I'm baffled as to why these anonymous engineers or any female colleague would be offended by his memo. Some of the responses are quite condescending, calling him a "confused, questionably informed kid". Wow.
His memo is clear and reasonable. His interviews are reasonable and respectful, he approaches the topic calmly and scientifically, the exact opposite to the reactionary anger.
The only part of the memo I can see that could cause a fuss is this:
> "distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes"
Even if true, it should be mentioned that ability often stems from preference. We are driven to invest time and effort into our preferences, so our abilities in those areas will improve. In a population average, we should be able to graph this difference without failing any gender bias scrutiny.
As for "native ability", all else equal except gender, you will face opposition to the idea that your gender might start you at a disadvantage in given disciplines.
As soon as a child starts growing up and investing time in their preference, their abilities will cluster around those preferences. So it would be very difficult to prove that gender abilities are present before socialisation. Either way, it's a scientific question, and deserves respect rather than over-sensitive knee-jerk political reactions.
His memo is clear and reasonable. His interviews are reasonable and respectful, he approaches the topic calmly and scientifically, the exact opposite to the reactionary anger.
The only part of the memo I can see that could cause a fuss is this:
> "distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes"
Even if true, it should be mentioned that ability often stems from preference. We are driven to invest time and effort into our preferences, so our abilities in those areas will improve. In a population average, we should be able to graph this difference without failing any gender bias scrutiny.
As for "native ability", all else equal except gender, you will face opposition to the idea that your gender might start you at a disadvantage in given disciplines.
As soon as a child starts growing up and investing time in their preference, their abilities will cluster around those preferences. So it would be very difficult to prove that gender abilities are present before socialisation. Either way, it's a scientific question, and deserves respect rather than over-sensitive knee-jerk political reactions.