7 ms·

It's so disappointing to read this. I don't see how his thesis of "everyone needs to be treated by their individual merits because personal variances grossly o

It's so disappointing to read this. I don't see how his thesis of "everyone needs to be treated by their individual merits because personal variances grossly outweigh any gender bias" can be interpreted as sexist. He was literally preaching for equality. His point was that affirmative action programs do companies a disservice by making minority/women employees seem like they didn't get there through their own merit, and also punishes companies that don't have sufficient women due to a lack of interest women have in programming - which may or may not be innate. ...and he was fired for that. Crazy.

ergothus 7y ago
Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives. Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confidence. Choosing to ignore the quantities of good science on the topic in favor of what he did does not inspire confidence. Then he chooses to widely declare this and demean large swathes of his coworkers. I'm all for open communication, but that doesnt absolve you of social consequences. When you make a big chunk of your company uncomfortable with you and how you view them....yeah, consequences, yeah, fired. The only reason this is a surprise is because it happened to some like him and not the groups he was pretending to defend. I assure you most of them would be outraged and frustrated but nearly as surprised had the interaction gone the other way. All you have to do is watch and listen to know that.
- manigandham 7y ago
  Men and women (biologically and socially) have different interests. This is different than capabilities. Countries with the most free choices see the most division between sexes in different professions. Nobody seems to have a problem when it comes to auto mechanics, medical sciences, teachers, social services, lawyers, etc. Why are different interests such a controversial thing to accept?
  - ergothus 7y ago
    1) I'd argue that you arent paying much attention to those other industries. I certainly see issue commonly raised in a few you mention that are in my circles. Things that still make me double-take. 2) tech is just the latest in a series. Comp sci degree enrollment for women DROPPED for recent decades - that's not a biological lack of interest. This has occurred in many professions - when the profession becomes high profile, the women are driven out. 3) you are proving the problem in the original memo. Instead of looking into any of the research on the topic, you are repeating what feels true. You speak with such confidence on the different interests of different genders, without considering how you know what the actual interests might be. (You're assuming what you see must be the result of interests, and use that to prove a difference of interests is the cause. That's a tautology) You assert that "no one seems to have a problem" with imbalances in other professions, when it is trivial to find people definitely have problems.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      What other professions? What series? Computer science degrees and jobs are seeing a rise in women, but they're already the majority in biological sciences and other disciplines. Would you claim men are conditioned to not going into those fields? The research on the topic covers what I state about different countries and societies showing how different interests affect professions. Here are some links: https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-... https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/ https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Things_Women_and_People_A_Meta-Analysis_of_Sex_Differences_in_Interests https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Th... https://www.nber.org/papers/w22173 https://www.nber.org/papers/w22173
      - orwin 7y ago
        Nah, in the late 50s and until the 90s, there was around 25% on women in computer science in the US, and close to 50% in some countries like France an UK (i think a book was written on why in 2017). I've talked to Pr. Emeritus Mallard a lot three year ago, who was a biology researcher studying genotype and phenotype in animal/vegetal populations (for context, he got his degree around the time we discovered ADN). From what he remember, there was a lot more than 50% women when he started, at least as "programmers", although they were barely viewed as clever seamstress at the time. Each time he wanted to do a computer-assisted statistical study in the early days, the programmer was a woman (again, from what he remembers) and he always thought the field was dominated by them, at least for grunts work.
- searchableguy 7y ago
  I would like to see source for your statements. I don't know much about Damore. I did glance through the manifesto and found it alright back then but I still don't understand why anyone needed to bring politics into question or write a manifesto. You vote with your job. If you don't like things, quit. Either the people working at the company are discriminatory and don't care or you are the problematic one. If you think you are right that a big company discriminates openly, then wouldn't you have to admit that most people at your company don't care about discrimination as much as their paycheck or they are discriminatory themselves. If a company can easily replace employees, then the society doesn't value equality. We should fix that foremost. If we had UBI, wouldn't discrimination of any kind be detrimental given that workers wouldn't be forced to work for low wages and companies which discriminate based on pseudoscience be at a disadvantage because they won't get talent that other companies can. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? Why are people not pursuing UBI for gender equality? As for an opposing view point, check this - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more... which says fewer women take stem in developed countries than under developed countries. There will always be more differences. We shouldn't do a shut down case for either. It's not yet clear what percentage are affected by it. If it is, mention the source.
