
The Google memo isn’t sexist or anti-diversity, it’s science - 20100thibault
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/no-the-google-manifesto-isnt-sexist-or-anti-diversity-its-science/article35903359
======
Ajedi32
Not much new here. This article is essentially just re-affirming all the
scientific statements that were already made in the original memo, backed by
links to scientific studies.

Only difference being that the author of this article has a PhD in sexual
neuroscience (so people might have a harder time accusing her of not knowing
what she's talking about) and is female (so some people might have a harder
time of accusing her of sexism).

~~~
52-6F-62
I personally never called it out for sexism. I called it out for regressive-
thinking as a solution based on plain fact.

I can only be brief right now, but it's starting to get to me how so many
people in an innovative sphere seem to have such a hard time with this. To me,
it seems like it shouldn't be a second thought.

If the main argument is that women do not [by nature of our scientific
understanding] have minds tuned to engineering prowess to the extent that men
do for whatever cause, then just how does that itself prescribe that we should
stop pushing for an expansion there?

Humans never evolved to fly, yet we do it _all the time_. By the same logic,
if we weren't evolved to do it, we should probably just put our planes away
because it's bad for us. Same with communicating long distances and sharing
knowledge on a planet-wide scale. <sarcasm> I mean, they've caused problems
themselves after all. I think we should put all these silly, limit-pushing
ideas and practices aside and just go back to smashing rocks together. The
ground has rocks. We all have two hands. It can work for us.</sarcasm>

TL;DR Why is a fact being accepted as sound basis for a totally disparate
theory on why we should stop trying to exceed our limits? This guys post
wasn't science. He used science to reason out a way to revert to a state of
community where he stands to gain more. There was another theory like that, I
can recall. I think it started with an 'e'.

edit: Wanted to add, a PhD of neurosexuality is probably one of the last
people I would consult on philosophy, humanism or any kind of larger social
issue. It's not exactly her scope. It does help to have an expert on the
subject chime in on the science, though. It will help at least dispose of that
less useful side of the discussion.

~~~
peoplewindow
The guy's post was science, according to scientists - 5 of them have now
spoken up saying that. Maybe there'll be more.

With respect to "why not try to solve it", it's a reasonable question. The guy
answers that too - he is all for trying to solve it. He even makes suggestions
about new ways to do it, like encouraging pair programming.

But he feels the current solutions aren't working and are, in fact, causing
bigger problems. They might also be illegal. That seems like a good reason to
pause for a moment and re-evaluate if the current strategy is a good one.

He also made a wider point, that was actually his main point, that Google's
strategy on women in tech was breaking the internal culture and causing a
severe lack of other kinds of diversity, namely, political and ideas-based
diversity. He said that people couldn't challenge ideas around gender
diversity and the best way to fix it without intimidation and fear. Google
claimed they totally support people having discussions like that, and then
immediately fired him, which shows he was right.

~~~
omikun
> But he feels the current solutions aren't working and are, in fact, causing
> bigger problems. They might also be illegal. That seems like a good reason
> to pause for a moment and re-evaluate if the current strategy is a good one.

In fact, he goes farther. He says this "Discrimination to reach equal
representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business." Where is the
science to back that up?

~~~
vsl
Discrimination is by definition unfair; therefore divisive. I thought everyone
agrees on that.

It's very hypocritical to scream how discrimination against women or POC is
bad and needs to be routed out, only to turn around and start discriminating
yourself.

Discriminating against anyone (yes, even people you disagree with or don't
like) is unfair.

Treating people differently based on their gender is sexist.

Smearing, bullying and firing somebody for disagreeing with you is bigoted.

The hypocrisy on display in this whole brouhaha is astounding.

~~~
Mindcraft
Discrimination is not by definition unfair, the context is important, or do
you think aiding people in need but not those who aren't is unfair?.

If you want to reach a balanced state from a unbalanced one, you need to
discriminate to provide more for the people that are behind.

~~~
gspetr
What we should provide is equality of opportunity (i.e. anyone should be given
a fair and equal treatment in an interview) not equality of outcome (someone
should be given a job, just because they represent a certain segment of
population).

~~~
radisb
Exactly. I really can't understand why someone would fail to see this. Unless
they have some other definition of equality. But I genuinely would like to
hear other definitions and discuss the semantics of that word in the social
context.

------
snowwrestler
The article hides a common but incorrect assumption. Look at this paragraph:

> As mentioned in the memo, gendered interests are predicted by exposure to
> prenatal testosterone – higher levels are associated with a preference for
> mechanically interesting things and occupations in adulthood. Lower levels
> are associated with a preference for people-oriented activities and
> occupations. This is why STEM (science, technology, engineering and
> mathematics) fields tend to be dominated by men.

The assumption here is that employment in STEM industries fundamentally and
solely involves "mechanically interesting things".

The reality is that tech companies are composed of people and make products
for people. Google themselves have found through their own research that the
best managers are defined by their people skills, not their technical skills.
So why aren't the management layers of tech companies composed of mostly
women?

Strong technology is important for success, but so is leadership, market fit,
team dynamics, understanding the customer, etc. The hardest question in tech
companies is not "how" to build, but "what" to build. This is essentially a
people-oriented problem, since customers are people.

EDIT: this tweet puts it succinctly:

> WEIRD how none of these guys ever argue that because our ladybrains are
> better at communication and teamwork we should be paid more

[https://twitter.com/kelliotttt/status/894770623611682818](https://twitter.com/kelliotttt/status/894770623611682818)

~~~
dsfjksdf
But that is not related to "shortage of women in tech/STEM". More women in
management wouldn't change that.

Maybe it is just difficult to put managers without experience in the trenches
in front of people? That is, managers who have no tech skills as such?

~~~
zamalek
> That is, managers who have no tech skills as such?

There was an article on the front page earlier about how you simply shouldn't
put people with no tech expertise in charge of people who have - so far as
tech goes.

There is another problem here: the wage gap across industries. Some of our
most important workers (teachers, nurses) are paid a pittance, whereas one
industry that invents problems to solve is paid the most. The solution is to
treasure the work that everyone does - irrespective of what industry they
might be in. This would allow people to pursue a respected career in whatever
industry they desire, regardless of what gender is typically motivated to
engage in that industry.

Tech has been historically awful to women (and some places continue to do so);
yet you can find industries where all genders are discriminated against (some
being a social stigma) and nobody seems to give a damn about them.

One thing I can say for certain is that, as an extremely young equal society,
we seem to be making a heroic effort to improve. We have a very long way to go
and the extremes are probably going to be visited multiple times as the
pendulum settles to the center.

~~~
dsfjksdf
Wages are determined by market forces. Most nurses may earn less than techies,
but their work might be more rewarding to them. They are helping human beings
get better, not optimizing ads.

Nobody is forced to choose Nursing over Tech, so if they are unhappy with the
salary, why do people choose Nursing? Presumably more people choose Nursing
than Tech, so the salary is lower as per supply and demand (and of course
demand is dependent on other factors as well - but if fewer people went into
Nursing, prices surely would go up).

Nobody is entitled to any kind of job they want. Jobs exist because people
need jobs done, and they are willing to pay for them being done.

Tech has historically not been awful to women. The social networks are full of
the reports on how early programmers were all women. Even today tech is not
awful to women. They get a red carpet rolled out for them.

------
megous
What I find interesting about all this is how many people take personal
offense from statistics. (and conclusions drawn from statistics)

The author seems to put an effort into explaining statistical distribution and
what it means and what not. He's explicit that statistical observations can't
be used to judge particular individuals. Draws a graph of overlapping
distributions to drive the point home even more.

I'm not sure why would anyone get offended by statistical observation. It's
not personal _by definition_.

~~~
tenaciousDaniel
Also interesting is that it's one of the things social justice activists
constantly criticize others for. I can't count how many times I've heard the
following: "when we say men are privileged, we don't mean any and all men are
privileged to the same extent." Or "when we say white people are racist, we're
not talking about every single individual white person."

And it makes sense. Yet when it comes time for someone to say "the statistical
average for career interests in females tends to lean away from technology",
all observable nuance is thrown to the wind.

