Even if Osiris is incorrect and there is evidence of a systemic pattern of discouraging females from pursuit of STEM fields, the author of the memo which is the subject of this thread repeatedly acknowledges that bias is part of the reason for female under-representation in these fields. So the point of contention here isn't whether bias plays a role. It's whether biology plays any role at all. If it plays any role, then the guy who got fired from Google was correct.
No, he isn't. Things he describes as discrimination are in fact logical responses to an environment where the benefits of diversity are acknowledged but there are low female application/hire rates.
NO IT DOESN'T.
If you read the paper wearing "every critique about women or any attempt to explain differences between men and women is instantly sexist" glasses then OF COURSE you'll think he's saying "let's create special, easy, vagina friendly jobs for women." He isn't saying that. He's saying one of the reasons there is not a 50/50 representation in software engineers at Google is because men and women do have biological differences that tend to attract more men to software engineering jobs than women. Part of it is also societal pressure. How can Google restructure the software engineering jobs to make them more attractive to female candidates?
My daughter complains all the time that she hates math and thinks it's too hard. I spend extra time with her to ensure she gets it while my son just breezes through math and is about to take Calculus I as a barely 15 year old sophomore. I tell my daughter over and over "you can get this" and "if you work at it and want it, you can be good at math." But we can't ignore that my son is more proficient at math while my daughter is not (I'm not saying because he's a boy and she's a girl, they're just two different people one of whom is gifted at math and one who isn't).
My two kids will likely not add to the desired 50/50 mix in STEM fields but it will not be because my daughter was not encouraged nor given every opportunity to pursue that field if she wishes to.
And why is no one ever talking about the disparity of female to male nurses? Are there far more females in nursing because it tends to be a job that is more attractive to female candidates in general either due to nature or nurture or is the evil matriarchy preventing men from pursuing careers in nursing and we need to mandate an immediate drive towards 50/50 parity in nursing within the next 3 years?
And I'd like to know at what rate, and whether it has a substantial factor on the participation of women in STEM, that's all. I don't even know if it's a substantial factor, I just know that a whole lot of people seem to be assuming it is, and making policies to reflect, as you stated, 'logical responses', when they may or may not be relevant, required, or even sane.
Were the conclusions of those making decisions on hiring processes which are attempting to encourage female hiring more supported by evidence? Is there more evidence to the contrary of what he was stating in the memo than less? If his statements are refutable, should they be refuted rather than him being buried for bringing it up? I thought we were a species of reason, logic, and improvement, asking questions to better ourselves.
Employers sought candidates who were not only competent but also culturally similar to themselves in terms of leisure pursuits, experiences, and self-presentation styles. Concerns about shared culture were highly salient to employers and often outweighed concerns about absolute productivity.
Of course it'd be a bad idea, generally speaking assuming anything about anyone is a bad idea. But assuming a given person really, honestly, just as interested in a_thing as you are, they just haven't had the right opportunity/encouragement, is also a bad idea.
Pretty sure he was arguing to eliminate discriminatory practices against men in an attempt to hire women for jobs they wouldn't ordinarily want to do, and that there may be a biological component behind why they don't want to do it, not just societal. Unless I read it wrong, he never stated 'women are unsuited to do x job and therefore they suck at it so don't hire them for that job'.And he's arguing that the company shouldn't hire women to fill positions they are not biologically right for.
I'm saying his assertion that biology plays some role in the observed disparities isn't inaccurate. The idea that gender is entirely a social construct is a modern creation of academic feminism, and it isn't any more scientific than the notion that gender is 100% down to biology, which had previously been the prevailing view in academia.
So far as discrimination goes, it's still discrimination whether it's justified or not. The memo author believes there are ways to make STEM jobs more appealing to women, thus increasing the female applicant pool, without discriminating against male applicants. I don't know if he's right or wrong. What I do know is that his ideas aren't so far out of bounds that he deserved public shaming and termination over them. Certain ideas are becoming heretical on the left, even ideas which are complex, nuanced and/or fall in between radical extremes. This is not a good thing.
