
Men Have Always Used 'Science' to Explain Why They're Better Than Women - jdp23
http://gizmodo.com/men-have-always-used-science-to-explain-why-theyre-bett-1797608461
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jstanley
> In the now-viral document entitled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,”
> Damore asserts that women are biologically ill-equipped to handle the rigors
> of the tech industry.

Did they even read it? He does not assert anything like that.

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emodendroket
I found this by just looking for the word "biological" in the original: "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."

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GenericsMotors
And I can't see how one would interpret that as meaning "ill-equipped to
handle the rigors of the tech industry".

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emodendroket
It says 1) that women are innately different from men in some unspecified way
and that 2) this difference may explain the gender gap in technology. I think
"women are ill-equipped (or worse-equipped than men) to do tech jobs" is a
statement that naturally follows from those claims.

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hungerstrike
Third or fourth person here to tell you that you're incorrect: There's a
_huge_ leap between "biological differences _may_ explain the gender gap" and
"women are ill-equipped..." and here's why:

First and most obvious, do you know the difference between the words "may" and
"are"? "May" expresses possibility. "Are" expresses existence. They are almost
total opposites.

Second and most important, "biological differences" does not automatically
equate to women being "ill-equipped". That's just in your mind. It could mean
so many things and you're just cherry-picking the one that aligns with your
personal view.

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emodendroket
How do you interpret it, then?

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belorn
Lets give one example of an interpretation.

Small preference can cause major effects. For example, if you have a group
where everyone are voting on food choice and preference to eat taco get
99.9999...% the preference rating of pizza, how much taco will be eaten if you
go 10 rounds? 0% Taco. the infinitive small preference will cause each round
to have pizza with higher preference than taco, regardless of how close the
actually preference of taco vs pizza.

If different groups of people rate jobs with different preference, then even a
infinitive small preference can cause segregation. That preference is not a
judgment of the groups ability to perform the job.

Not that I think that is the cause of gender segregation. Personally I view
incentives and self-doubt to be much more realistic causes, but that theory
(which has pretty decent observational data to support it) are currently not
very popular on either side of the political spectrum.

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mizzack
Gizmodo doubling down on misrepresentation, I see.

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EliRivers
People have always used whatever comes to hand to explain why they're better
than other people. Science, morality, manifest destiny, God's chosen people,
physical characteristics, literature, history, geography, geology, climate,
technology, law, banking, on and on. Pick a group, pick a reason.

