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The memo did not claim that women were less intelligent. It claimed that women _prefer_ to work in fields other than tech. This is a statement of women's choice

The memo did not claim that women were less intelligent. It claimed that women _prefer_ to work in fields other than tech. This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. It also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the extreme.

bduerst 9y ago
>This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. Wrong. The memo is poorly worded, but it does make the leap from just preferences to abilities in this sentence, despite not having evidence for the latter: >>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.
- manfredo 9y ago
  This is exactly in line with what I wrote. This quote talks about distribution. Not averages, which was the parent comment's claim.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    The quote talks about abilities, which you said the memo did not say anything about. Damore was positing that both women's preferences and abilities is why you see less women in tech and leadership positions.
    - manfredo 9y ago
      From my original comment in this chain: > ...also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the extreme. This is in reference to what the memo says about abilities. The memo does claim higher or lower overall averages, too, but those are in terms of preferences. Let me lay this out point by point if I phrased this poorly before: * The memo claims that women and men have different averages in preferences. * That men and women have different distributions of abilities. * The memo does not claim that there are different average of abilities. Point #3 is what the parent comment claimed, among other things, and that is wrong.
      - bduerst 9y ago
        Also from your original comment: >This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. Edit: Rather than reply, you now edited your comment to split hairs on distribution vs averages. That doesn't change the facts about Damore's argument about biological ability to be in tech is unfounded.
        manfredo 9y ago
        Hacker news wasn't letting me reply, so I put the classification in an edit. It didn't change the content of what I wrote, just added a clearer (I hope) phrasing. I have not once mentioned biology in this comment chain. I made my original comment to dispel the myth that Damore claimed that women have, on average, less intelligence than men. Whether you agree or disagree with the other claims made about biology is orthogonal to this statement.
        bduerst 9y ago
        You're right, you tried to reclassify what Damore said with this: >This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. When his argument was about biological ability. Damore's paper is orthogonal from you're claiming it to be.
        berberous 9y ago
        The difference between distribution vs. averages is important. See the image linked to below. Damore is arguing the top half of the image. Many people mistakenly believe he is arguing the bottom half. Perhaps you believe the top half is unfounded too, but it's an important distinction. https://heterodoxacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Damore-population-figure.png https://heterodoxacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Damo...
        bduerst 9y ago
        Right. And what many have said is that there is not enough evidence in his to support the top half on his claim of biological abilities. Preferences, sure, but that can also be attributed to social constructs which he specifically tries to rule out. It's splitting hairs to make it about distribution when there isn't sufficient evidence to support a distribution in the first place.
- moduspol 9y ago
  Abilities follow from preferences at the level being discussed (potential hiring pool at Google). I am not good at being a nurse because I chose to become a software developer. I chose to become a software developer because I prefer working with computers over people. My preference in adolescence resulted in my being more capable as a software developer for a company like Google. That this one statement keeps getting taken out of context and misinterpreted shows how flimsy the claims against the memo are.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    >That this one statement keeps getting taken out of context and misinterpreted Wrong again. When you look at the full context, Damore specifically says that it's not socially constructed like you're describing. Damore isn't arguing that women lack the ability for tech or leadership because they prefer to be nurses, his argument stems from biological differences: >> On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because: >> ● They’re universal across human cultures >> ● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone >> ● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males >> ● The underlying traits are highly heritable >> ● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective >> Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.
    - moduspol 9y ago
      That's not the full context, though. The full context is that he's writing this memo in the first place to propose alternatives to a hiring policy. That is: the relevant group is the hiring pool for Google. By the time men and women reach the point where Google's hiring policy is relevant toward their outcomes, the distribution of their abilities is already quite different. That's not even really questionable: It's why there are so many fewer women in the hiring pool. It's selective interpretation to read this outside the context of the hiring policy.
ncallaway 9y ago
> This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability That's simply not true. The memo (as the other comment chain litigates) absolutely makes reference to both preference and ability.
- manfredo 9y ago
  Please identify where the memo claims they women have lower average ability than men. As a hint: > I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. This statement references distributions, not averages. E.g men may be more prevalent at the top of the scale but also at the bottom. This is entirely in line with what I wrote about the memo referring to variance.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Please identify where the memo claims they women have lower average ability than men The claims about their average tolerance for high-status jobs is a direct statement about average ability for certain job roles. You can perhaps argue that it accurately reflects the psychological research (which is a different discussion), but it absolutely is directly a statement about ability. He also specifically says women generally have “a harder time...leading”, which is a direct statement of reduced average ability in all roles involving leadership.
    - manfredo 9y ago
      He claims that women on average choose to work less stressful jobs. The exact terms he used are, "higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance". Perhaps others think "tolerance" is closer to "ability" than "preference", but that's not how I view it. For example, I have a pretty low tolerance for cold climates. I can tolerate them when I need to like when hiking on Alaskan glaciers, visiting relatives in cold places. On average I'm a pretty outdoorsy person so I think have have a good ability to hike in the cold, as I'm confident in my ability to layer clothing and whatnot. But usually I choose not to because that is my preference. Regardless, Damore even says that there are ways to mitigate this. He suggests that Google should, > Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits. For your second paragraph, here is the full quote. > This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a women’s issue. This leads to exclusory programs like Stretch and swaths of men without support. This is in the context of how women prefer to channel extraversion. Again, preferences make it harder for them to end up in leadership roles. And yet again, Damore offers a way to mitigate this and achieve greater numbers of women in leadership roles: > Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to Perf may be doing this to an extent, but maybe there's more we can do. For both of your points, these aren't claims about ability but preferences from my reading. Even if you disagree with this interpretation, Damore still claims that these differences shouldn't exclude women from tech and advancing in tech careers and lists out ways to limit the impact these factors currently have.