It's rational to take rational action, yes. Discriminating against male employees in the hiring process (if that is indeed what's happening at google; I don't know, I don't work there.. he seemed to think it was, though) is irrational.Sure, more research is probably needed but it's hardly irrational to take some corrective action even if you don't know the full extent, especially considering how mild most of these actions are.
Not shocking at all, and a good reason to have an equivalent number of male and female members involved with the hiring process of candidates. That's still not answering the question as to whether or not Google's HR team put as much/more thought into the decision process of why to hire more women, why to discourage the hiring of men (if that was happening), and why they've been (presumably) having enough problems hiring women that they had to start this program to hire more.Yes, the evidence suggests hiring managers tend to hire people who are like themselves. I imagine this is not a totally shocking finding.
Here is one example:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122412463213
Fair enough. Regardless of all else, he's the one that's fired. It's still possible though that he was wrong, as is Google.In a male dominated field, hiring managers are much more likely to be men, which likely adds in a bias towards hiring women. One of the aspects of 'discrimination' the author complained about were efforts to reduce 'false negatives' among female applicants that male applicants did not get. Considering that research indicates false negatives will be higher for women than men this is an entirely logical response to the issue. Since this guy didn't know what he was talking about though, he viewed this as some sort of harmful discrimination instead of a smart response to a tough issue.
As far as him being fired, he likely made it very difficult for him to work with a substantial portion of the female employees at Google and he brought them a boatload of negative PR by widely distributing a poorly thought out screed on a subject he didn't understand. It is not at all surprising to me that someone would be fired for that.
Exactly the point of his memo. His belief (possibly mistaken) is that HR's attempting to reach an equilibrium at 50% participation rate, to the detriment of others. This may be entirely off-base, I don't know what Google's HR policies/goals are like. If he is right though and they do want a 50% split for diversity's sake, I think that's short-sighted and illogical.Sure, but I don't know anyone who thinks all people would be equally interested in all things. I certainly don't.
Pretty sure he was arguing to eliminate discriminatory practices against men in an attempt to hire women for jobs they wouldn't ordinarily want to do, and that there may be a biological component behind why they don't want to do it, not just societal. Unless I read it wrong, he never stated 'women are unsuited to do x job and therefore they suck at it so don't hire them for that job'.
No reason why they shouldn't. If it's swinging too far in the other direction, and they're specifically refusing to hire a qualified male because they cannot find a qualified female to fill the role, that would be classified as discrimination. I do not know if that is what was happening, but the author seemed to think it was.You make it sound like Google are forcing women into jobs, they are encouraging training programs which isn't all that strange at all.
Why shouldn't google do this if they feel that it has good effects? Because some retard read some studies, applied them wrong and drew a conclusion that was NOT supported by the studies?
It seems your underlying assumption is that any biological differences between the sexes mean that women must be less capable then men at working for Google. Has it occurred to you that there could be biological differences and that a ration with more women then men would make Google more profitable?
No reason why they shouldn't. If it's swinging too far in the other direction, and they're specifically refusing to hire a qualified male because they cannot find a qualified female to fill the role, that would be classified as discrimination. I do not know if that is what was happening, but the author seemed to think it was.
I didn't mean to imply that women would be 'forced' into jobs, but moreso that qualified candidates would be passed over if they didn't fit the bill for what Google was looking for, aka a woman.
but this is no reason he should have been fired for expressing the opinions.
Unless we have proof, we'll have to assume it's not happening. It could be argued that it's created an ecosystem where it could happen though, and while that's a strawman, so is 'there's not enough women working at google due to inherent discrimination against women in our HR team', and policies were put in place to combat that one.What the author thinks is quite irrelevant, if this was actually true then a lawsuit would be in order. His musings are not really important in that case but it does get the gamergate people going.
I agreed with all you said, except this. Google is free to fire anyone they employ. The man drew attention, full stop. No other reason needed.
It's rational to take rational action, yes. Discriminating against male employees in the hiring process (if that is indeed what's happening at google; I don't know, I don't work there.. he seemed to think it was, though) is irrational.
Not shocking at all, and a good reason to have an equivalent number of male and female members involved with the hiring process of candidates. That's still not answering the question as to whether or not Google's HR team put as much/more thought into the decision process of why to hire more women, why to discourage the hiring of men (if that was happening), and why they've been (presumably) having enough problems hiring women that they had to start this program to hire more.
