme gender pay discrimination. I'm not sure how anyone could think they'd want to engage in any kind of discussion that could be interpreted as discriminating to women while being under investigation for discriminating women. sigh
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Exactly! Why did more people not mention this fact? The guy wrote on a topic that the corporation could not afford to indulge him on.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    Shutting down an honest discussion of something because there is an investigation and it might be revealing is pretty high up there on the immoral scale.
    - moises_silva 9y ago
      I think your mixing two separate things here. The discussion was shut down not because it "might be revealing". It's plain and simple because they think is more harmful to have the discussion at a point when they're in legal trouble (with the corresponding financial penalty) than the argued loss of honest discussion (whatever exactly that means for you). It's because work is not a frigging politics/social debate club. You go to work to do whatever it is you were hired to do, not to discuss topics that may actually reduce productivity on your diverse work force for feeling discriminated. I understand there's an inevitable social/political aspect of working together, but is not the focus and if you don't agree with the political views/decisions of a company, and you can't get them (through proper channels, your manager, HR) to change, no one grants you the right to say whatever you want in the work place, especially when what you say is widely considered (by the company) as harmful to their interests.

naasking 9y ago

> Going back and reading it now, it's hard to believe such a seemingly harmless claim (women aren't as well represented in tech because they're not as interested in it) has created such outrage I think the larger problem is that this is an overstatement. Women might not be interested in joining the current tech culture, but that doesn't mean they aren't interested in tech to a larger extent than the current numbers suggest. Part of the disconnect is that these initiatives are aimed at changing the culture to be more attractive to women, and the people who really like the culture don't see the need. Certainly the current tech culture is effective and fairly productive, but I certainly don't know that it will be more, equally, or less productive with these culture changes.

delroth 9y ago
If this is a "current tech culture" problem, how do you explain the fact that this is a trend shared across most of the engineering professions? Example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11692996/Women-In-Engineering-Day-Gender-gap-in-male-dominated-industry-falls.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11692996/Wo... I don't think you can claim that "tech" and e.g. civil engineering have much in common in terms of culture, but they still share the lack of men/women parity.
- csallen 9y ago
  Seems like you're arguing semantics, as the phrase could easily be changed to "current engineering culture" to invalidate your point. If you find it objectionable to change the phrase in such away, consider the fact that, as a computer scientist, I went to school and took classes with many mechanical, civil, and electrical engineers. I'm still friends with them today. The cultures are intertwined.
  - Const-me 9y ago
    But why does the same trend persists across cultures? The same is true for any developed country in the world. Do you think your tech culture is also interwined with that of Australia, Poland, Sweden and Italy?

ogun7 9y ago

People, especially groups used to enjoying privilege, always mistake what “free speech” is. Free Speech is the right to be free from GOVERNMENT suppression of speech, not prevailing attitudes, not private companies and institutions and not public sentiment. Expressing racist, homophobic and sexist ideas in a private company that has employee guidelines that forbade expressing hurtful speech has just consequences. Privileged people feel they are above repercussion because to admonish them encroaches on their sense of entitlement to privilege.

backpropaganda 9y ago
You're confusing free speech and first amendment. Free speech is an Enlightenment ideal much like the golden rule, i.e. "treat others the way you want to be treated". It's a good thing to strive for in a society, whether the first amendment exists or not.

ruraljuror 9y ago

> because 'this' was evidence was that Google(his workplace)'s diversity initiatives and censorship were harming the company. I am not sure I follow exactly. Is there evidence that Google's diversity efforts hurt the company? I don't find the memo offers any evidence. If evidence, even anecdotal evidence, were provided of that harm and of the ideological intolerance I might find the memo more compelling. As it stands, it seems like a book report.

nicolashahn 9y ago
The memo doesn't offer direct evidence of Google's diversity initiatives causing harm because the original audience for the memo solely consisted of employees of Google (who would have seen its effects and formed their own opinion from first hand experience). It's often forgotten that the memo wasn't originally meant for the general public.
e9 9y ago
I think he was just asking official investigation to see if there are problems: 1. he made point about ideological echo chamber and wanted everyone to look to see if it's true 2. he saw potentially illegal practices, produced what you call a book report and asked this to be officially discussed to figure out if there is any merit to it I see it as honest call for discussion but everyone is treating this as some malicious attempt to exercise sexism. We are all educated and civil people please have some dignity and apply Hanlon's razor to these kind of things: "Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Your '2' all by itself if you are not invited to do so by your employer is most likely going to get you fired especially if you document said potential illegal practices in a widely shared memo. Most companies would - right or not - try to keep their dirty laundry indoors and the right way to deal with such stuff is to first try to take it up the chain and if you are ignored you can decide if you're brave enough to become a whistle blower with all the fine consequences that tends to have, one of the most likely results of which is that you will find yourself suddenly unemployed and if you're unlucky also unemployable.