- ralfd 7y ago
  > Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confidence. I'm sceptic to this claim because discriminatory and derogatory behavior in medicine or law are much more widespread. And female students flock to these professions.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    If true, this is extraordinarily significant. It could mean that woman who are driven away from software engineering by discriminatory and derogatory behaviour are somehow exhibiting differences to their law / medicine counterparts. Is there any research in to this question?
    - ralfd 7y ago
      I don't know about any comparative studies, but sexism in medicine (even patients are calling female doctors honey or sweetie) is an ancient problem. https://www.girlsglobe.org/2019/03/12/time-confront-sexism-medicine/ https://www.girlsglobe.org/2019/03/12/time-confront-sexism-m... I can't imagine sexism or work environment (looong hours and exhausting shifts) are substantially worse in engineering. What is different is, in my opinion, that medicine/law is perceived as higher status than nerd stuff. There are popular tv series idolizing the glamorous life of New York lawyers and the heroism of doctors/nurses. When are techies depicted favorably and not as social autists? The goth chic in Navy:CIS maybe, but not much else.
      - humanrebar 7y ago
        I'm not sure shopping exclusively at Hot Topic in your forties is idolizing tech in any way. If they wanted the character to be cool and edgy, they should have updated her look at least occasionally.
- dijit 7y ago
  > Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" This is the absolute crux of the entire paper, and it's very easy to view it with whatever politicising lens you want. So lets try to flippantly and dispassionately break down how he constructed the statement 1) Women in absolute aggregate seem to not like CompSci. 2) We want more women in CompSci. 3) We should make CompSci more attractive to women. 4) What do Women in aggregate seem to like? 5) Is there room in CompSci fields for things that women like? 6) Yes, lots, it would be absolutely amazing if we could promote the things women in aggregate prefer to do in the field compsci. Those tropes of introverted men sitting in the basement should be subverted. 7) The current method of attracting women is harmful, we should instead change our desired behaviour of engineering to incorporate feminine ideals which could easily be incorporated.
  - searchableguy 7y ago
    > We want more [singleton] in [x]. > We should make [x] more attractive to [singleton]. Why? Unless the field is more toxic to [singleton] or there is more productivity due to "diversity" at which point you are admitting that people are different on biological (or social) level and have different interests, views etc.
    - dijit 7y ago
      Diversity is a desirable trait, especially in things that produce products that are designed to be used by the entire planet. My mother explained diversity to me this way: "We are each of us, unique but equal. Meaning that while you will grow up and be stronger than me, I will be able to produce children. This doesn't make either of us better, both should be respected as equal. There is value but difference in both." (not verbatim) If we assume that on average women are more prone to overthinking, then it likely follows that having a women the team designing a product with a man (who, on average are more likely to be dismissive and flippant) then there's a necessary conflict, and the product will be better for everyone if it happens. We should not be judging a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, we should instead be asking, how do we define the value of swimming and how do we ensure we have great swimmers working with us.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives. "Biological sex plays no role in life choices / job preferences" (which is different than: "we should not prevent people from going into X choice/profession because of their biological sex". A priori considering the former as "truth" / "obvious" etc is also a political idea.
- reroute1 7y ago
  Great don't trust him don't like him don't feel comfortable... That doesn't change the fact he posted biological truths did NOT say women can't be good engineers which is what you exactly try to project on him over and over and makes you look silly and wrong. It was in response to him not getting traction via internal channels and only after he talks about his legit concerns in this memo does it finally blow up... Not surprising Google has very loud outspoken minority groups What about all the people that were made uncomfortable by his firing? Can we fire those responsible for that? This got so silly so fast
- darkerside 7y ago
  Is it sexist to say men are on average stronger than women?

