Left outraged by engineer's views on diversity

Still waiting for that quote from you Tony where the author says women are unsuited for a certain job at Google. Are you asking me to prove men and women are biologically different? Seriously? Was sex ed not taught at your school?

 

Waste of time. bye.

 

POSTERWRONG

 

No, actually, that's not Google's stated reason for him being fired. They said he was fired for suggesting that women are *less* suited for certain jobs at Google, not unsuited. It was right there in the memo:

First he talks about the biological differences...

Women, on average, have more:

• Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).
• These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.
• Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness.
• 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.
• Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

Then he makes clear he doesn't think women are as suited for certain jobs at Google when he then proceeds to give suggestions on how to make the jobs better suited for women:


Below I’ll go over some of the differences in distribution of traits between men and women that I outlined in the previous section and suggest ways to address them to increase women’s representation in tech and without resorting to discrimination. Google is already making strides in many of these areas, but I think it’s still instructive to list them:

• Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things
• We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles and Google can be and we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this).
• Women on average are more cooperative
• 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. This doesn’t mean that we should remove all competitiveness from Google. Competitiveness and self reliance can be valuable traits and we shouldn’t necessarily disadvantage those that have them, like what’s been done in education. Women on average are more prone to anxiety. Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits.
• Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average
• Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them. Allowing and truly endorsing (as part of our culture) part time work though can keep more women in tech.
• The male gender role is currently inflexible
• Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role. If we, as a society, allow men to be more “feminine,” then the gender gap will shrink, although probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally feminine roles.

It's basically spelled for you as clearly as could be done - which is pretty amazing given how random and rambling the memo is overall. These are the differences, and then these are how to make the jobs better suited for women. You don't need to be a Google engineer to make the connection that he's saying the current versions of the jobs are not as well suited for women as they are for men.. Thus, Google saying "To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK."

 

Left amused by B.W.'s hyperbolic statement ("outrage")

 

Thx for the link. I'm aware of some of that. I should have been clearer. The appeal was to PhD of biology. Psychology has this thing about nature vs nuture - totally different can of worm.

 

Except there is no IQ difference between the sexes. So when you start to argue for differences or to explore it you are really doing something else. There is science around human differences, but you have to be very careful. And for a non-scientist to bring that up into the workplace is alarming. The only intent is to diminish certain groups.

Notice that all these differences he wants to explore generally favor white men in advancing at google. It's self-serving. He's not doing it with intent to enlighten but with intent to show superiority.

 

I think it reads as a frustrated conservative white guy without much life experience trying to tackle a sensitivite subject in the wrong arena. If I showed up to work and told a female co-worker that she doesn't make more money and have more authority because she's biologically less driven than men and biologically less assertive and less biologically able to handle stress then I'd expect to get fired. In fact I'm betting he'd be fired in just about any company in America.

Why is it incumbent upon minorities to honestly take on the offensive stereotypes perpetuated by white men? Why can't they they just have a little god damn respect for other people?

 

Sue me for using quotes. Those gender stereotypes he listed are pretty much the textbook rationizations for the lack of women in STEM. Girls are more social, more agreeable, more creative, more prone to anxiety, and more neurotic.

That sounds like symptoms off a pill commercial that someone would take for "heavy critical thinking"

They can not handle the stress of writing lines of code under a timetable!

You should've quoted the whole thing. It's a Rorschact for uncovering hidden biases. What are yours?


"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."

'Nope-http://publish.uwo.ca/~cagis/Cause_and_Effect.pdf'

Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.'

This falls in line with "dangerous conclusion" because of his implicit assumption that the discrimination taking place comes at the expense of qualified men and that The Left sees women as weak and needing to be protected rather than the fact that for every 1 woman there are 4 other men in the room in a Google engineering department.

But wait, maybe I'm assuming too much and connecting the dots too far, it may or may not coming at the expense of asexuals too. Did I hedge that just enough to fly under your radar?

And no, 'diversity can be good for business' with the divisiveness following in the cadence of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing.

Mr. Aspy thinks socializing, working together and giving a ****(even if just a little) are feminine strengths [::emphasis:: my words].

That's more Hero talk than what most people typically do in a team.

"I’ll concentrate on the extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment "

He might be wrong, but he isn't right.

The study in the first link claims that stereotyping through "gender priming" has a negative effect on performance, and it's fairly easy to search online of women listing a toxic environment as reason why they leave tech. In reality, some women like to be "one of the boys" and others like to do their own thing. Some like a helping hand and others prove themselves with what they put out.

When things get to that typical 80/20 male:female distribution with Google hiring among that top 1-5% quartile, something weird happens with gender and racial stereotypes...They tend to melt away.

This seems to be aligned to what the writer acknowledges, except then he starts flopping to the other side of what he really wants.

"I’m not saying that all men differ from 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. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions."

He can hem and haw all he wants here, but having read the whole article for the Very First Time, it doesn't pass muster to label women, even if on average, as chatty...gregarious, neurotic, artistically inclined (because coding has no room for creativity even if Rockstar is a riff on fantasies of not only being a musical artist but also with musciains as early tech hires), and meek [::emphasis:: my words]

See he's not justifying anything with anything, but do not

• Lower the bar for "diversity" candidates, who may or may not have the flaws exhibited among their cohorts on average.
• Do diversity because of diversity because "the benefits are less clear for those more removed from UX." [whatever that means] and especially if diversity comes at the expense of "psychological safety" [::emphasis:: mine]
• Allow men to be more “feminine,” [because] then the gender gap will shrink, although probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally feminine roles.

The last part is true though. You don't want chatty, collaborative beta males. They'll leave tech because tech is too glamourous and high profile. Oh the stress!

I bet there's scientific studies on the growing number of beta male flight attendants because of the Leftist Mainstream Media's ongoing destruction of America through empathy, gregariousness (masculine?), and consensus building.