~~~
stillkicking
Worse, with social justice this usually takes the form of a motte and bailey
argument. The statement that "we don't mean all white men" and "we mean a
system of systemic biases/practices" is usually a defense in response to being
called out for dismissing someone for being white or male.

"Mansplaining" is the clearest example of this. Supposedly it's only used to
describe a man condescendingly explaining something a woman already knows, but
in practice it's used to belittle and condescend any man criticizing a woman
or women as a group. i.e. "Google employees are furious following the internal
distribution of a memo mansplaining away low diversity in tech"

The only constant is the preconceived notion that they always know who the
victims are ahead of time. The reasoning is then reverse engineered to suit
the situation.

A man is talking based on feelings and anecdote? He's ignorant and pathetic,
and probably needs to get laid. A man is citing scientific studies and making
a cohesive argument? He's a mansplaining dudebro here to dogwhistle sexism and
racism. If it's woman though, she's respectively sharing her lived experience
and fighting the endemic patriarchy by being forced to work twice as hard as
any man.

~~~
tenaciousDaniel
Of all terms that have been formed on the internet, "mansplaining" is the one
I hate the most. All a discussion is, at the end of the day, is two people
explaining their own viewpoints. But now, with this word, you have a get-out-
of-conversation-free card because if you don't like someone's response, just
say it's mansplaining. It's almost unbelievably ignorant.

~~~
allemagne
I can't speak for the abuse of the term (I've never experienced what you're
describing), but 'mansplaining' refers to a very real phenomenon.

To put gender aside, egos and biases can always get in the way of two people
explaining their viewpoints. You are pretty lucky if you've never had somebody
explain a concept you already understood in a very condescending way.

Many men do this to women when they assume that these women aren't as
knowledgeable as they are. 'Mansplaining' specifically describes this.

~~~
tenaciousDaniel
I 100% agree with your second statement - condescension happens all the time.
I've seen it a bunch.

But first, men do this to each other all the time. Most of my conversations
with my male friends involve us constantly disagreeing with each other, in a
way I've rarely observed in groups of women. It's far more likely that if
someone is willing to be condescending, they're going to do it to everyone.

Of course there are instances where a man may only do it to women, but we've
quickly moved on from that general observation to "any time a man disagrees
with a women he's mansplaining". 99% of the time I've seen this term used,
it's to lazily drop out of a discussion once it becomes difficult.

~~~
allemagne
I haven't experienced a person who misuses "mansplaining" in the way you're
describing. I'm sure it happens, and I don't agree with those who do that, but
I have witnessed the situation the word is meant to describe several times
too. I'm more inclined to think that it still happens all the time and is
accurately pointed out by the word.

I agree that someone willing to condescend to women will be more likely to
condescend to a junior employee or a teenager (i.e. they've already shown the
propensity for prejudice), but I don't agree that they are probably
condescending to everyone (I'd argue that kind of person is very rare).

It's not that there are legions of very sexist and evil people who are not
prejudiced in any other way, it's that there's an unfortunately large spectrum
of mostly well-meaning people who might harbor conscious or unconscious
beliefs about women specifically. They might also harbor similar beliefs about
minorities, or have a life experience that justifies their beliefs in their
eyes, but nevertheless it's a big enough cross-section of society and a strong
enough phenomenon that it's been noticed. That there is some subset of SJWs
who think that they can take advantage of this isn't an extreme claim, but
that it's a stronger phenomenon _is_ a pretty extreme claim to me.

------
piokoch
I am always surprised that well educated people who are definitely not
"creationists" but consider evolution as a way human kind developed are ready
to ignore evolution when it comes to gender.

Clearly man and woman are different physically and mentally as for millenias
they played different roles. Why "gender people" keep ignoring that and are
claiming that sex is not something inborn and is a "cultural" phenomena is
hard to understand.

For me gender studies are just new incarnation of Lysenkoism. Lysenko strongly
belived (and thousands of soviet scientist) that weeds could spontaneously
evolve into food grains because is should cooperate with communistic party.

Those who were against that obvious stupidity and claimed that genetics is the
way to understand plant evolution were fired or put to jail or executed.

Similarly absurdal ideas were brought by soviet lingustics - if any one wants
to have good fun, there is no better reading then Stalins's "Linguistics".

~~~
omikun
You're confusing the way things are versus the way things should be.
Evolutionary biology explains the way things are. Diversity measures combats
that with the goal of getting us to the way things should be. There are a host
of reasons why things are the way they are now. The memo tries to offload some
of that to biological explanations and cites studies. Then he makes a leap of
faith and recommends the should based on that. The studies only explain why
things are the way they are, not whether that is a good or a bad thing.

Specifically, he says at the top of the memo "Discrimination to reach equal
representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business." I'm not aware of
any studies that backs this up.

~~~
biggerbistro
Actually, diversity measures make things worse by promoting below-average
candidates unfairly based on their superficial attributes (skin color, sex
etc). This actually achieves the opposite of what is intended as it reduces
fitness selection of whatever genes make someone good at/interested in STEM
topics. By going against meritocracy you are harming the vulnerable groups by
giving them a crutch to rely on.

~~~
omikun
I don't think anyone is promoting below-average hires as part of diversity
programs. If that was the case, they could just hire only women until the
desired gender balance is met.

I get the feeling your position is exactly what Google referred to as toxic.
Imagine a woman hired in a diversity program hears your position. Do you think
she will feel welcomed and understood?

~~~
biggerbistro
Is that not what a diversity program amounts to? If the candidate was superior
on merit alone then market forces would reward those companies that ignored
race and gender in their hiring decisions and punish the racist/sexist ones
that were passing up perfectly good candidates. If all existing companies are
racist/sexist then the potential entrepreneur that starts a competitor and
scoops up all the "ignored talent" would make a killing.

Perhaps instead of whining about gender ratios we should be the change we want
to see while making a ton of money at the same time?

~~~
alokitr
I sincerely don't think diversity programs amount to that. And if you know any
that do, call them out because they are not diversity programs, they are
"discrimination" programs in essence.

As a side note, I think you expect too much from talent in this specific case.
There have been more than one companies that have hired excellent talent only
to succumb to the market forces.

~~~
biggerbistro
I'm curious as to why you don't think diversity programs are not exactly that:
discrimination programs. Enforcing quotas assumes (usually incorrectly) that
there is an equal supply of talent within the underrepresented minority group
and that it is simply bias on the part of the hiring managers that prevents
equal numbers of blacks/women/hispanics/whatever from being hired. Putting
pressure on companies for not having more minority representation is being
discriminatory against (usually) white males, as there are limited spots
available at a given company.

If you start with the potentially incorrect assumption that your hiring
practices are biased in favor of one group over another then doesn't it make
more sense to address this bias directly rather than enforcing quotas? Having
your hiring process audited and getting rid of any bad weeds seems like a good
start. I've seen firsthand manager who have said outright "we can't hire him,
we need to hire a woman this time" after interviewing what seemed to be a good
candidate.

------
dm319
> But sexism isn’t the result of knowing facts; it’s the result of what people
> choose to do with them.

We know that men are taller than women. I can see you agreeing, but actually
this statement is ambiguous, because these two are not the same thing:

    
    
      A man is taller than a women
    
      On average, men are taller than women
    

Sexism is taking a random male and a random female, and claiming that despite
all the facts presented to you, the male is taller than the female. It doesn't
matter that in a specific case a female is taller than a male.

The same can be applied to any group and their respective stereotype. The *ism
happens when we fail to assess an individual on the data given to us,
preferring to fall back on mentally-lazy stereotypes/generalisations even when
what we can see says something different.

    
    
       A single study, published in 2015, did claim that male
      and female brains existed along a “mosaic” and that it
      isn’t possible to differentiate them by sex, but this has
      been refuted by four – yes, four – academic studies since.
    
      This includes a study that analyzed the exact same brain
      data from the original study and found that the sex of a
      given brain could be correctly identified with 69-per-cent 
      to 77-per-cent accuracy.
    