daotoad 9y ago

I don't think it was just the "harmless claim" that was the issue. Many of his points were objectionable if not outright offensive. The obvious example of an offensive claim is that women are more prone to be neurotic. Also, can you really assert that you've checked your biases if you claim that people who agree with you (conservatives) are "pragmatic" while those who disagree (liberals) are "idealistic". I'm sorry, but that is complete and total BS. It's not hard to see that there are pragmatists and ideologues in both the liberal and conservative political movements. As a white male engineer, I will tell you thing the that most white dudes like me fail to understand about micro-agressions- and the document was chock full of them-is that they are not really significant when they only happen once, in isolation, it is the constant, droning repetition of them that makes them harmful. Asking someone where they're from isn't offensive when considered in isolation. But if 90% of the white people you meet ask you this immediately, while it comes up only occasionally or late in the conversation when meeting other people, it makes you wonder. One thing my mixed race friends get asked a lot by white people is "what are you?". At first I found that hard to believe, but I've seen it happen over and over again--random chitchat at the park with a nice lady who stopped to pet my dog; for some reason she has to ask my friend "what are you?" She's too nice to say "not racist, how about you?" or anything harsh in response, but it makes my blood boil. Imagine being expected to defend and define your presence everywhere you go. So, yeah, the idea was harmless. The presentation was part of the constant barrage of gatekeeping behavior that women and people of color are sick of dealing with. That's why it's offensive, that's why people are angry.

axlprose 9y ago
> The obvious example of an offensive claim is that women are more prone to be neurotic. As a personality researcher, I feel obligated to chime in and clarify that the memo wasn't stating that women are "neurotic", neither in the colloquial nor clinical sense, but that they are on average higher in the trait of Neuroticism in the Big 5 personality dimensions[0], which is a very specific and well defined term, and the scientific literature actually does support that statement when it is presented using those academic definitions. There's nothing opinionated about this, just as much as saying that men on average test higher in the trait of 'Conscientiousness' according to the same model; they're just population statistics based on the most reliable personality measure we have in the field of psychology today. It is a plain misunderstanding of the academic term to suggest that the memo says women are "neurotic" in any other way. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

ryanobjc 9y ago

So, you say "what it did not do was claim his female coworkers are inferior". First off, that's your opinion of the paper, ok? That's not a fact about the document. That's your assessment. You might believe it in so strongly it's basically fact to you. But here's the deal, a bunch of other really smart people think it did do exactly what you claim it didn't. Now what? Are they wrong, you're right? On what basis? Besides which, if you write "effectively lowered the bar for 'diversity' candidates", actually yes you just claimed that women at Google are less qualified. Many voices are loudly explain why this memo is offensive. Shelve your own ideas of what you think this memo is saying, and consider them. As for the emotions, there's a huge veiled anti-woman slant to arguments that take the paper on it's "logical" face value and dismiss emotions. First off, dismissal of emotions is a classic anti-woman tactic. Secondly, you're a human male, you have as many emotions as anyone else. You can separate emotion and "rational" thought.

Seenti 9y ago
>First off, that's your opinion of the paper, ok? That's not a fact about the document. Of course it's a fact about the document. Damore does not say this. If you claim he did, you should easily be able to prove it by quoting him saying it. No one has done that, because the accusation is false. The burden of proof is on the accuser. The accuser is not presumed to be telling the truth on the basis of their social standing, gender or the emotional intensity of their reaction. >But here's the deal, a bunch of other really smart people think it did do exactly what you claim it didn't. Now what? Are they wrong, you're right? On what basis? On the basis of the content of the memo, they are wrong.
- davidcbc 9y ago
  He claimed that Google's diversity policy lowered the bar for hiring, how can you read that and not think he was claiming that a portion of his female/minority coworkers were underqualified for their jobs?
  - manfredo 9y ago
    > He claimed that Google's diversity policy lowered the bar for hiring, how can you read that and not think he was claiming that a portion of his female/minority coworkers were underqualified for their jobs? This is the full quote, "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate." Latter emphasis mine. I read this the same way that he writes it: that Google takes steps to reduce the false negative rate for diverse candidates but does not take these steps with non-diverse candidates. Policies like re-trying failed phone interviews, or automatically passing resume review for diverse candidates are examples of this (these are examples I've witnessed, I don't know if they in place at Google). They still need to pass the final interview loop, so they're not underqualified. But extra steps earlier in the interview process reduce the false negative rate. Personally, I think these steps are an acceptable means of getting a more diverse group of candidates but I'd still respect my co-workers if they disagreed. To point out the fact that this results in some non-diverse candidates being denied when they could have gotten offers is factually correct. More importantly, to point this fact out is not to call the diverse candidates passed under such a system underqualified - as I pointed out earlier all candidates pass the final interview loop so all candidates are qualified.

