To be honest the paper reads as if he's arguing that race and gender should determine the position a person has in the company.
Mainly because that is EXACTLY what he's doing.
I already answered this. Yes, I did. Despite what you believe, it's not inevitable that people will read it and decide that he has a valid point.
Of course not, we don't even have any example of the common ancestor to examine and to believe that it would be anything like a chimpanzee OR a human is quite obviously not true.
Genetic traits in one species do not mimic those in others. Humans have been monogamous since as far back as we know while chimpanzees never have, does this mean that our common ancestor that is nothing like us and nothing like a chimpanzee were monogamous? Who knows and who cares?
We have to go by what we know about humans since we're talking about our species.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/are-men-hardwired-to-be-less-monogamous-than-women/It’s a question as old as the sun: are men naturally monogamous? According to Edward Fox the answer is clear. "In relationships, men wander naturally, and we cheat because we're totally different creatures," he is quoted as saying today. "Men need to play the field and spread their seed, whereas women don't have that same biological urge — it's not natural."
https://www.2knowmyself.com/3_Reasons_men_arent_meant_to_be_monogamousIn a famous study a male rat was allowed to mate with a female rat until exhaustion. After some time the male rat lost energy and didn't try to approach the female rat again. However when another female was put in the cage the male rat became instantly sexually active and started mating with the new female. This kept happening as the researchers kept introducing new females.
Studies have shown that males do lose their sexual interest in their women when they get into a long term relationship. This doesn't mean that a man no longer gets attracted to his woman but it's just the fact that lack of novelty lowers male libido and reduces sexual desire.
It has been noted that behavior resembling rape in humans is observed in the animal kingdom, including ducks and geese, bottlenose dolphins,[1] and chimpanzees.[2]Indeed, in orangutans, close human relatives, copulations of this nature may account for up to half of all observed matings.[3] Such behaviors, referred to as 'forced copulations', involve an animal being approached and sexually penetrated as it struggles or attempts to escape. These observations of forced sex among animals are not controversial. What is controversial is the interpretation of these observations and the extension of theories based on them to humans. "Thornhill introduces this theory by describing the sexual behavior of scorpionflies. In which the male may gain sex from the female either by presenting a gift of food during courtship or without a nuptial offering, in which case force is necessary to restrain her."[4]
It is hypothesized that rape is homologous to similar behavior in other animals. "Human rape appears not as an aberration but as an alternative gene-promotion strategy that is most likely to be adopted by the 'losers' in the competitive, harem-building struggle. If the means of access to legitimate, consenting sex is not available, then a male may be faced with the choice between force or genetic extinction."[4]
Thornhill and Palmer write that "In short, a man can have many children, with little inconvenience to himself; a woman can have only a few, and with great effort." Females therefore tend to be more choosy with partners. Rape is seen as one potential strategy for males for achieving reproductive success. They point to several other factors indicating that rape may be a reproductive strategy. It is during the potentially childbearing years that women most often are rape victims. Rapists usually do not use more force than necessary to subdue their victims which is argued to be the case since physically injuring the victims would reduce the chance of reproduction. Furthermore, "In many cultures rape is treated as a crime against the victim's husband."[5]
Every woman I know who's read it sees it as sexist. It paints them as basket cases who can't lead and would need special accommodations to truly fit in as programmers. Just because the language is couched in pseudoscience and half-hearted attempts to sound positive doesn't change what it is.
Here's a challenge for you: show the document to a woman you know, and ask her what she thinks. Something tells me she won't be on your side.
To be honest the paper reads as if he's arguing that race and gender should determine the position a person has in the company.
Mainly because that is EXACTLY what he's doing.
Jesus Christ.... there really is no hope for us when any criticism immediately triggers a whirlwind of virtue signalling and neighing about sexism and misogyny.
Industry experts note that in the early days of tech it was mostly women who held the then-unglamorous jobs of coding. But as the value of top-notch programming became clear, it became a mostly male domain and the vast majority of programmers in the tech industry are now men.
Most everyone is aware there are biological differences between males and females among all the species. Even if you do not have a basis of knowledge to understand what they are, if you have eyes you can see some of them every day. Don't think he should have been fired for this, but I have no sympathy for him. The workplace is for work and relationships with your fellow employees. It is not where you go to air your politics or social views, and there is plenty of straight-up subjective opinion in his diatribe.
Yeah right if software engineering is so glamorous why does everybody think software engineers are GEEKS!!!!
Jesus Christ.... there really is no hope for us when any criticism immediately triggers a whirlwind of virtue signalling and neighing about sexism and misogyny.
I work for a Silicon Valley company that was founded in 2009 and is easily as focused on diversity as Google is. Across the world, there is perhaps 1 female pre-sales engineer for every 20 male pre-sales engineers. Is my company secretly sexist and all the focus on diversity a front? Do us males actively try to prevent female candidates from being hired? Or is it that few women have historically had any interest in this field and thus there are few candidates out there to apply? Is the answer to give female candidates preferential treatment over males or ask the question, as the man who wrote the letter at Google did, "why aren't more women interested in this type of work and how can we achieve diversity by making these positions more appealing to women and encourage them to pursue these jobs on an equal playing field?"
Oops.... guess I've revealed myself as a misogynist, sexist, bigot. Better tell everyone I know.
I want more females in STEM, diversity and different perspectives is a GOOD THING. We simply need to find a way to achieve diversity naturally through education, encouragement, re-aligning job responsibilities and positions to attract a more diverse field of candidates, and continue to tell our little girls that they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up -- scientists, engineers, executives, doctors -- and let the problem solve itself over the years, not immediately demand 50/50 representation in the work place by throwing the discrimination train in reverse and giving a huge middle finger to the male sex.
