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James Damore was fired for violating his employee agreement with Google, because he said the reason you don't see women in engineering and leadership positions

James Damore was fired for violating his employee agreement with Google, because he said the reason you don't see women in engineering and leadership positions is due to them being biologically incapable. Even James confirmed as much. Trotting him out as an example is more to my point of how playing the victim card without acknowledging agreement violations is intentionally misleading. And before someone asks, "DiD u rEaD tHe MeMo?" it's right here: > 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.

throwaway894345 4y ago
Of course, those are two completely different statements, as I'm sure you know: > you don't see women in engineering and leadership positions is due to them being biologically incapable. > 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. And having read the full document (or even just the bits I quoted in my comment above), you surely also know that he was very explicitly not imputing population-level averages onto individuals. Damore's critics have been very openly lying about the contents of the document; there's no charitable way to interpret their claims. To be quite clear, I don't think Damore is a hero (his politics are more conservative than mine and I don't think he handled the fallout particularly well), but he was clearly fired for claims he very explicitly didn't make[^1], and his critics are just doubling-down on what can't be described as anything other than trivially-verifiable lies. [^1]: Even Google's legal team knew that they couldn't get him on those bases and instead they argued that criticizing Google's hiring practices implied that some of his coworkers weren't the best candidates for the job thus creating a hostile workplace. Of course, criticizing Google's hiring practices was absolutely pedestrian at Google at the time, although the argument was that Google's hiring practices were biased toward whites, men, etc. This is pretty obviously just pretense to fire him for ideological transgressions.
- minsc_and_boo 4y ago
  Hiding behind an appeal to averages does not change the fact that Damore said women [on average] are biologically incapable of being in tech and leadership positions. Again, Damore reaped the consequences of his own actions by violating a contract he agreed to. This is intentionally misleading to represent him as a martyr for right-wingers. Unless, of course, you think the conservative agenda includes promoting that women are biologically incapable of holding teach and leadership positions.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    If course, he didn’t say “on average women are incapable of leadership”. Care to try again with words he actually used?
    - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
      Can you? I'm not trying to make a point by hiding behind an appeal to averages.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        No one is trying to make a point by hiding behind an appeal to averages. That's the point. The fact that you can't support your assertions about Damore's claims (without changing his words) proves my point. :)
        minsc_and_boo 4y ago
        You mean the direct quote made above with the "assertions"? Are you intentionally playing dumb? Here it is (again): > 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.
  - ackfoobar 4y ago

throwaway894345 4y ago

Of course, those are two completely different statements, as I'm sure you know: > you don't see women in engineering and leadership positions is due to them being biologically incapable. > 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. And having read the full document (or even just the bits I quoted in my comment above), you surely also know that he was very explicitly not imputing population-level averages onto individuals. Damore's critics have been very openly lying about the contents of the document; there's no charitable way to interpret their claims. To be quite clear, I don't think Damore is a hero (his politics are more conservative than mine and I don't think he handled the fallout particularly well), but he was clearly fired for claims he very explicitly didn't make[^1], and his critics are just doubling-down on what can't be described as anything other than trivially-verifiable lies. [^1]: Even Google's legal team knew that they couldn't get him on those bases and instead they argued that criticizing Google's hiring practices implied that some of his coworkers weren't the best candidates for the job thus creating a hostile workplace. Of course, criticizing Google's hiring practices was absolutely pedestrian at Google at the time, although the argument was that Google's hiring practices were biased toward whites, men, etc. This is pretty obviously just pretense to fire him for ideological transgressions.

minsc_and_boo 4y ago
Hiding behind an appeal to averages does not change the fact that Damore said women [on average] are biologically incapable of being in tech and leadership positions. Again, Damore reaped the consequences of his own actions by violating a contract he agreed to. This is intentionally misleading to represent him as a martyr for right-wingers. Unless, of course, you think the conservative agenda includes promoting that women are biologically incapable of holding teach and leadership positions.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  If course, he didn’t say “on average women are incapable of leadership”. Care to try again with words he actually used?
  - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
    Can you? I'm not trying to make a point by hiding behind an appeal to averages.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      No one is trying to make a point by hiding behind an appeal to averages. That's the point. The fact that you can't support your assertions about Damore's claims (without changing his words) proves my point. :)
      - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
        You mean the direct quote made above with the "assertions"? Are you intentionally playing dumb? Here it is (again): > 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.
- ackfoobar 4y ago