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"Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership." He lays

"Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership." He lays the groundwork for that argument there, and then his rhetoric which builds upon this throughout the memo basically argues that, possibly, men are better biologically suited than women for high status/stress/leadership roles, or roles involving "things", as he says men are more into "things", and women more into "people".

manfredo 9y ago
He argues that biology is, in part, a cause for different preferences and choices between men and women. At no point did he claim any superiority of ability. "X is worse at Y" is not at all the same thing as "X, on average, will choose to do Y at a smaller rate." Also, I find the notion that people who choose to not work in tech or work smaller hours are somehow inferior quite demeaning. My brother wasn't very interested in tech, so he went into a different field. Am I (who did go into tech) a superior person to my brother due to our choice of work? Similarly, would I be a lesser person if I worked 30-35 hours instead of my usual 40-45?
- majormajor 9y ago
  So let's take that "biological difference in choices" as premise A, and then take premise B to be the company professing a policy to want a more even split. The result of that might be an action C, where you lower the standards required to hire people who are in one group to get the numbers more even - otherwise A will cause there to be not enough people of your usually quality for the numbers you want in B. And that was what he alleged: that the women hired didn't have as high a bar to pass. And that's where, if you're a woman in the same job as him, you take offense, because the implications of his argument are inescapable: a lot of those women are inferior. So if you're a Google higher-up who doesn't believe that their diversity/outreach programs are a lowered standards (say, you think they're a different approach to compensate for preparation differences in readiness for certain interviews), then you pretty much have to get rid of the guy who insists on shouting from the rooftops that a bunch of his coworkers aren't as good as he is. Damore sealed his own fate because he either (a) didn't think through this all, sabotaging his own credibility in the process, or (b) evil-genius arranged it to give himself a platform for a lawsuit and a bunch of conservative media fawning.
  - manfredo 9y ago
    This second premise, that Google hires under qualified candidates of they're diverse, is also incorrect. He claimed that Google made the false negative rate higher for non-diverse candidates. Here's the relevant quote: > "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate. In other words the bar was only lowered in the sense that diverse candidates didn't need to be as lucky as non diverse ones, with nothing to do with skill or ability. Many media outlets omitted the italicized part, so this misconception is common. Also you're omitting the most plausible explanation in your last paragraph: the negative and often exaggerated media coverage on the memo. Remember the memo was circulated for a month without repression. This indicates that it was the media coverage, not the memo itself, that caused Damore's firing.
    - majormajor 9y ago
      Ah, good point, I do remember that false negative bit. That was actually the first thing that jumped out at me, because it seems incredibly implausible and ridiculous! Here's why I think he's full of shit on that one. Reducing the false negative rate without lowering the bar is an unambiguous positive. He's asking me to believe that Google invented a better interviewing process that will save them tons of time and money in recruiting, and chose not to use it widely. I simply can't believe it. Not with the salaries they and their competitors are paying. If they had a magic bullet to get more just-as-qualified candidates through the pipeline, they'd use it everywhere. And in a world that loves to write articles about interviewing / click on those articles as much as this one, I think we'd have heard about it by now. (Yes, the media coverage contributed to everyone else thinking he was judging them, but so did the text itself. But, in turn, you (and he) are missing the most likely explanation for why Google says they want a diverse workforce: not to discriminate against men, but to look good in the media without intention of actually making major changes to follow through, as their actual recruiting policies appear to be stuck in the same place they've been for years, based on the recruiters I've talked to there. Lotta algorithm questions, lots of years-of-experience and existing-knowledge-of-language-details crap. All stuff that's gonna favor a certain typical profile at the screening stage. PR BS is PR BS, in other words.)
- adamsea 9y ago
  I don't agree with your interpretation of the memo, however, you definitely touch on a challenging point -- what was actually being said? I don't entirely agree with this article I found either, it actually skews more to your point of view, however it was quite interesting. The author's description of the challenge the Damor memo touched upon: "What we are dealing with here is the problem of how we might offer possible explanations for what is going on, while at the same time keeping in mind the impact those explanations might have on the people and phenomena we are trying to explain. It is important to understand this problem, so I will explain it here. Technically, this is called “the problem of the double hermeneutic”. A hermeneutic refers to a method or system of interpretation. In psychology and the social sciences, hermeneutics refers to the ways people develop systems of meaning and justification that allow them to make sense out of the world." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201708/in-depth-analysis-the-crisis-google https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201708... That makes sense you would find that notion demeaning. I do as well. As I said to someone else, if you took offense (which wasn't intended) from my comment, I'm sure you can understand why many people would take offense from Damor's memo :).
  - manfredo 9y ago
    > That makes sense you would find that notion demeaning. I do as well. As I said to someone else, if you took offense (which wasn't intended) from my comment, I'm sure you can understand why many people would take offense from Damor's memo :). No, in fact this it's just the opposite. Claiming that "women are less likely to choose to work in tech" is a harmful statement is implying that those who do not work in tech are lesser. This is what I am pointing out. Those that do take offense to Damore's memo are inherently implying that people who choose not to work in tech are lesser. Otherwise it would not be an insult to say that group is less likely to choose to work in tech.