ergothus 7y ago

Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives. Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confidence. Choosing to ignore the quantities of good science on the topic in favor of what he did does not inspire confidence. Then he chooses to widely declare this and demean large swathes of his coworkers. I'm all for open communication, but that doesnt absolve you of social consequences. When you make a big chunk of your company uncomfortable with you and how you view them....yeah, consequences, yeah, fired. The only reason this is a surprise is because it happened to some like him and not the groups he was pretending to defend. I assure you most of them would be outraged and frustrated but nearly as surprised had the interaction gone the other way. All you have to do is watch and listen to know that.

manigandham 7y ago
Men and women (biologically and socially) have different interests. This is different than capabilities. Countries with the most free choices see the most division between sexes in different professions. Nobody seems to have a problem when it comes to auto mechanics, medical sciences, teachers, social services, lawyers, etc. Why are different interests such a controversial thing to accept?
- ergothus 7y ago
  1) I'd argue that you arent paying much attention to those other industries. I certainly see issue commonly raised in a few you mention that are in my circles. Things that still make me double-take. 2) tech is just the latest in a series. Comp sci degree enrollment for women DROPPED for recent decades - that's not a biological lack of interest. This has occurred in many professions - when the profession becomes high profile, the women are driven out. 3) you are proving the problem in the original memo. Instead of looking into any of the research on the topic, you are repeating what feels true. You speak with such confidence on the different interests of different genders, without considering how you know what the actual interests might be. (You're assuming what you see must be the result of interests, and use that to prove a difference of interests is the cause. That's a tautology) You assert that "no one seems to have a problem" with imbalances in other professions, when it is trivial to find people definitely have problems.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    What other professions? What series? Computer science degrees and jobs are seeing a rise in women, but they're already the majority in biological sciences and other disciplines. Would you claim men are conditioned to not going into those fields? The research on the topic covers what I state about different countries and societies showing how different interests affect professions. Here are some links: https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-... https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/ https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-gir... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Things_Women_and_People_A_Meta-Analysis_of_Sex_Differences_in_Interests https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Th... https://www.nber.org/papers/w22173 https://www.nber.org/papers/w22173
    - orwin 7y ago
      Nah, in the late 50s and until the 90s, there was around 25% on women in computer science in the US, and close to 50% in some countries like France an UK (i think a book was written on why in 2017). I've talked to Pr. Emeritus Mallard a lot three year ago, who was a biology researcher studying genotype and phenotype in animal/vegetal populations (for context, he got his degree around the time we discovered ADN). From what he remember, there was a lot more than 50% women when he started, at least as "programmers", although they were barely viewed as clever seamstress at the time. Each time he wanted to do a computer-assisted statistical study in the early days, the programmer was a woman (again, from what he remembers) and he always thought the field was dominated by them, at least for grunts work.
searchableguy 7y ago
I would like to see source for your statements. I don't know much about Damore. I did glance through the manifesto and found it alright back then but I still don't understand why anyone needed to bring politics into question or write a manifesto. You vote with your job. If you don't like things, quit. Either the people working at the company are discriminatory and don't care or you are the problematic one. If you think you are right that a big company discriminates openly, then wouldn't you have to admit that most people at your company don't care about discrimination as much as their paycheck or they are discriminatory themselves. If a company can easily replace employees, then the society doesn't value equality. We should fix that foremost. If we had UBI, wouldn't discrimination of any kind be detrimental given that workers wouldn't be forced to work for low wages and companies which discriminate based on pseudoscience be at a disadvantage because they won't get talent that other companies can. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? Why are people not pursuing UBI for gender equality? As for an opposing view point, check this - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more... which says fewer women take stem in developed countries than under developed countries. There will always be more differences. We shouldn't do a shut down case for either. It's not yet clear what percentage are affected by it. If it is, mention the source.
ralfd 7y ago
> Being blind to the widespread dismissive, discriminatory, and derogatory behavior that routinely drives women from the industry does not inspire confidence. I'm sceptic to this claim because discriminatory and derogatory behavior in medicine or law are much more widespread. And female students flock to these professions.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  If true, this is extraordinarily significant. It could mean that woman who are driven away from software engineering by discriminatory and derogatory behaviour are somehow exhibiting differences to their law / medicine counterparts. Is there any research in to this question?