Exactly the point of his memo. His belief (possibly mistaken) is that HR's attempting to reach an equilibrium at 50% participation rate, to the detriment of others. This may be entirely off-base, I don't know what Google's HR policies/goals are like. If he is right though and they do want a 50% split for diversity's sake, I think that's short-sighted and illogical.
Probably not, he was likely peeking into the sausage factory, coming up with a slew of ideas based on what he thought he saw, then propositioning those ideas to the group (as engineers are want to do).Right, but I don't get the sense that this guy was privy to Google HR's decision making process.
Right, but I'm unaware of literally any evidence that this is actually Google HR's goal other than his unsupported claim.
Brad what I see here is you trying to present this guys case as well supported and not a big deal.
The conclusions the author comes to and the manner in which he distributed it shows that he does think the magnitude of the biological differences between men and women are large.
You say he never posited the magnitude of the effect biology plays in affecting gender in the work place. His actions did that.
- He wrote a 10 page document about his companies HR practices when he was not in HR
- His conclusion is that Googles diversity program was "discriminatory and bad for business"
- He released it to as large a group as possible that it could not be swept under the rug.
- He accused his employer of stiffiling "legitimate" discussion
He believes that magnitude was large enough and the efforts to mitigate it were so harmful to him to risk his career over.
Now maybe you don't believe that magnitude is large or has an impact but don't try to down play the authors actions and positions.
The last line he wrote in the TLDR section spells it out specifically.
"Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive and bad for business."
He considers equal representation at google between the sexes unfair because of the innate biological unsuitability of women to work there. Instead the "fair" ratio is one with more men.
Tell me, if the magnitude of the impact of biological differences between men and women were so small as to leave the ratio about 49/51 would you have done what he did?
Surely you don't think I would consent to you being the judge of this challenge. I can imagine many ways to attempt to objectively judge our relative aptitudes (all of which flawed), and I am certain at least some of which would not be in my favor. Nonetheless, if you or anyone else has a reasonable way of trying to evaluate things I'd be happy to participate.
I don't disagree, but diversity must also include room at the table for those who may be skeptical or critical
of when the implementation of diversity becomes nothing more than a check the box censoring form of exclusionary group think. The Google employee relied too heavily on gender stereotypes in his arguments, but the core of his criticism was directed at the means rather than the ends, and I find the response more offensive than the perceived injustice of his expressing an opinion.
Oh really? So pondering about other guy penis is interesting thought now? You don't say so.
From your own words:
I believe that your interest is in examining the kinds of biases we bring to the table when we come to conclusions about the right or wrong of an issue whereas agent is interested in providing the correct answer. He believes that he has done all the examination of that sort that he needs and can now go directly to the truth of the matter. Your aim, it would seem to me is to make people more open to differing points of view and his interest seems to be to push his version of truth and to deflect any doubt as to its authenticity.
Now I believe that it is possible to have a clear and objective point of view, one I refer to sometimes as knowing nothing, and that can be realized only by questioning the beliefs that normally remain unconscious and unexamined, I feel that your path is the superior one. It's superiority, however, in my opinion, will not be seen by people whose certainty in their own opinions would be threatened by it. There are reasons why people do not examine what they believe. In my opinion it is the road down which lies the knowledge we don't know anything other that that unknowing state. We have all been conditioned, in my opinion, by being referred to as stupid, naïve and intellectually inferior in multiple ways,
So since the path you are on leads to an open place where the opinions of all are welcome, and given the record of people who have the one and only truth, I would say you have no need to contend since your way requires a greater gift to perceive. I declare you the winner.
I do think, also, he's not too far off on this Google thingi. I also chalked it up to gender inequality. Males have what I call the engineering gene, like realibrad, an inability not to feel the forest for all of the trees. Linear rather that holistic thinking. Paratus is a good example of not that. He synthesizes from data rather than riding the chain of reason. These are things words are at a disadvantage to describe, at least for me.
Confirmation bias tends to work that way.