Well I'd argue that isn't great accuracy as 50% is what you'd expect from
chance (though I haven't read those references). In fact, I might expect a
similar accuracy from a machine-learning technique to predict sex based on
your height.

I haven't touched on the causes of population differences. With height, I
don't think anyone thinks it's anything other than genetic (by way of
testosterone levels). For interests and skills, the proportion that is caused
by testosterone versus culture/environment is still unclear.

If we believe there is still a cultural effect, then I think positive
discrimination is justified to counter this.

As an anecdote, we were wondering why our four-year old son suddenly lost
interest in 'Frozen'. He told us this week that a girl had told him at nursery
that 'Frozen' wasn't for boys. Cultural stereotype reinforcement is alive and
well, and starts early!

~~~
agarden
> Sexism is taking a random male and a random female, and claiming that
> despite all the facts presented to you, the male is taller than the female.
> It doesn't matter that in a specific case a female is taller than a male.

Upvoted for this. Great definition of sexism.

> Well I'd argue that isn't great accuracy as 50% is what you'd expect from
> chance.... In fact, I might expect a similar accuracy from a machine-
> learning technique to predict sex based on your height. ...With height, I
> don't think anyone thinks it's anything other than genetic....

If the method is probably as good at predicting sex as one based on height,
which everyone agrees is genetic, then why isn't that great accuracy?

------
dvfjsdhgfv
To people who are flagging this article: why don't you read it? It's
important, and the author is competent.

~~~
akamaka
This article is trash. Who is claiming that there are no gender differences
across the population? Who is she arguing against exactly?

Maybe the author should have actually read the manifesto more carefully,
because it is primarily an argument about Google's hiring practices and how to
build the best workforce for a company, a topic which the scientific studies
she cites do not address in the slightest.

~~~
avenoir
> Who is claiming that there are no gender differences across the population?

About a quarter of comments on the original manifesto thread here on HN were
from people who explicitly stated that there are no differences between
genders and wanted scientific proof if someone were to refute their statement.

~~~
akamaka
I don't think that's accurate. Nobody was trying to refute the science that
was cited by the manifesto writer. There were many comments arguing that
environmental factors are more important, or pointing out that the science of
testosterone's effect hasn't been directly connected to job performance, which
I think are great subjects to debate.

------
kartan
Women work in the Berlin Post Office with calculators, 1928:
[http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-women-work-in-the-berlin-
po...](http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-women-work-in-the-berlin-post-office-
with-calculators-1928-48346914.html)

The managers, a more people-oriented activity, are all men. But the people
working with actual calculators are women. And it was not just this office,
this was happening everywhere. Working with a calculator was a woman's job.

More: [http://www.history.com/news/human-computers-women-at-
nasa](http://www.history.com/news/human-computers-women-at-nasa)

There is a lot of factors to why STEM is dominated by men. Testosterone may be
one, for real, but it is not the only one. And it doesn't justify such a big
difference in numbers.

I don't know if the engineer wrote something awful or not, but this article is
just a justification for the difference as if nothing can be done. And that is
not true.

~~~
zach
Data entry has always been a strongly female occupation. Even sixty years
later, data entry workers were 92% female:
[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-08-02/news/870226065...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-08-02/news/8702260658_1_data-
entry-operators-labor-force)

It seems concerning that the de-emphasis of data entry in programming in the
1970s and 1980s may have caused the loss of entry-level opportunities for
women and help lead to our field's gender imbalance.

------
program_whiz
I have a question to further this debate.

Would people consider it sexist to administer a completely automated test of
technical and personality questions which was used by an unbiased program to
hire only the best qualified candidates?

What would you say if the results were essentially the same as the status quo?

By the Article's Author's account, she believes that we would probably
maintain the status quo with such a test, because she thinks people are self-
selecting out of STEM. Others seem to think that there is some other barrier
to entering -- would a test like this fix the issue, or is there something
else going on?

~~~
notacoward
> What would you say if the results were essentially the same as the status
> quo?

OK, I'll bite. I'd say that's both surprising and interesting. Then I'd ask
why the status quo is even relevant. "Best qualified" at the time of taking
the test might not mean "most productive a year hence" when a candidate's
circumstances might have kept them from reaching their full potential. Indeed,
circumstances might have kept them from making it as far as the test at all.
When there are statistically valid predictors of these things likely having
happened, why couldn't - or shouldn't - Google take advantage of that
knowledge? Also, no individual test can account for the common phenomenon of
diverse teams outperforming monoculture teams. Hiring the best individuals is
not the same as building the best teams.

Thus, even if such a "unicorn test" could exist, and even from the most hard-
hearted "Google shouldn't consider social justice" perspective, the test would
only be one input for selecting candidates. There would still be sound
business focused reasons for overriding its results some of the time.

~~~
program_whiz
Not being sarcastic, is there evidence that more diverse teams are better?
There seems to be some anecdotal evidence going both ways (i.e. more diverse
viewpoints vs team cohesion). I can imagine that there's a balance point as
well. You could have one extreme where people are so similar that its
basically a one-person team with 8 arms. You could also have a team so diverse
they can never agree, have no common language and no shared cultural aspects,
or even shared goals. An interesting balancing act really.

~~~
notacoward
The most often cited paper w.r.t. gender diversity (the kind most at issue
here) seems to be this one:

[https://papers.tinbergen.nl/11074.pdf](https://papers.tinbergen.nl/11074.pdf)

A more readable summary is here:

[http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/impact-gender-diversity-
performan...](http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/impact-gender-diversity-performance-
business-teams-evidence-field-experiment)

The authors did indeed find a balance point, at about 50:50 (a far cry from
the 81:19 among engineers at Google). OTOH, this was for a very different kind
of task than programming. Another starting point is here:

[http://www.chabris.com/Woolley2010a.pdf](http://www.chabris.com/Woolley2010a.pdf)

It's particularly interesting that many summaries of this work will use vague
terms like "composition of the group" to avoid mentioning anything in the
findings about _number of women_ in the group.

------
typicalbender
As an additional perspective, here's an interview from James' perspective[1].
The interviewer is clearly fairly bias and holds the same viewpoint which is
unfortunate but I think hearing James' perspective on the purpose of the
document is interesting.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agU-
mHFcXdw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agU-mHFcXdw)

~~~
skoocda
Here's the full interview[1] - the above comment linked a shortened version.

For reference, this is Dr. Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto
professor who was fired a few months ago for his stance on using gender
pronouns. He's a strong proponent of free speech, which he touches on in this
discussion.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU)

~~~
hefty
> was fired a few months ago for his stance on using gender pronouns.

He wasn't fired. The university sent him two warning letters and then backed
down from taking any action. He's still teaching psychology there.

------
Joeri
I have always felt very ambivalent about affirmative action. It is a form of
discrimination and therefore furthers the message that discerning based on
gender or race is acceptable. You can make a strong argument that it is
harmful, which is what the memo did.

However...

In the kingdom of Belgium at some point the rule was introduced that half of
all political candidates for election must be women and had to receive equally
prominent placement on ballots (by alternating male and female candidates).
People were still free to vote men into office, but the idea was that it would
give women a fairer chance. The same criticisms were said. Before you saw a
low percentage of women in politics, like most countries. This was attributed
to women having less of an affinity for politics. And yet, after a few
election cycles this caused a shift in mindset as well as quality of female
candidates and who was elected. Women are no longer perceived to be less
suited for politics, the most popular politician is a woman, and gender has
gone away as a divisive issue in politics. So, it actually worked. By making
people so used to women politicians the issue went away, and you could
probably get rid of the quotas and still see a 50% split in the next election.