"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."

What I have formulated, and I want you to confirm, is that women have a harder time negotiating, standing up for themselves, and leading.

I guess with the lines you quoted, he IS NOT emphasising those differences as justifications. By the power of averages, there are meek men left behind, so forgive me for parsing that he thinks women are scientifically- on average - meek and agreeable pushovers.

It's probably why he's concluded in one line that it's The Left who thinks women are weak. If only those women can overcome biology and demand their fair share in salary. With things like salary.com or glassdoor, maybe they're scientifically dumb too.

I'm betting on it's systemic wage discrimination through asymmetric salary information with HR daring the individual to look for a better job.

Numbers is numbers is science.

"I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism)."

That's what unconscious bias training is meant to do, to eliminate assumptions with leading, sometimes inflammatory comments to a coworker who doesn't look or believe the same as you. It's either a failure because he doesn't understand it (as he's naturally incapable of empathy) , or because chooses to clutch onto stereotypes as an effective trailing indicator of human nature, to which I assume [::emphasis:: my own words] he thinks his stereotypes follows under the science he recommends. Despite not endorsing its use, he claims stereotypes are much more accurate and responsive to new information.

tl;dr
Stereotypes - don't use
Science as human nature defined by him- use.

That's why I call it bullshit because he hides behind on average without any proven scientific or statistical basis. Men can be stronger on average and women, on average, can tolerate more pain and ironically some forms of stress.

But in terms of incredibly complex evaluations of performance, "good fits" or naturally inclined indicators of success, it's far far more muddy not only due to nature/nurture, but also because of interpersonal reflections on constant reassessments of self-identity.

Here is how he legitimizes his assertions without citing actual proof:
"Be open about the science of human nature- Once we acknowledge that not all differences are socially constructed or due to discrimination, we open our eyes to a more accurate view of the human condition which is necessary if we actually want to solve problems."

What he's failed to prove is whether the work environment that's made him excel is a natural extension and the only paradigm for a successful work environment, or if it's just a construct that formed because leadership 20-40+ years ago self selected people who either looked or thought like him.

 

Nature vs Nurture has been debated to death and I don't think it will be resolved anytime soon. It gets quite interesting also - nurture can impact nature for generation. Now consider that blurry line. Very cool field.

No idea what Google or any company would do. I think probably yes and no. To his firing - probably no since he violated their current policy. For forward policies, if there are actual conclusive studies, that maybe considered and incorporated by some. Most will probably take a more conservative wait and see approach.

The issue is you can't make these unsubstantiated claims that have a real impact on the company and on employee and think it's ok. It's not. Maybe he's naive and has very sincere intention (personally very hard to believe), but that still doesn't excuse his actions, the impact of it and the resulting consequences.

 

Instead of telling a co-worker she doesn't make more I'll say to her women don't make more because of x, y, and z. Instead of telling her directly women don't make more because of x, y, and z I'll just put a note on a bulletin board saying it. It's an irrelevant distinction to the group you're disparaging.

 

There are artificial constructs through "diversity pushes" to improve the work environment for minority groups among those departments. He's arguing against them in principle of fairness and egalitarianism but the assumptions underlying them implies that Google is hiring through blind quotas where unqualified or uhh "culturally unfit"* women/minorities are PUSHING OUT qualified hires...white/asian men.

Those constructs such as "high priority queues, programs, mentoring, and classes" are designed to take the slack of informal networks normally found in large organizations. Large companies traditionally provided mentorships and education bonuses. This is more targeted because of exit interviews and other forms of feedback. Other programs like all black clubs sound inherently weird until you notice half of the whole department of that race can fill up a large conference room of 20 people.

It's true some companies aren't going to sponsor and push "the men who are left out". OTOH, I wonder if they need to and if that's really an issue.

The last bit is an inglorious double standard that everyone holds onto. The sad statistic in today's world is that those coal miners, construction workers, and mechanics are slowly being phased out and turning jobless, which makes the woman the current breadwinner in many relationships.

His calls for ideological tolerance and more open talk about our differences is a good overture, but he ends up shooting himself in the foot with gender biases that aren't beholden to the science he clings onto for authority.



*"Culturally unfit" here means people who threaten his psychological safety and who might or might not share his values.

 

The only possible argument he could have made that would be accurate is that the historical and current treatment of specific genders may have had an impact on their affinity and familiarity with specific jobs.

Even then, the argument comes down to: do we owe things to people we have f*cked over even if it was legal to f*ck them over at the time?

The answer to that question for a humongous majority of human beings is:

1) if it's me or a group of people I care about then yes. Otherwise, not if it costs me something.

The rest of the opinions are split between:

2) The past is the past. Don't screw up my pretty future.
3) Yes. We always owe them, and we should pay them immediately because, just like a loan from a bank, the "interest rate" on that frustration accumulates extremely fast.
4) Other.

I tend to side with #3. Progress and/or freedom is not necessarily more important than justice in every single instance, and there are several examples of this in the law. I think nothing just ceases to exist in this universe. The people we screw over, even after they die, will generate an equal and opposite reaction and if that's true in the context of population growth, inter-connectivity and rapidly growing top-down institutions then it means the later damage will be greater than the past damage.

So instead of disingenuously pointing to whether the credentials stack up in an "honest" conversation, I'd rather focus on how to resolve the actions that led to this situation, and deal with it for those who are still alive and are being hampered by it. We are losing too much potential, and that potential imo is more valuable than what's allegedly being lost in this specific slice of time.

 

Aren't women starting to outperform men in academics?

Why doesn't it translate to the tech industry

 

If you have a daughter, would you advise her to go into tech field today even if she is capable? Or would you advise her to go into a field like say becoming a doctor for example.