manfredo 9y ago

He argues that biology is, in part, a cause for different preferences and choices between men and women. At no point did he claim any superiority of ability. "X is worse at Y" is not at all the same thing as "X, on average, will choose to do Y at a smaller rate." Also, I find the notion that people who choose to not work in tech or work smaller hours are somehow inferior quite demeaning. My brother wasn't very interested in tech, so he went into a different field. Am I (who did go into tech) a superior person to my brother due to our choice of work? Similarly, would I be a lesser person if I worked 30-35 hours instead of my usual 40-45?

majormajor 9y ago
So let's take that "biological difference in choices" as premise A, and then take premise B to be the company professing a policy to want a more even split. The result of that might be an action C, where you lower the standards required to hire people who are in one group to get the numbers more even - otherwise A will cause there to be not enough people of your usually quality for the numbers you want in B. And that was what he alleged: that the women hired didn't have as high a bar to pass. And that's where, if you're a woman in the same job as him, you take offense, because the implications of his argument are inescapable: a lot of those women are inferior. So if you're a Google higher-up who doesn't believe that their diversity/outreach programs are a lowered standards (say, you think they're a different approach to compensate for preparation differences in readiness for certain interviews), then you pretty much have to get rid of the guy who insists on shouting from the rooftops that a bunch of his coworkers aren't as good as he is. Damore sealed his own fate because he either (a) didn't think through this all, sabotaging his own credibility in the process, or (b) evil-genius arranged it to give himself a platform for a lawsuit and a bunch of conservative media fawning.
- manfredo 9y ago
  This second premise, that Google hires under qualified candidates of they're diverse, is also incorrect. He claimed that Google made the false negative rate higher for non-diverse candidates. Here's the relevant quote: > "Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for 'diversity' candidates by decreasing the false negative rate. In other words the bar was only lowered in the sense that diverse candidates didn't need to be as lucky as non diverse ones, with nothing to do with skill or ability. Many media outlets omitted the italicized part, so this misconception is common. Also you're omitting the most plausible explanation in your last paragraph: the negative and often exaggerated media coverage on the memo. Remember the memo was circulated for a month without repression. This indicates that it was the media coverage, not the memo itself, that caused Damore's firing.
  - majormajor 9y ago
    Ah, good point, I do remember that false negative bit. That was actually the first thing that jumped out at me, because it seems incredibly implausible and ridiculous! Here's why I think he's full of shit on that one. Reducing the false negative rate without lowering the bar is an unambiguous positive. He's asking me to believe that Google invented a better interviewing process that will save them tons of time and money in recruiting, and chose not to use it widely. I simply can't believe it. Not with the salaries they and their competitors are paying. If they had a magic bullet to get more just-as-qualified candidates through the pipeline, they'd use it everywhere. And in a world that loves to write articles about interviewing / click on those articles as much as this one, I think we'd have heard about it by now. (Yes, the media coverage contributed to everyone else thinking he was judging them, but so did the text itself. But, in turn, you (and he) are missing the most likely explanation for why Google says they want a diverse workforce: not to discriminate against men, but to look good in the media without intention of actually making major changes to follow through, as their actual recruiting policies appear to be stuck in the same place they've been for years, based on the recruiters I've talked to there. Lotta algorithm questions, lots of years-of-experience and existing-knowledge-of-language-details crap. All stuff that's gonna favor a certain typical profile at the screening stage. PR BS is PR BS, in other words.)
adamsea 9y ago
I don't agree with your interpretation of the memo, however, you definitely touch on a challenging point -- what was actually being said? I don't entirely agree with this article I found either, it actually skews more to your point of view, however it was quite interesting. The author's description of the challenge the Damor memo touched upon: "What we are dealing with here is the problem of how we might offer possible explanations for what is going on, while at the same time keeping in mind the impact those explanations might have on the people and phenomena we are trying to explain. It is important to understand this problem, so I will explain it here. Technically, this is called “the problem of the double hermeneutic”. A hermeneutic refers to a method or system of interpretation. In psychology and the social sciences, hermeneutics refers to the ways people develop systems of meaning and justification that allow them to make sense out of the world." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201708/in-depth-analysis-the-crisis-google https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201708... That makes sense you would find that notion demeaning. I do as well. As I said to someone else, if you took offense (which wasn't intended) from my comment, I'm sure you can understand why many people would take offense from Damor's memo :).
- manfredo 9y ago
  > That makes sense you would find that notion demeaning. I do as well. As I said to someone else, if you took offense (which wasn't intended) from my comment, I'm sure you can understand why many people would take offense from Damor's memo :). No, in fact this it's just the opposite. Claiming that "women are less likely to choose to work in tech" is a harmful statement is implying that those who do not work in tech are lesser. This is what I am pointing out. Those that do take offense to Damore's memo are inherently implying that people who choose not to work in tech are lesser. Otherwise it would not be an insult to say that group is less likely to choose to work in tech.