So maybe our genetic predispositions matter far less than we think, and we can
change mindsets through affirmative action. But it has to be all-in 50/50 %
split, so that it will change people's perception of normal.

~~~
notacoward
> I have always felt very ambivalent about affirmative action.

Part of the problem is that "affirmative action" takes many forms. Some people
assume that it means quotas and lowered standards, but those approaches have
been deprecated (and sometimes outlawed) for a long time. Outreach, anti-bias
education, and support programs are generally preferred precisely because they
don't lead to the same untoward outcomes that tokenism does. Sure, some people
still get left out. I was "discriminated against" in that way once, but I
thrived despite that and have learned to appreciate how that policy was just
overall even though it was unjust to me.

There is no perfect affirmative-action policy, including lack of any explicit
policy. The best we can do is ensure that the burden of any policy is as small
as possible, and distributed as fairly as possible.

------
root_axis
> _Scientific studies have confirmed sex differences in the brain that lead to
> differences in our interests and behaviour._

This is obvious and not the point of contention. The crux of the other side's
disagreement is in the assumption that differences in brain chemistry
attributable to sex necessarily account for all or the majority of the
differences we observe in career distributions. I think the insane reaction to
this memo is unfortunate because the author does appear to make an earnest
effort to discuss this topic, but the memo's defenders are not doing the
argument any favors by arguing against the weakest version of the opposing
argument.

------
alexholehouse
_As mentioned in the memo, gendered interests are predicted by exposure to
prenatal testosterone – higher levels are associated with a preference for
mechanically interesting things and occupations in adulthood. Lower levels are
associated with a preference for people-oriented activities and occupations.
This is why STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields
tend to be dominated by men._

And why we see fields like law being dominated by women, right?

EDIT: I, and I suspect _most_ other scientists wouldn't disagree that there
are [edit - had this as aren't previously, woops!] physiological differences
between men and women, but as I read the memo, that was not what was being
argued. What was being argued was that those differences were the _reason_ for
the gender imbalance in tech (i.e. women are predisposition to be less
interested/capable in STEM fields), in other words, the effect size associated
with biological sex is larger (and indeed must be _significantly_ larger) than
any/all combined societal/'nurture' effects.

~~~
UK-AL
This is anecdotal. But a testament on how difficult this problem is.

I have two nieces and 1 nephew, all of which I've tried to encourage into
programming. I have tried to get my nieces interested in programming with
great difficulty but my nephew has taken to it almost instantly and
effortlessly.

I suspect I am framing the activity wrong.

~~~
scaryclam
This is also anecdotal. I'm a female working as a technical lead. When trying
to describe what I do to non-tech-worker female friends that ask, I often find
that they get a look of slight confusion and state things such as "wait, that
actually sounds like an interesting job!". It's as if their entire experience
of computers, maths and tech is boring, so they think working with them must
be as well.

I think how girls get introduced into STEM subjects has to change. I also
think it would be worthwhile continuing to encourage adult females to give
things like programming a go as well, even if they've tried in the past and
didn't like it. Most of the barriers to interest seem to be _how_ the subjects
are talked about, as opposed to the subjects themselves.

~~~
agarden
Interesting. Do you have any insights into how the way you talk about it is
different?

------
notacoward
As with many defenses of the Damore memo (and more than a few attacks against
it as well), this completely misses the point. Let's say for the sake of
argument that there are differences in ability and/or preference between men
and women. Let's even say that the magnitude of those differences is
sufficient to explain a 4:1 ratio between male and female engineers at Google
(which is clearly not true). My response is still SO WHAT? That outlandish
premise still doesn't even begin to justify his tone, his complaints, or his
policy proposals.

* Differences in ability do not support his accusation of silencing. They're unrelated.

* Phrases like "the left tends to deny science" and "extremely sensitive PC-authoritarians" are inflammatory, prejudicial, and discriminatory in their own right, independently of whether gender differences exist.

* Diversity is provably good even in the presence of gender differences. Many studies have shown that the effect of mixed teams outperforming single-gender teams far outweighs any individual differences.

I could go on and on about other ways that Damore comes across as a radically
intolerant jerk, a hypocrite, etc. but I'm trying to stay on one point. The
"science" part of Damore's memo, which the OP is meant to support, is
practically irrelevant. That's not the only part that's offensive, or
dangerous, or in violation of his employee agreement. It's not even the only
part that's unscientific, since sociology and economics are involved as well
as biology and he doesn't even try to engage honestly with those. His belief
that women are less fit to be engineers is abhorrent, but so _separately_ are
his other beliefs. Even the strongest refutation of that one point doesn't
make a dent in the memo's total start-to-finish toxicity.

~~~
likelynew
> magnitude of those differences is sufficient to explain a 4:1 ratio between
> male and female engineers at Google (which is clearly not true)

I had obtained numbers for number of pull requests in github and participation
in competitive coding contests some time back. Gender ratios are close to 10:1
on both of the places. It's relevant because there is neither any barrier nor
lowering the bar due to gender in these.

~~~
notacoward
There's no lowering of the bar in the sense of denying hires/promotions, but I
think it's fair to say that there are still significant disincentives to
female participation. Also, I know this is heresy, but GitHub is not
necessarily representative of software engineering in general. It emphasizes
pure code development over ops or design, it emphasizes a very particular
style of open source, it's skewed toward certain project types and sizes, etc.
How many of those "male" commits were women hiding their gender, or senior
males acting as the upstream conduit for an entire mixed team working against
a repo elsewhere? Competitive coding contests probably skew even more heavily
male, for reasons that I should hope are obvious.

It's a data point, and I thank you for that, but it's not exactly a complete
refutation of contrary findings by others. It's also kind of beside the point
in exactly the same way as the OP.

------
jamesrcole
What disturbs me most about this incident is how many people's first instinct,
when faced with views they strongly disagree with, is to try and __suppress
__those views and the person speaking them. Not to engage with the argument or
to try and argue against it, just to shut the other person down. It 's a
totalitarian kind of response.

~~~
yAnonymous
In my experience, most people who act like that lack the intelligence to make
valid points in an argument or there are no good arguments that support their
point of view.

I think a lot of this has to do with parenting. When crying always gets you
everything, you don't learn to work hard or have a debate to get what you
want. There's a whole generation of full-grown babies.

~~~
fiblye
If the reason that people get enraged is because they lack the intelligence to
dispute something, what are google and news agencies doing hiring such people?

I'm not sure whether it's lack of intelligence or a desire for self-gain/self-
promotion (seeing as how loads of people proudly plastered their pictures and
names in the ensuing twitter debates, trying to paint themselves as brave
crusaders for whatever movement they want to lead).

~~~
yAnonymous
>desire for self-gain/self-promotion

This often involves being deceptive, which would explain both of your points.
For many people, status is everything and it doesn't matter how they get
there. Selling yourself is often more important than having the actual skills
required for a position.

And let's face it: Not everyone at Google needs to be a rocket scientist.
We've also seen how shallow Google's hiring practices are.* Ticking check
boxes is more important than correct answers, which perfectly fits with
everything we're currently seeing.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12701272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12701272)

------
ainiriand
Firing this guy was just a PR move in order to keep things under control. The
memo was accurate and I know that Google is going to learn from it even if the
guy has been sacrified.

~~~
sethish
Private companies are not free speech zones. Not firing this person would have
been a Title VII violation and opened them to lawsuits.

~~~
hepolz
>Not firing this person would have been a Title VII violation

I disagree. His manifesto is pretty clearly core political speech protected by
the First Amendment, so Title VII would be unconstitutional as applied if it
operates to force Google to suppress such speech. Unfortunately there is no
precedent clearly establishing this, so the mere threat of lawsuits (and
accompanying legal expenses) may have been a factor in Google deciding to fire
him.

------
StrangeOrange
I think it's important for us to gain some kind of perspective here. Whatever
current science (or "science") says on the matter, that's not the point. These
arguments seem to be of the following: women are inherently less capable of
being good engineers, therefore they should be underrepresented in
engineering.

Okay, now let's extend that argument out from the engineering sphere.

Using the same logic, the following attitudes should be accepted: 1\.
physically disabled people are inherently less suited to being mobile, so we
shouldn't put in effort to allow them to be as mobile as non-disabled people
2\. Men are inherently less suited for child care, so we shouldn't put in
effort to help them be as good at child care as women

I wouldn't be surprised if some of you endorsed the attitudes I've just
presented, but that would make you immoral by modern standards, so you could
then assume that you're being immoral on the gender diversity issue.

This whole thing comes down to a fundamental lack of empathy. If you're not
going to have empathy for women in tech, there's no reason that anyone should
have empathy for you in areas that you're not suited to. So, if you accept
one, accept the consequences of the other.