How can Google restructure the software engineering jobs to make them more attractive to female candidates?
Meeting a quota is easy enough. Just deny male candidates until you're happy with the results.
No I'm not and its weird that you think that. I am saying that this guy saying there are some biological factors is not wrong, but I have not said the magnitude of the influence. Go back and read what I wrote. This guy is being called sexist because he said that there are some biological influences, and that being "female" carries with it some general preferences and aptitudes.
I think most of the above here was addressed in the other part. I urge you to actually read what this guy wrote. Its a quick read. Its 10 pages but its not an essay by any means. Here is the major part that people seemed to dislike.
"Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” 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. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions."
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf
I get what you're trying to say, but there's a simple problem: Damore used a sketchy interpretation of scientific claims to argue that women were biologically less suited to technical roles at Google. That's where the sexism primarily comes into play. And while it'd be good to create a more accommodating environment for women, basing that on beliefs that women are overly neurotic, non-technical people who aren't good at leading? That's not how you do it.
The problem with a lack of diversity comes from a few factors. There aren't usually instances of active sexism in the hiring process (in the workforce, it's another story: just ask Uber and Tesla), but there is a tendency for people of a dominant culture in a company to hire people who mirror that culture. And yes, the lack of women candidates comes in part from a lack of girls in STEM education and career paths. Google's working on that, too.
One of the biggest problems I have with this debate is that the pro-Damore camp is trying to conjure this nightmarish image of a Google that doesn't actually exist. It's not "throwing the discrimination train in reverse" and trying to achieve a perfect gender balance in short order (if at all), qualifications be damned. It's not hiring the just-out-of-college woman in place of the man with a Master's and 6 years of experience. Hell, Google's own diversity figures reflect this -- when female/minority representation goes up, it's by tiny nudges. The freakout seems to stem from an assumption that companies without diversity programs hire strictly based on merit (this is clearly false) and that any diversity hiring objective is a dramatic effort that puts white men at a tremendous disadvantage. The truth, as is often the case in life, is more complex.
Jesus Christ.... there really is no hope for us when any criticism immediately triggers a whirlwind of virtue signalling and neighing about sexism and misogyny.
Affirmative action certainly is the simplest approach. Is it the best?
Perfect, something to work with.I most certainly did read it. When someon spends the first three sentences saying they believe in inclusion, diversity, and that sexism exists BUT. Everything after the BUT negates what they just stated
Did you read it?
His 3 points from his TLDR section are:
- Biological reasons are part of the reason for the gender disparity (he thinks it can't be discrimination if its biological)
- Closing this gap discrimates against him and people like him (loss of privilege feels like discrimination)
- Google is stifling people like him from openly talking about how the gender disparity is due to biology and not biases.
The "general preferences and aptitudes" that he said women had included increased "neuroticism" while men had "higher drive for status".
If he wanted to discuss this then in private with his management and/or HR would have been known he most appropriate way.
How is he supposed to work with and evaluate female colleagues after releasing that ever again. (I believe google does a peer review as part of their yearly performance appraisal). Any woman working with him will have sting justification that he won't take them seriously or work with them as equals.
He basically dared Google to fire. They did.
I oppose it in the first place. I encourage equal opportunities, not equal outcomes.
Women are "more" neurotic, non-technical and worse at leading. He did not say they can't or that the ones that do are worse, but as an average what he said is true.
He also promotes the idea of diversity so far as what I read.
Do you believe women are equally as neurotic, equally technical, and generally as good at leading as men? If so please show me the study, because everyone I find says the opposite.
Humanity has been operating with these tribal biases since our dawn. We've come this far despite such primitive thinking, there's a statistically insignificant chance we can survive long enough to evolve past it some day.
Of course it's possible. Do you have evidence that such a thing is happening? What is the rate of females discouraged from pursuing a STEM field that they would otherwise be interested in, and what's a logical method to combat that?Is it possible that women do what is expected of them because if they don't they will inevitably have a harder time? Is it possible that if more girls saw adult women in a field and that it was not a problem for them to go into that field at all that they would pursue an education/career in that field?
Let's say that you KNEW you would be a lot less likely to get hired as a programmer, do you think your parents would ever encourage you to become one? Do you think your guidance counsellor would tell you to get into that field? Do you think you would ever pursue that career?
Perfect, something to work with.
If there are biological reasons for why women are less represented in the field, then its not sexism so long as that is the reason. He seems to be fully in agreement that some of the reason women lag in representation is sexism, but not all of it is. Do you disagree?
Closing the gap can be bad depending on the method. If there are men being excluded because of their biology that is a bad way to get more women in. If women are chosen because they are women and not because they are more qualified that is bad. If selection bias is removed and more women get jobs that is a good way. So to say that closing the gap by any means is good would be flawed at best. Do you disagree?
Google seems to have done just that by this and other things, but as of right now it is mainly opinion and feelings. This is the only part that I cannot take a stance on because its feeling and cannot be backed by anything else.
This is backed by study after study. I have already linked some. There is not really a debate on this being true, just what causes this.
Opinion. I agree that this was likely to end in him being fired. But, if you truly believe that Google is an echo chamber then not going through the system you can reach more people. I personally have no problem with him being fired. I just don't understand the sexism part.
Again, I don't see anything he said other than opinion part as being anything but backed by evidence. His claim that women have different traits that lend themselves to different tasks is fully supported by evidence.