  - ralfd 7y ago
    I don't know about any comparative studies, but sexism in medicine (even patients are calling female doctors honey or sweetie) is an ancient problem. https://www.girlsglobe.org/2019/03/12/time-confront-sexism-medicine/ https://www.girlsglobe.org/2019/03/12/time-confront-sexism-m... I can't imagine sexism or work environment (looong hours and exhausting shifts) are substantially worse in engineering. What is different is, in my opinion, that medicine/law is perceived as higher status than nerd stuff. There are popular tv series idolizing the glamorous life of New York lawyers and the heroism of doctors/nurses. When are techies depicted favorably and not as social autists? The goth chic in Navy:CIS maybe, but not much else.
    - humanrebar 7y ago
      I'm not sure shopping exclusively at Hot Topic in your forties is idolizing tech in any way. If they wanted the character to be cool and edgy, they should have updated her look at least occasionally.
dijit 7y ago
> Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" This is the absolute crux of the entire paper, and it's very easy to view it with whatever politicising lens you want. So lets try to flippantly and dispassionately break down how he constructed the statement 1) Women in absolute aggregate seem to not like CompSci. 2) We want more women in CompSci. 3) We should make CompSci more attractive to women. 4) What do Women in aggregate seem to like? 5) Is there room in CompSci fields for things that women like? 6) Yes, lots, it would be absolutely amazing if we could promote the things women in aggregate prefer to do in the field compsci. Those tropes of introverted men sitting in the basement should be subverted. 7) The current method of attracting women is harmful, we should instead change our desired behaviour of engineering to incorporate feminine ideals which could easily be incorporated.
- searchableguy 7y ago
  > We want more [singleton] in [x]. > We should make [x] more attractive to [singleton]. Why? Unless the field is more toxic to [singleton] or there is more productivity due to "diversity" at which point you are admitting that people are different on biological (or social) level and have different interests, views etc.
  - dijit 7y ago
    Diversity is a desirable trait, especially in things that produce products that are designed to be used by the entire planet. My mother explained diversity to me this way: "We are each of us, unique but equal. Meaning that while you will grow up and be stronger than me, I will be able to produce children. This doesn't make either of us better, both should be respected as equal. There is value but difference in both." (not verbatim) If we assume that on average women are more prone to overthinking, then it likely follows that having a women the team designing a product with a man (who, on average are more likely to be dismissive and flippant) then there's a necessary conflict, and the product will be better for everyone if it happens. We should not be judging a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, we should instead be asking, how do we define the value of swimming and how do we ensure we have great swimmers working with us.
coldtea 7y ago
>Focusing on the idea that women are biologically "less interested" (but don't worry, we aren't talking about the good ones you may know, they are just statistical outliers) and trying to twist up scientific "proof" for that does not lead me to trust him or his motives. "Biological sex plays no role in life choices / job preferences" (which is different than: "we should not prevent people from going into X choice/profession because of their biological sex". A priori considering the former as "truth" / "obvious" etc is also a political idea.
reroute1 7y ago
Great don't trust him don't like him don't feel comfortable... That doesn't change the fact he posted biological truths did NOT say women can't be good engineers which is what you exactly try to project on him over and over and makes you look silly and wrong. It was in response to him not getting traction via internal channels and only after he talks about his legit concerns in this memo does it finally blow up... Not surprising Google has very loud outspoken minority groups What about all the people that were made uncomfortable by his firing? Can we fire those responsible for that? This got so silly so fast
darkerside 7y ago
Is it sexist to say men are on average stronger than women?