~~~
cpncrunch
>women are inherently less capable of being good engineers

The article doesn't say that at all. It just says that _on average_ women have
certain traits that mean they are less likely on average to want to go into an
engineering job.

>Men are inherently less suited for child care, so we shouldn't put in effort
to help them be as good at child care as women

But men are inherently less likely to want to go into child care, for obvious
reasons. However nobody is saying that they shouldn't be allowed to do so.

I think the main problem with the memo is this line:

"Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or
race"

I don't see any problem with those programmes myself, and I think he would
have gotten more empathy and less hostility if he hadn't advocated removing
those programmes to help women.

------
apeace
No matter how you debate the validity of the science, I hope people pay
attention to one suggestion the 'manifesto' author made: that his company
should do more pair programming.

Pairing has always struck me as a great way to get programmers communicating
better. Without addressing any other points in the manifesto, I think he's
correct that encouraging pairing would be a good way to make development
environments more collaborative.

------
Delmania
From below (I wanted to make sure this didn't get hidden under a downvoted
comment):

>I fail to understand how a memo calling for MORE diversity can get headlined
as "anti-diversity memo" on all big media outlets. Do journalists even do
independent research anymore or are they just regurgitating whatever reuters
send their way without scrutiny?

The author is referring to psychological diversity, in other words, Google
should be more receptive to diverse viewpoints. This is both true and not
true. Yes, we should listen to others and understand, but that does not mean
we should accept and value everyone's viewpoints. To invoke Goodwin's Law,
perhaps we should be more sympathetic to the viewpoints of Nazis? How about
white supremacists?

There are viewpoints that do harm people within society, and this is one of
them. Strip this down, this is the basic "woman's nature" argument that was
used for years in the past to keep women barefoot and in the kitchen. The
underlying claim that women are bad at tech is ridiculous. As mentioned below,
the early programmers and data entry workers were women as it was considered
"office work". I'll also throw out names like Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace.
Read a site like Godel's Lost Letter, and Lipton always points out women who
have made contributions to the field. I even recall an article about a house
wife who researched new fractals. Women have been engaged in science,
technology, engineering, and math (and medicine) since the beginning. They
were male dominated because people held the viewpoint the author does, which
is essentially, "It's not a woman' place". Bullshit, plain and simple. This
memo does not call for more diversity. It may cite scientific research (yes,
men and women are different physically and psychologically), but it calls for
the same status quo that initiatives like the ones the author lambasts are
trying to overcome. Are they perfect? No. but they are a step in the right
direction. We need to understand these difference and adapt to them not use
those differences as a way to exclude.

~~~
Cthulhu_
> To invoke Goodwin's Law, perhaps we should be more sympathetic to the
> viewpoints of Nazis? How about white supremacists?

There's a movie on Netflix at the moment, a German movie called "Er Ist Wieder
Da" ("look who's back") about Hitler returning in modern-day Germany. It's
part movie, part documentary - the actor playing Hitler travels around the
country and talks to people about politics and the like, and finds there's a
lot of people agreeing with some of the standpoints.

The nazis crossed a huge number of lines and had some batshit people at the
helm, but I'm sure you could find some points that a lot of people would agree
with even in these days. Same with white supremacists, some of which have
toned down their racism and become more politically correct.

~~~
Mangalor
So...we should value the opinions of Nazis? Are we really at that level?

~~~
throwaway15066
It depends what the opinion is about. The National Socialists boosted
Germany's economy massively, so a discussion of their economic policy might be
useful (this is a simplification, in actuality the economics of post-WW1
Germany was boosted by a multitude of factors and the Nazis were not the only
major one, but my point stands -- they legitimately did a lot of good to
Germany before WW2). A discussion of their opinions on racial purity is
definitely not going to be useful to anyone involved.

If you found out that the barista at your favourite coffee shop was racist,
would that change whether they make good coffee? Is the value of the coffee
inextricably linked to their views? If someone has a disgusting view in one
aspect of their life, their other views appear to be tainted even if they are
entirely orthogonal.

------
jpmattia
I'm surprised greater attention is not focused on the fact the "science" is in
the midst of a reproducibility crisis. This is a big issue in the hard
sciences; I can only imagine what it's like in the squishy science of gender
behavior.

Tying your reputation to such a soft foundation is just inviting trouble.

~~~
josephg
The people-things orientation has an extremely large effect size for social
science. The Su et al. meta-analysis from 2009 found an effect size of 0.86
with N > 500,000 participants. Lippa (N > 200,000) found an effect size of
1.40.

[http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x](http://sci-
hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x)

If you don't believe the research is solid, please post some convincing
counter studies.

~~~
jpmattia
> _If you don 't believe the research is solid, please post some convincing
> counter studies._

It sounds like you don't understand the reproducibility crisis: It's not up to
me to produce counter studies, it's up to you to produce replications of the
already published work, using the exact same methods and techniques.

So far, the reproducibility in the psychological sciences has been pretty
poor. Nature summarized the original test a couple of years ago: 61 out of 100
replications failed in the test.

[https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-
studies-...](https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-
reproducibility-test-1.18248)

~~~
ahh
I think you might not know what a meta-analysis is: it's actually a summary
_of_ replications and duplicate studies on some topic. Generally (I have not
read this particular one!) they are specifically designed to detect potential
publication bias and other effects that would imply non-reproducibility.

~~~
jpmattia
> _it 's actually a summary of replications and duplicate studies on some
> topic. ... they are specifically designed to detect potential publication
> bias and other effects that would imply non-reproducibility._

Not quite right: Meta-analyses combine several studies to improve the
statistical power of a given topic. They do not address reproducibility,
because the individual papers forming the basis for the meta-analyses make no
attempt at reproducing prior results before introducing new ones. I'd go so
far as to say part of the necessity for the original reproducibility study of
100 seminal psychology papers was because meta-analyses fail to address
reproducibility.

The repercussions of 61/100 papers failing to reproduce are still not as
widely understood as they should be.

------
blahblah3
Seems like a lot of the controversy around these types of discussions comes
from the consequences of bayesian inference.

If you know that men and women differ in a distributional sense with respect
to some trait, that gives you a prior to work off-of when you meet a new
individual. This is rational from bayes theorem, so simply saying "you should
treat everyone as an individual" is not nuanced enough.

However, as you acquire more information about a particular individual (such
as passing a difficult google interview, or knowing that they've succeeded in
a reputable CS curriculum), this should quickly "swamp" the prior, causing it
to contribute very little to the final inference.

The problem is the humans are not great at adjusting like this: we're not
perfect at applying bayes theorem in our heads. We tend to overstate the
influence of various priors when there are stronger signals at hand.
Nevertheless, incorporating prior distributional information is NOT
irrational, but generally overdone.

Therefore, it seems like the approach of some is to shout down information
that would suggest biological distributional differences, to try guarantee
that people don't overuse prior information.

~~~
Lon7
I don't think many people have a problem with any of the science or the
statistics. That's not the problem with the 'manifesto'.

The author of the 'manifesto' seems to think that no one else reads these
studies. I can assure you that everyone who is working on these issues has
already read and understood the studies. The people in charge of these
programs agree with them. He presented absolutely nothing of value. There is
not a single new idea in what he wrote.

All the manifesto showed was that he thinks he you can just apply studies to
your coworkers. He took a bunch of women he works with and turned them into
statistics, into a problem that he alone can solve. It's incredible ignorant
and arrogant.

The science, or understanding of statistics is not the problem, it is his
approach to solving it that is the problem.

------
ArenaSource
So, this is science too:

Inmate Gender - Male: 93.3% Female: 6.7% [1]

"In view of these overwhelming results measures must be taken to remove men
from jobs where their predisposition to crime may have negative repercussions
on society."