I'm slightly familiar with your reference to the Ache population. If memory serves, they were some kind of hunter-gatherers. Low rates of rape among them are used to counter the socio-biological argument. I haven't read enough about it to understand its relative merit. But I'll say this. First off, male chimps are both aggressive and tend to rape female chimps:
https://www.livescience.com/48743-aggressive-chimps-reproduce-more.html
It could be that we evolved beyond it, but a few things are essentially not debatable. First, there is a biological propensity toward violence among homo sapiens (in addition to many other animals), particularly the males of the species. We know it is at least in part biological because there are several selection advantages to it. A propensity towards violence makes It is easier to over-power prey or fend off predators, and also, of course, to compete for access to female sexual favors. This and the fact that while the female protects the young, the male is off hunting for food. This explains why the male hormone seems to carry the propensity more so than the female ones. Second, we have the desire for sex, which is selected for because, well, those who really like sex are obviously more likely to reproduce. Males have a quicker arousal response. We go from 0 to 60 in no time, while females have a more gradual arousal pattern. Males are quick to arouse, and quick to become aggressive.
The convergence of these traits makes it highly implausible to me that rape is entirely a product of social conditioning. Strong sexual arousal + aggression = rape. And not just rape, but aggressive and violent behavior in general.
Don't get me wrong. Socialization i.e. "nurture" affects these things as well. It pretty much affects everything. It's just that leftist academia in the social sciences shifted too far in the nurture direction from what had previously been an all nature direction, to the point of ignoring where the science was pointing, which is that it's a mix.
I'll read an article or two on the Ache to see if it changes my mind on any of this.
Frankly I'm not looking for validation from the likes of you.
Not my interest either. Yet you have declared me wrong and you right and stated this is a function of intelligence.
I invite you to put your money where your mouth is.
I think biological differences don't always make men look better than women for pretty much anything other than martial ability, athletics, and professions which require raw strength, like furniture movers. We'd probably be a lot better off with more women in leadership positions, especially in government. Males are more violent/aggressive than females on average. Male leadership is responsible for almost all wars, and the death and misery they entail. Even with corporate leadership, there is a high percentage of sociopaths running corporations, and most of them are male. Most sociopaths are male. This trait is an aid to success as measured solely by financial gain, but it doesn't bode well for ethical behavior in terms of how workers are treated, the environment, and a whole host of other things. A biological difference does not necessarily make females an inferior choice, even at the highest levels of leadership. It may actually make them superior.
So far as the memo in question, its author seems to value diversity as well. He doesn't think women are ill suited for coding jobs. He thinks they are less driven to pursue these jobs. He acknowledges that bias is part of the reason. He thinks biology contributes as well. He spends considerable time describing ways to make these jobs more appealing to women. I doubt he's correct in all the particulars, but this is no reason he should have been fired for expressing the opinions.
You're paraphrasing part of my convo with the GF last night, as I was running through the memo content I was waiting for the 'aha' reveal for how I was actually a sexist pig, and here was the reasons why. Luckily that didn't happen, and I appeared much more sane than I originally thought I would.This all feels like you are not the same person that I have seen post before. Ill be honest, I am very much questioning my stance because of the people that are against my position, but I cannot for the life of me see where I am wrong.
You're paraphrasing part of my convo with the GF last night, as I was running through the memo content I was waiting for the 'aha' reveal for how I was actually a sexist pig, and here was the reasons why. Luckily that didn't happen, and I appeared much more sane than I originally thought I would.
Swing and a miss. I detest the GOP platform, and specifically pointed out in aforementioned conversation that I felt (uncomfortably so) that my stance was leaning in the direction of a conservative approach, or at least less extreme liberal, and that made me feel a bit 'icky'. Make no mistake though, I'm not traditionally a conservative and I have substantial issues with some 98% of conservative 'hot button' issues.You must also have trouble finding where the GOP platform is racist.
Swing and a miss. I detest the GOP platform, and specifically pointed out in aforementioned conversation that I felt (uncomfortably so) that my stance was leaning in the direction of a conservative approach, or at least less extreme liberal, and that made me feel a bit 'icky'. Make no mistake though, I'm not traditionally a conservative and I have substantial issues with some 98% of conservative 'hot button' issues.