
“In defending me as a woman, you’ve insulted me as someone who works in STEM” - kathyqian
https://medium.com/@kathyqian/dear-google-in-defending-me-as-a-woman-youve-insulted-me-as-someone-who-works-in-stem-b33975f792aa
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ooyy
>Did you really think you could say that “much of what was in that memo is
fair to debate” and “portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and
cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace”
without me asking you to clarify which sections you found fair for debate and
which portions violated which specific portions of your Code of Conduct?

I don't think google knows where to draw the line between what is fair and
what is harmful in the memo. I think they are just reacting to the media
outrage. If they tried to draw the line it would just get shot down by both
sides of the argument, only fueling the outrage.

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parenthephobia
It wasn't necessary for Google to disprove Damore's arguments, because they
didn't fire him over the quality of his science, but rather due to the
controversy arising from his claims, whether true or not.

It's completely irrelevant to Google's interests whether his claims were
unsupported by data, harmful [to society], or politically incorrect. None of
those were the reason they fired him: they fired him because his claims
attracted attention that could reflect negatively on Google.

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romanovcode
Poor google, no matter what they do - they cannot win now, can they.

[http://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/mad/](http://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/mad/)

~~~
alexandercrohde
Fair question. Perhaps they could just tell the truth a la

"We live in contentious times, we've surveyed our employees and thought about
it ourselves, and decided that no matter what we say we can't win. There is a
divide in our culture and we don't have 'THE ANSWER (TM).' Only time will tell
what balance we as a culture will come to in weighing out the merits of
hushing stereotypes versus questioning everything.

So to avoid hasty decisions we'll bow out, and return the Dalmore 6 months
from now.

We're honored this great cultural debate could be started at our workplace,
but it is not our intent to make this discussion about us. We are about
search, email, etc."

~~~
romanovcode
I'm pretty sure that if they would say something like this they would lose the
lawsuit pretty quickly. Then they'd had to pay the guy a lot of money.

I still think they are probably going to do so, but not as much?

~~~
alexandercrohde
Well I was thinking they'd best have done this before firing him, instead of
firing him. And after 6 months if everybody, after cooling down, still thought
what he did was fundamentally inappropriate _THEN_ they'd fire him.

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FreedomToCreate
The piece came off to me as somebody looking for a way to be offended. She
criticizes Damore and Google but doesn't point out what is lacking in Damore
argument and instead of showing why google is wrong, her argument makes me
realize how bad of a PR position google really is in. Stuck between a rock and
a hard place.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
> but doesn't point out what is lacking in Damore argument

I think it's because this article is about Google, not Damore. I;m sure if she
really wanted to talk about Damore's arguments, the article would have to be
far longer and her main argument watered down.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Don't you think though if google had really dived into the science they'd have
just opened themselves up to even more criticism than handling it the way they
did?

~~~
emerged
If their only goal is to avoid criticism, not even stopping at breaking
California law in order to do so, then they're well deserving of being sued.
At some point they need to either be intellectually honest and ethical or pay
the price, given their motto has always been an explicit claim to the paragon
of virtue.