[1]
[https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_gende...](https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_gender.jsp)

------
SCAQTony
I think science is a bit hyperbolic a term for this fiasco. More like mere
statistics at best and we know how statistics can work out.

Calling psychology or psychiatry a science is a generous proclamation. None of
the above practitioners, including a neuroscientist, neurologist, or a
cognitive scientist, can explain completely why someone can look at a shot of
whiskey, know it is an expensive whiskey, know how to balance the shot to
their lips, then prepare for the burn, and then swallow it while hoping they
will get "lucky" tonight but feel lousy tomorrow all at the same time.

We're not there yet when it comes to classifying humanity into "phylums" or
categories via science.

------
markdog12
Was horrified to see this flagged. Why would anybody flag a scientific
viewpoint from a credible source with citations? Refute and discuss it, sure,
but why flag it?

~~~
brl
Why would anybody censor the viewpoint of a woman scientist in this particular
debate? How much cognitive dissonance is too much?

------
gkya
This stuff is going all-medieval, with witch hunts and pseudo-rogues. People
are going back to emotionally responding to facts and following who shouts
louder. Fixing gender issues is one thing, suppressing facts yo dislike is
another.

We wouldn't have a percent of liberties and developments also in the anti-
patriarchal quest without science and rationalism.

------
lawtguy
Some additional data taken from the National Center for Education Statistics
([https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_318.30.a...](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_318.30.asp))

Bachelor's degrees by sex from 2013-2014:

Mathematics, general: 43.9% earned by women (7,420 out of 16,914) Chemistry,
general: 47.7% earned by women (6,556 out of 13,730) Physics, general: 18.7%
earned by women (1,124 out of 6,002) Computer Science: 14.5% earned by women
(1,914 out of 13,220)

It seems like all of the gender differences pointed out about women in the
diversity memo would apply equally to Physics and Computer Science as they do
to Mathematics and Chemistry, but they gender ratio of Mathematics and
Chemistry degrees is much closer to 50/50\. So why the big difference?

------
daughart
Anyone who wants to use "science" in this way needs to read "The Golem" by
prominent sociologists of science Collins and Pinch. It's a short, enjoyable
read. One of the things you'll learn is that science can only ask the
questions humans want to ask, and science often says exactly what people want
it to say.

[https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-
Classics/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Should-About-Science-
Classics/dp/1107604656;) online link:
[http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/collins_the_gol...](http://cstpr.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/collins_the_golem.pdf)

~~~
foolrush
Thanks for the piece. Sadly never came across it.

------
mbfg
My experience has been that i get about 10-1 resumes from men vs women. Is it
possible that they are being unfairly filtered by head hunters before i
receive them? Could be.. i wouldn't think so, but i don't know. Of the
candidates resume's i receive, the candidates that are women tend to be good,
probably better than the average male candidate i get. But they are not 10x
better, so at the end of the day, following the natural course there wouldn't
be an equal base of candidates.

Being just one sample, mine, it is completely statistically irrelevant. But
it's the only thing i personally can go on. I want good candidates, if you can
find me more good women candidates, that would be great.

------
tptacek
This defense of the "manifesto" is flawed just like the others. It picks out a
small subset of the claims made in the document, discards the context and all
the other claims, and then harangues us for having a problem with "science". I
could argue "water is composed of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen
molecule, so women are bad at software development", and my argument would
just be a difference of degree worse than hers.

We can talk straightforwardly about what makes the document problematic:
whatever the validity of the "scientific" claims it makes about gender
differences, there is no support (and likely no validity) to the connections
it then makes to software development work. Despite that unjustified leap, the
document goes on to suggest strongly that women working at Google are less
qualified than men. There is no science Debrah Soh can cite to back up that
assertion, however much she might want to.

Anyone can wrap an incendiary statement up in a pile of banal sentiment and
ambiguous appeals to social science. When challenged, refocus the debate on
the truisms and the footnotes and pretend you didn't write the nasty stuff you
hid in the middle. And, as we can see, plenty of very smart people will fall
for the trick.

Gender equity has been improving in the United States for several generations.
As that has occurred, female participation in STEM fields (and in the
professions, like medicine and law) has expanded dramatically. Many science
fields are now approaching parity. Most have more than twice as much
participation as computer science. That includes the field of mathematics,
which is closely related to computer science and is certainly more
intellectually challenging than "computer science" as practiced in the
industry.

Among all STEM fields, computer science is distinguished for _losing_ the
participation of women over the last 10 years.

Unless the women of 1950 are somehow biologically different from those of
2017, the author's theory will somehow have to address the fact that her
argument would have predicted the fields or law, medicine, biochem,
mathematics, astronomy, statistics, accounting, and actuary would all be
bereft of women over the 20th century --- obviously, the opposite occurred,
despite the sexual revolution that was immediately to come.

The author of this article discusses a correlation between increasing gender
equity and decreased STEM participation that does not appear in the evidence.
There's a reason she does that: if you don't stipulate that correlation, the
argument against gender bias in computer science has to confront another
damning fact, which is that gender disparity in the field isn't global. Unless
women in Asia are somehow biologically different than those of the US, her
argument needs some way to address the fact that women make up the majority of
STEM majors in many of those cultures.

Reading this article and then this thread, I find that there's really only two
aspects of it that HN finds persuasive: the headline's appeal to "science",
and the footnote observing that the author is a female scientist. That's not
enough. Everything in between those things is wildly off.

In discussions about gender parity in CS, the word "preference" is a coded
appeal to the Just World Hypothesis. There is a yawning chasm between
neuroscience findings about "agreeableness" and "stress tolerance" and
suitability for any particular kind of white-collar symbol-manipulation work.
Ms. Soh must intuitively understand that, but mentions it not once in her
piece, instead pretending that observations about the kinds of toys children
play with allow us to reflect participation statistics directly into real
preferences about work. Shenanigans.

~~~
renaudg
>the argument against gender bias in computer science has to confront another
damning fact, which is that gender disparity in the field isn't global. Unless
women in Asia are somehow biologically different than those of the US, her
argument needs some way to address the fact that women make up the majority of
STEM majors in many of those cultures.

There is research finding that the more advanced a country is in terms of
gender equality (by generally accepted metrics), the more pronounced the
occupational gender gap actually is in most fields.

One proposed explanation is that women in advanced economies are freer of
constraints and higher up in the Maslow pyramid of needs, and can afford to go
into jobs they actually like, rather that whatever they feel is their
duty/more lucrative/otherwise rewarding. Kind of like yuppies (of either
gender) dream of exiting the corporate world to set up an organic food shop.
That would certainly explain the very different STEM gender gaps in the
US/Sweden vs India/China, for example.

I don't have the reference handy, but if someone can provide it, please do !

~~~
tptacek
It's 1950, in a parallel universe differing from ours in exactly one way:
scientists, using methods inferior to ours today but aided by good fortune,
have generated essentially the same results about innate psychological
preferences Debrah Soh cites in this piece, results we will stipulate as
accurate.

We can predict the next 50 years with perfect clarity, having lived through
them ourselves.

According to Soh's logic, as gender equality increases _dramatically_
throughout the next 30 years, we should see reinforcement of "preferences" to
avoid science fields. And yet the opposite thing occurs.

Why has Soh's hypothesis failed to predict? Why is it more trustworthy today?

------
Someone
I think it is unfair to call this "the _Google_ manifesto".

If I state here that it is scientifically expected to see more _foos_ than
_bars_ on HN, and then get banned because of it, that wouldn't become HN's
manifesto, either.

I fear that, a few years from now, people will say it represented Google's
official standpoints (which it doesn't) or those of a significant portion of
its employees (which may or may not be the case, from what I know)

"Google employee's manifesto" or "James Damore's manifesto" are better names.

~~~
mistermann
By firing him they took ownership.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Or they firmly distanced themselves from the author, just like what happened
to both sides in Donglegate.

Not sure if the author can sue the company though, I mean on what grounds was
he fired?