bduerst 9y ago

>This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. Wrong. The memo is poorly worded, but it does make the leap from just preferences to abilities in this sentence, despite not having evidence for the latter: >>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.

manfredo 9y ago
This is exactly in line with what I wrote. This quote talks about distribution. Not averages, which was the parent comment's claim.
- bduerst 9y ago
  The quote talks about abilities, which you said the memo did not say anything about. Damore was positing that both women's preferences and abilities is why you see less women in tech and leadership positions.
  - manfredo 9y ago
    From my original comment in this chain: > ...also claimed higher variance, but not overall differences. In other words that there are more men on both sides of the extreme. This is in reference to what the memo says about abilities. The memo does claim higher or lower overall averages, too, but those are in terms of preferences. Let me lay this out point by point if I phrased this poorly before: * The memo claims that women and men have different averages in preferences. * That men and women have different distributions of abilities. * The memo does not claim that there are different average of abilities. Point #3 is what the parent comment claimed, among other things, and that is wrong.
    - bduerst 9y ago
      Also from your original comment: >This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. Edit: Rather than reply, you now edited your comment to split hairs on distribution vs averages. That doesn't change the facts about Damore's argument about biological ability to be in tech is unfounded.
      - manfredo 9y ago
        Hacker news wasn't letting me reply, so I put the classification in an edit. It didn't change the content of what I wrote, just added a clearer (I hope) phrasing. I have not once mentioned biology in this comment chain. I made my original comment to dispel the myth that Damore claimed that women have, on average, less intelligence than men. Whether you agree or disagree with the other claims made about biology is orthogonal to this statement.
        bduerst 9y ago
        You're right, you tried to reclassify what Damore said with this: >This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability. When his argument was about biological ability. Damore's paper is orthogonal from you're claiming it to be.
      - berberous 9y ago
        The difference between distribution vs. averages is important. See the image linked to below. Damore is arguing the top half of the image. Many people mistakenly believe he is arguing the bottom half. Perhaps you believe the top half is unfounded too, but it's an important distinction. https://heterodoxacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Damore-population-figure.png https://heterodoxacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Damo...
        bduerst 9y ago
        Right. And what many have said is that there is not enough evidence in his to support the top half on his claim of biological abilities. Preferences, sure, but that can also be attributed to social constructs which he specifically tries to rule out. It's splitting hairs to make it about distribution when there isn't sufficient evidence to support a distribution in the first place.
moduspol 9y ago
Abilities follow from preferences at the level being discussed (potential hiring pool at Google). I am not good at being a nurse because I chose to become a software developer. I chose to become a software developer because I prefer working with computers over people. My preference in adolescence resulted in my being more capable as a software developer for a company like Google. That this one statement keeps getting taken out of context and misinterpreted shows how flimsy the claims against the memo are.
- bduerst 9y ago
  >That this one statement keeps getting taken out of context and misinterpreted Wrong again. When you look at the full context, Damore specifically says that it's not socially constructed like you're describing. Damore isn't arguing that women lack the ability for tech or leadership because they prefer to be nurses, his argument stems from biological differences: >> On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because: >> ● They’re universal across human cultures >> ● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone >> ● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males >> ● The underlying traits are highly heritable >> ● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective >> Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    That's not the full context, though. The full context is that he's writing this memo in the first place to propose alternatives to a hiring policy. That is: the relevant group is the hiring pool for Google. By the time men and women reach the point where Google's hiring policy is relevant toward their outcomes, the distribution of their abilities is already quite different. That's not even really questionable: It's why there are so many fewer women in the hiring pool. It's selective interpretation to read this outside the context of the hiring policy.

ncallaway 9y ago

> This is a statement of women's choices, not their ability That's simply not true. The memo (as the other comment chain litigates) absolutely makes reference to both preference and ability.

manfredo 9y ago
Please identify where the memo claims they women have lower average ability than men. As a hint: > I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. This statement references distributions, not averages. E.g men may be more prevalent at the top of the scale but also at the bottom. This is entirely in line with what I wrote about the memo referring to variance.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Please identify where the memo claims they women have lower average ability than men The claims about their average tolerance for high-status jobs is a direct statement about average ability for certain job roles. You can perhaps argue that it accurately reflects the psychological research (which is a different discussion), but it absolutely is directly a statement about ability. He also specifically says women generally have “a harder time...leading”, which is a direct statement of reduced average ability in all roles involving leadership.
  - manfredo 9y ago
    He claims that women on average choose to work less stressful jobs. The exact terms he used are, "higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance". Perhaps others think "tolerance" is closer to "ability" than "preference", but that's not how I view it. For example, I have a pretty low tolerance for cold climates. I can tolerate them when I need to like when hiking on Alaskan glaciers, visiting relatives in cold places. On average I'm a pretty outdoorsy person so I think have have a good ability to hike in the cold, as I'm confident in my ability to layer clothing and whatnot. But usually I choose not to because that is my preference. Regardless, Damore even says that there are ways to mitigate this. He suggests that Google should, > Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits. For your second paragraph, here is the full quote. > This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a women’s issue. This leads to exclusory programs like Stretch and swaths of men without support. This is in the context of how women prefer to channel extraversion. Again, preferences make it harder for them to end up in leadership roles. And yet again, Damore offers a way to mitigate this and achieve greater numbers of women in leadership roles: > Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to Perf may be doing this to an extent, but maybe there's more we can do. For both of your points, these aren't claims about ability but preferences from my reading. Even if you disagree with this interpretation, Damore still claims that these differences shouldn't exclude women from tech and advancing in tech careers and lists out ways to limit the impact these factors currently have.