camgunz 9y ago

> I'm still making up my mind on this one, but for the sake of argument, I'll disagree with you. OK :) I think some of Damore's complaints were, on the surface, about Google. But they're all rooted in some old and incorrect ideas. Damore advocates against Google's diversity programs, arguing that diversity programs can't be fully effective because fundamental biological differences between women and men are responsible for the gender gap, not social or cultural disadvantage, and further that these programs are discriminatory against men. This is an old idea. Women's rights activists have heard this time and time again, whether it was for the right to go to school (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_education_in_the_United_States#20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_education_in_the_Uni...), the right to have a job (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights#Equal_employment_rights_for_women_and_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights#Equal_employm...), or of course, the right to vote. The argument, every single time, is "women and girls aren't really interested in reading/writing/working/politics". But in each case, we discovered that women were discouraged (and often outright punished) in strong, varied, and complex ways from being involved in these things, and when we investigated and removed those impediments suddenly the "interest gap" disappeared. The "discriminatory against men" argument is essentially a reverse discrimination argument, and I'll leave it to Jamelle Bouie to explain why those are wrong: https://www.thenation.com/article/race-millennials-and-reverse-discrimination/ https://www.thenation.com/article/race-millennials-and-rever.... But the main reason that Damore's argument is outrageous is that the arguments about interest and fundamental biological differences have been used to hold women and people of color back since the inception of the US. Reverse discrimination belittles and dismisses the experiences of women and people of color by falsely equating systemic sexism and racism with isolated incidents, or in this case with gender-conscious diversity programs. I'd also like to address the free speech issue a little. The US concept of free speech protects citizens from government retaliation. It doesn't mean I have to tolerate speech of all kinds in my home, and it doesn't mean that businesses have to tolerate speech of any kind in the workplace. With that in mind, it's obvious that you can't say whatever you want at work even though e we may disagree on where the line is.

diedyesterday 9y ago
>But the main reason that Damore's argument is outrageous is that the arguments about interest and fundamental biological differences have been used to hold women and people of color back since the inception of the US What you do with the information that science provides is your problem. If a society (such as a workplace) doesn't have the capacity to logically process the scientific facts, and uses them to enforce psycho-sociological diseases like racism or discrimination, the solution is not to deny the scientific facts or erase the question. The solution is to foster capacity in society to process and respond to scientific facts in a logical manner

scierama 9y ago

Damore should sue Gizmodo. Big companies like Google and IBM and the military though, they usually have CoC requirements that essentially boil down to don't embarrass them in public.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
It isn't clear, and actually highly unlikely, that Damore leaked the memo to the public.
- jedmeyers 9y ago
  And leaking is a fireable offence at Google, yet those leakers are nowhere to be found, for some reason.
  - andybak 9y ago
    Why the sinister implication? Unless I've misunderstood your tone, you seem to be implying complicity even conspiracy. Surely the obvious explanation is "anyone could have leaked it and it's very hard to prove who did it"?

arihant 9y ago

Women aren't interested in tech because they grow up with social blockers, such as his memo. That's the point everyone seems to miss. Imagine a girl interested in tech when only a handful of her peers understand her interest. Then, she reads such an article and bullshit social studies passed on as evidence and gets socialised that tech really isn't for women. Until you remove social blockers that prevent women from entering tech, you cannot claim legitimacy of any social survey in regards to that. This letter belongs to a time when a generation of women are equally pushed to enter tech as men. Then we can debate whether it's their lack of interest of not.