~~~
agarden
He has already filed a complain with the NLRB and is intending to sue.

[http://fortune.com/2017/08/08/google-memo-
legal/](http://fortune.com/2017/08/08/google-memo-legal/)

------
throw2016
This is not rational science. Without specific measures on every single person
in Google, and a 'bar' and methodology that meets scientific rigour no can can
rationally make any claims about 'lowering the bar'.

Speculation not from a social scientist as their job but a worker within
Google apart from being grossly misplaced begins to sound eerily similar to
the ravings of self obsessed supremacists cherry picking science. This is what
hostility looks like.

And women then should be rightfully wary of all these fragile men who will
watch them like hawks looking for any excuse to confirm their bias.

Google should send a memo explicitly stating anyone who thinks women or any
group lower the bar should leave. This is not a place for bigots. It's a place
for mature educated well adjusted adults to work together.

Anyone who supported that letter should in good conscience leave the
organization which is 'lowering the bar', a definition no random individual
not suffering from extreme hubris is 'qualified' to set and the prerogative of
the organization and experts qualified for it.

If you are obsessed with diversity lowering the bar you can become a
'measuring the bar expert' and invest the time required educating yourself to
become an expert before presuming to speak with authority you do not possess
about a scientific field that does not trade in certainties.

------
kuschku
This article would be a lot more worthy of a discussion if it actually
discussed the actual issues.

How much is nature vs. nurture? (many of the behaviours the manifesto
attributed to genetics are actually purely environmental)

Should that even matter? Shouldn't hiring processes be purely meritocratic?

The fact that the author of the memo argued for affirmative action for hiring
more conservatives shows that he doesn't have anything against discrimination,
as long as he profits. If he wanted a science-backed solution, he'd have
supported motions to remove the topic of gender, race, political affiliation
entirely from the hiring process. (Anonymous job applications can help with
that).

Many of the sources were also quite misleading, or links to blogs instead of
papers. The memo wouldn't pass peer review at any journal, and can, frankly
said, not be called science.

As we also just had a big discussion about this topic on HN, this article is
misleading and from an outlet that previously has published hit pieces on
diversity policies[1], I flagged it - this discussion belongs into the recent
megathread, not as its own onto the frontpage again.

[1] [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/will-trump-make-
amer...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/will-trump-make-america-
white-again/article35904698/)

~~~
megous
It's a memo, not a scientific study. Goal is to point out issues for
discussion.

------
toptal
This is actually a great scientific read.

------
t0mbstone
Google says they want to hire a diverse collection of employees, so that the
solutions they build in the future aren't one-dimensional, possessing only the
stereotypical white male's mindset and approach.

The fact that they stated this very desire proves that they believe that women
are different than men, and that women might theoretically approach a problem
or solution differently than a man.

But if someone writes a manifesto which points out that, "Hey, maybe men and
women are different, with different traits and mindsets (when considered
across the whole average)", suddenly that person is sexist.

Google wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to pretend there are
no tangible difference between the way males and females work and think, but
they also want a diverse culture that can benefit from the different ways how
males and females work and think.

------
habosa
Does it matter? Ask a woman you know, preferably one in tech, to read the memo
and tell you how she feels.

The women in tech that I've asked felt somewhere between offended and furious
and, more importantly, would not feel comfortable working with someone who
wrote such a memo and distributed it to his colleagues.

------
alkonaut
Why can't the memo be both sexist and science? Arguing that there are
differences between genders that make one gender unsuitable for a task can be
as scientific as you want, it's still sexist.

It's no different from doing the same but replacing gender with race - it's
racist no matter how carefully and scientifically you worded it.

It's almost as if the person writing this article believes that if the
manifesto is factually/scientifically correct then it must somehow not be
sexist. As if sexism consisted of lies? I don't get it.

~~~
computerex
You are confused about what sexism is. Sexism is a prejudice based on lack of
evidence and reasoning. Saying that women are inferior to men is a sexist
remark.

Saying that on average, women prefer working in people oriented roles whereas
men prefer working in mechanical/technical roles is not sexist, because this
is a fact supported by real evidence.

The author's point about societies with the most gender equity having bigger
gender gaps really drives this point home. In societies where there is gender
equity, people aren't compelled to behave a certain way and instead gravitate
towards the roles they really want to take.

Real, verifiable, reproducible truths are not sexist or racist. They are
truths. The fact that the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalenjin_people#Sport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalenjin_people#Sport)
dominate sprinting is supported by empirical evidence and also science.

So to be clear, racism and sexism are terms used to describe prejudices, lies
and falsehoods about a gender or race. These terms shouldn't be used to
describe real, empirically shown gender or race differences.

We as humans are all equal in worth, but that doesn't mean we are all the
same.

~~~
alkonaut
> Sexism is a prejudice based on lack of evidence and reasoning.

That's not a definition I have seen anywhere.

The usual definition is that it's "prejudice, sterotyping or discrimination
based on someones gender".

If we have different definitions of sexism to begin with, of course we aren't
going to agree on whether X is sexist.

So if I don't use the controversial S word: I thought his post was
stereotyping and coming out against anti discrimination efforts.

> So to be clear, racism and sexism are terms used to describe prejudices,
> lies and falsehoods about a gender or race.

Same again: something being true doesn't make it not racist (or sexist). The
falsehood/lying isn't a necessary condition.

~~~
dustinmoris
What on bloody earth are you talking about? Take a moment and listen to
yourself, because what you say is exactly the hate speech that we are having
today, where people take words of someone else and completely flip it around
and claim something terrible which did not happen.

> something being true doesn't make it not racist (or sexist). The
> falsehood/lying isn't a necessary condition.

Of course it is! Seriously listen to yourself! If I say "The average 20 year
old healthy person will be able to climb this mountain faster than the average
80 year old healthy person" then it is a fact based on science and DOES NOT
make me a ageist, or does it? Now apply the same logic to the previous topic
and listen to yourself again.

~~~
alkonaut
I only said that something being factually true does not _necessarily_ protect
it from being racist or sexist when used in argument or action.

I only argue that there are (or could be) examples of scientific facts being
used in racist discourse where an argument or action is racist regardless of
whether it's supporting facts are true or false.

Just like libel/slander law in many (most?) places doesn't care whether a
defamation is factually correct or not. (In US that's not the case though)

I'll quote an oxford writer:

> Take a simple example. Imagine there was an imaginary newspaper, let’s call
> it the Mail Daily, which only cited certain facts about immigration – let’s
> say negative facts. True facts. Facts which might have to do with crime, for
> example, or housing shortages, or the abuse of the welfare system. Imagine
> that the Mail Daily never gave any positive facts about immigration – never
> emphasized any of the enormous benefits that immigration brings.Would it be
> fair to accuse the Mail Daily of being racist in its coverage of
> immigration? That’s a rhetorical question.

[http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/08/can-facts-be-
ra...](http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/08/can-facts-be-racist/)

His point (which is counter to Dawkins - who holds your position) is that this
tabloid is racist while only reporting facts - simply because of how facts are
filtered in res publication and which arguments are made with them.

------
kaffeemitsahne
Funny that she calls it "the Google manifesto", as if it were endorsed by
Google.

------
virgilp
There was a joke in communist times about the 5 commendments. I guess James
Damore just learned them:

1\. Thou shalt not think

2\. If thou thought, thou shalt not speak

3\. If thou spoke, thou shalt not write

4\. If thou wrote, thou shalt not sign

5\. If thou signed, thou shalt not act surprised.

------
slitaz
So I read this article and do not see any merit or value.

The article mixes up genetics with what people end up doing in life.

~~~
monochromatic
> In fact, research has shown that cultures with greater gender equity have
> larger sex differences when it comes to job preferences, because in these
> societies, people are free to choose their occupations based on what they
> enjoy.

------
HeavyStorm
It seems to me that we are moving from gender equality, i.e. equal rights, to
"gender sameness".

------
pmlnr
551 points, 23 hours, and this is already not on the first 5 pages of HN.

Can someone please tell me, why?

------
nyxtom
The base of her argument rests on this:

"In fact, research has shown that cultures with greater gender equity have
larger sex differences when it comes to job preferences, because in these
societies, people are free to choose their occupations based on what they
enjoy."

Jim Flynn's study has unequivocally proven that raising the standards of
modern introduction and access to equal education, living standards, and
nutrition show increases in overall propensity for cognitive achievement.
Though, if you talk to an anthropologist the nature of the term "intelligence"
and "cognitive ability" is used in the mixed usage term but says nothing of
the nature of intelligence.

Nevertheless, the entire debate is whether we are actually in an egalitarian
society to begin with. The nature of even measuring cognitive ability with the
g-factor is that it is derived from relative populations. Gender differences
might indeed be more amplified in these type of societies but the debate is
whether we are already there and to what degree sectors of our large country
have access to that.

I would argue, as others have, that the distribution of equal treatment, based
on the evidence of exodus from the field of technology speaks far larger
volumes about the industry as a whole than it does about biological
differences.

Indeed, let's even take into account those biological differences that are
being discussed here. Just because one has the propensity to behave a certain
way in front a social group of men, and different when a female is around
(this too has scientific backing), you could argue that the change in behavior
over time would be a product of how distributed those groups are (in thought
and in numbers). Food for thought.

It's also interesting to note that creative endeavors tend to lead to high
correlations of neuroticism as well. If there are biological differences that
show that women are, on average, tend to be more neurotic than men, it doesn't
really say much about the nature of interaction or the way we behave with one
another. Furthermore, to even attempt to use this as reasoning that women may
not last within male-dominated environments is insulting in itself. What it
really actually proves is that the inequality in both the diversity thought
and in numbers only reinforces the problem. The logic is rot with flaws, (I'm
paraphrasing several sections with lines of reasoning; i.e. de-emphasizing
empathy) "due to the nature of the tendency for behaving a certain way, we
should not make attempts at empathizing with one another because of the
heightened sensitivity." Not only is this flawed logic, it's not scientific in
the least bit. I would've fired him on that alone.

Indeed, you can also conclude from similar studies that creative endeavors
have the tendency to being higher activity in the medial prefrontal cortex.
([http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661315...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661315001540))
Due to the nature of mulling over problems, the tendency is that this often is
indicitive of a higher threat sensitivity (real or otherwise); hence the
neurotism. This doesn't say anything about the gender differences therein, but
rather the brain itself when it comes to problem solving in general.

Of course, the greater problem here is about the nature of social interaction.
We can take into account how men tend to behave around other men, or in the
presence of women, or women around other women, or in mixed groups; we can
take into account innate differences (however pronounced or not); we can even
take into account the debate over the access to a population which is educated
enough to enter the field of study. Even taking into account the meta-analysis
study on things-people, it is a bit presumptuous to think that parity is not
obtainable or necessary in STEM.

The nature of STEM revolves around the problems that are being solved. One
would hope that those problems are about solving them for PEOPLE. One would
hope that software engineers employ creativity and artistic nuances when
architecting and collaborating with others. The base of that study only speaks
about the anthropologic nature of how people behave within those fields. One
can speak of the people-oriented nature of mechanics, engineering, and just
about all fields of study. I find it a bit simplistic to categorize STEM as a
whole as purely mechanics; it's reductionist and frankly insulting.

------
dcre
This could have been one sentence long. "He's right! (I have a PhD.)" No
content.

------
jonssons
exactly

------
UK-AL
Please don't flag the article if you simply disagree.

The key to changing minds is understanding the other side. Not shutting them
out of the conversation.

~~~
abhi3
I flagged it. How many times do we need to have the same repetitive
discussion? This topic is crowding out other quality submissions.

~~~
wyclif
Stop flagging articles you don't agree with that discuss science. It's not how
HN is supposed to work.

According to the HN guidelines, flagging is for spam or off-topic submissions.
This is neither.

~~~
jshevek
The circumstances surrounding James Damore's "google memo" are a fairly clear
indicator that we have a growing subculture of absolute ideological
intolerance, especially in the tech industry.

------
burner11
Why is it that nobody wants to fix the gender gap in nursing?

~~~
rhcom2
People do: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/men-
dont-w...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/men-dont-want-to-
be-nurses-their-wives-
agree.html?action=click&contentCollection=Fashion+%26+Style&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article)

------
major505
Welcome to the left. Where we are democratic, and suport free-speech, as long
as agrees with our views. :)

~~~
malnourish
Welcome to the internet. Where we make generalizations about large swaths of
people.

This could keep up until the end of time. I'm an incredibly liberal person in
most regards but I find suppressing unwanted speech to be disgusting at a base
level.

I think it's unfair to make that generalization; further, it contributes to
the false dichotomy that exists through "left/right" politic.

~~~
yAnonymous
Generalizations can be useful and many arguments won't go far without them.

As for this specific generalization: I think we wouldn't have this argument if
it wasn't legitimate. The political left increasingly consists of hypocrites
who advertise free speech and liberalism, but act like fascists.

------
dsfjksdf
If you are not bisexual or asexual, you are sexist by definition.

~~~
Smaug123
Your definition is demonstrably unusual. Remember, something is true "by
definition" if it's not true for any other reason.

~~~
dsfjksdf
According to Google, the definition of sexism is "prejudice, stereotyping, or
discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex."

So if you don't consider dating somebody because of their sex, by that
definition you are sexist?

~~~
alkonaut
> So if you don't consider dating somebody because of their sex, by that
> definition you are sexist?

Only if not dating someone is discrimination in some useful sense (it's not).

------
mygodgoogle
I'm very disappointed with Google and no longer hold the company in such high
esteem as I once did.

------
ebola1717
If all this science were the end all be all, the low level engineers would be
men, and men with their evolutionary handicap for empathy would be none of the
managers, leaders, designers, product managers. That's how it is right?

~~~
mmirate
Independent of the other things wrong with your argument, I find it curious
that you think that _designers_ are among those who benefit from empathy.
Given knowledge of aesthetics, psychology and _the general identity of_ the
target audience, empathy should be all-but-unnecessary for a designer.

(Edited for clarity; namely, the italicized clause is new.)

~~~
ebola1717
? Understanding the psychology and thought process of your target is what
empathy means.

~~~
mmirate
Sorry I was unclear. I mean the _field_ of psychology in general (or whatever
parts of it are useful for marketing), and the general _identity_ of the
target market.

------
smrtinsert
Cognitive differences observed in GENERAL != bad engineers for ALL.

The memo was a rambling incoherent mess.

~~~
verulito
My company has an anonymous internal forum and I don't even like asking simple
HR questions on there! I once complained about my disuse of my dependent care
FSA going unnoticed. That's as far as I'm willing to go.

A touchy subject like this from someone with a technical background to a large
group of people... I guess Google has a lot of employees and it was bound to
happen eventually but seriously, how do you hit send on something like this
without some twinge of anxiety?

~~~
riffraff
AFAIU, but I cannot reference, this was sent to a limited group of people, got
forwarded and then became viral.

~~~
mousa
The way it was published does not lead me to believe that story. The link to
the document riffed on documents whose authors want all Googlers to read them
and fix their broken ways.

~~~
lmickh
According to the interview with the author linked in comments above, he
published it internally a month ago. The fact that it only got linked and went
viral weeks later would indicate it was originally limited.

------
tlogan
The sad thing is that people do not even understand why the memo is bad.

The problem: You cannot invoke science to tell somebody: I'm better than you.
Period. That causes wars.

~~~
dustinmoris
I just CTRL+F the entire memo for "better". It was only used in two sentences:

> Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts. > We can
> increase representation at an org level by either making it a better
> environment for certain groups (which would be seen in survey scores) or
> discriminating based on a protected status (which is illegal and I’ve seen
> it done).

So where again does it say the he is better than someone else? These type of
statements is what's causing the huge divide, because people put words into
other people's mouth as and when they like just to support their own argument
or agenda at the expense of everyone else.

Show me a quote where he actually says what you claim he says.