chmike 9y ago
I strongly disagree with the claim that there is no gender difference (implied by what you wrote) and that imbalance in gender representation is 100% due to social blocking. When I was a student in computer science more than 30 years ago, in our class of more than 30 students there was only one female. There was no entrance selection or any filter or money involved (not in USA). We are dealing with overlapping gaussians. Girls and boys are today educated without making a difference through all their childhood, and I think that this may give the false impression to them that there is no difference. But whoever had children or has seen many children will see that some differences in behavior and interest are blattan and can't be socially induced. I do not deny that blocking MAY exist and some men are sexists, I have seen such discusting behavior. I considr them disfunctional. But this is not 100% the cause of gender imbalance in tech. There is no blocking to contribute to OSS, and good programmers get hired regardless of gender. You should read back the [Donner Kruger effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect) to remind you of you own bias when evaluating your competence.
- grey-area 9y ago
  I strongly disagree with the claim that there is no gender difference I sincerely don't think that anyone is proposing that there is no difference between men and women, the discussion is over the extent of the differences. We are dealing with overlapping gaussians. The question is the extent of the overlap. If the overlap is very close on many abilities, men exceed women on some (like say maths), and women exceed men on some others required for a programming job (like say, empathy), then you'd expect distribution of jobs to be around 50% with slight variations. There is no indication that they vary by the amount required to explain the disparity of jobs in tech, indeed, this is easily refuted by looking at the number of women in technical jobs in the US in the 70s. PS It's Dunning-Kruger

wsy 9y ago

> it's hard to believe such a seemingly harmless claim (women aren't as well represented in tech because they're not as interested in it) has created such outrage His claim is much stronger: he claims that women _working at Google as engineers_ are less interested in tech than their male colleagues. This debate is about stopping internal diversity programs within Google, not about women in general in tech.

fuzzybeard 9y ago
> women _working at Google as engineers_ are less interested in tech than their male colleagues I wonder if this argument could be made? Stats show that men work more hours than women whereas women prefer a more of a work-life-family balance. So given that, you could say that the women in tech there are less interested. At least, in terms of hours and dedication to the job. I don't think it holds too much water. You can be interested in the subject matter but not work as much. But there is some truth to it in a way.
- CodeCube 9y ago
  > You can be interested in the subject matter but not work as much. But there is some truth to it in a way. c'mon, pick a side ... you can't argue both ways. The constructive takeaway from this is not that women are a "lesser" value because they crave work-life-family balance. The takeaway should definitely be that we should figure out how to help the overworked individuals who work too much, find a better balance.
  - 794CD01 9y ago
    Who are you to decide what the right balance for other people should be? If they are happy working 11 hours a day while you only work 8, what is wrong with that? Are you actually intervening because you are concerned for them or are you simply worried that their choice to work more than you will result in them correctly being valued more than you by your mutual employer?
    - 9y ago

wpietri 9y ago

> Going back and reading it now, it's hard to believe such a seemingly harmless claim (women aren't as well represented in tech because they're not as interested in it) has created such outrage. It is only hard to believe if you are entirely unfamiliar with the history of this discussion. Let's take a more obvious example: the common racist claim that black people are lazy. It is possible to dress this up in neutral, scientific-sounding language. Someone ignorant of the history of racism in America could be fooled into saying, "Gosh, we should consider that as an explanation for why tech is disproportionately white." (That someone could harbor racial bias, but that need not be true.) That would correctly generate outrage, because a) one should not be ignorant about the history of these things when jumping into a discussion with such impact on people's lives, and b) there is a long, long history of virulent racists edging their way into the mainstream by dressing up their prejudices just enough to sound reasonable to the ignorant. Returning to Damore, the fact that a bunch of white men ignorant of the history of gender bias can't spot the patterns does not mean the patterns aren't there. The benefit of the doubt only applies to educated doubt, not the doubt that comes from not knowing what's going on. That you were surprised by the outrage only means you haven't been paying attention.

Brockenstein 9y ago
And these are all points that apologists don't seem to understand. Why we can't just have rational discourse, debate about these issues, come to a middle ground. You know middle ground and compromise means in issues like gender and race inequality? That at the end of the day, the minority is still treated as less than. Hey there's been some progress, isn't that good enough? No, of course not. We've been discussing these issues for generations. At some point the discussion has been had. No one is saying anything new. But every new group of people believe they have something worthwhile to say about it and until they get to regurgitate their own brand of ignorance they'll whine and cry about how they're being oppressed for not being able to maintain the status quo.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Spot on. People's humanity and civil rights are not topics that should be open for debate. But the people who want to debate that start with "science" as the thin end of the wedge. Of course, the thing that's always up for question is the participation of minorities. It's never a guy saying, "Fellas, the science shows that men are poor at cooperating and highly prone to aggression and violence, so let's debate whether we men should be allowed to manage or supervise other people." It's highly motivated reasoning.

nimblegorilla 9y ago

> What it did not do was claim that his female coworkers were inferior. I feel the need to reiterate that because that seems to be the disinformation that many take home with them and use for their arguments against him. With it, they vilified and ousted him. He didn't say it directly, but he strongly implied that female coworkers were inferior. Among other things he claimed that women were less able to handle stress and have a harder time speaking up. The document claims a lot more than just "women aren't interested in tech".