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Google isn't exactly the last word in software jobs, in fact it's pretty shitty working there and living in the area.

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No, suitable versus attracted is NOT merely a semantic argument, the fact that you make that claim shows how poorly you understand his points.  

I'm a UNIX and SAN administrator - it's a job that requires a certain mindset, if you don't have that mindset and interest, you'll burn out in short order, or will at best be mediocre at either one.  There are relatively few women in my field, the few good ones tend to move up very rapidly (and usually OUT of doing it as a daily job), the bad ones blame everyone else for their failures and claim they're being discriminated against.  The reality is that if the weak ones WERE being treated equally with the males, they'd be told exactly how incompetent they are and would not be entrusted with administrator access, but that doesn't happen because then they'll go screaming to HR (as the last one I worked with had done, prior to my working with her, because her manager at the time failed to adequately document her failures when giving her a poor performance review, so she then became untouchable, despite the fact that she generated more work for the rest of the team fixing her fuckups than she actually accomplished, but WE were the bad guys for not wanting to constantly do her job for her, the day she asked our manager about transferring to another group, he BEGGED us not to say anything that might cause her to change her mind).

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Fewer women/POC STEM students, fewer qualified candidates.

Assuming same rate of suckage between women, men, whites, nonwhites, whatever.  Problem is, regardless of how you fill in those blanks, most candidates will, in fact, suck.

Trying to equalize numbers based on gender or color is an exercise in stupidity, and will necessarily force a company to hire inferior candidates.

This is true unless you think women and POC are superior techs because they're non white cismales...

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Well, after reading his memo, he's somewhat right.

Doesn't stop it from being career suicide, though.

Google, IIRC, is an "at will" employer.  They can fire him for any reason or no reason.  He's not wrong that Google has a toxic work culture... For a company with extremely anti-capitalistic views, though, they sure know how to make money.

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Of course I read it.  Here's the part that got him fired (http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320

"On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:

-They’re universal across human cultures
-They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
-Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males
-The underlying traits are highly heritable
-They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective

Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from 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. "

He says "biology", then says there are less women than men because of said biology, then backpedals it a bit with the second bolded part.

Nope.  That biology argument is his buh bye ticket.

Here's a related article discrediting evolutionary psychology: Men Have Always Used 'Science' to Explain Why They're Better Than Women.  An excerpt for the TL;DR not gonna read it crowd:

Citing something like “prenatal testosterone” to justify why more men occupy leadership positions in tech reads like classic evolutionary psychology: using a vaguely scientific (and controversial) concept to explain an incredibly complex, multifaceted issue. But in evolutionary psychology, many differences between genders in our society (including deep inequities) can be neatly explained away by hard-wired differences in in our brains.

“We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism,” Damore wrote, citing pseudoscientific claims that men get paid more because they have a “higher drive for status” instead of the overwhelming evidence that gender-based discrimination is closely linked to the wage gap.

Of course, using “science” to justify male superiority is much older than anything espoused by evolutionary psychologists. The idea that women are less psychologically stable—or more, bluntly, “hysterical”—has been around at least since Hippocrates wrote about it in the 5th century BCE. As Freud and his contemporaries later posited, women’s biology explained their “inherent” insanity. Or, as this particular Google employee called it, their neuroticism.

“Women, on average, have more neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance),” Damore wrote. “This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.”

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In the interest of efficiency I’m going to refer to POC (people of color) as colored people from now on.

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Wrong wrong wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong.  Dr. Cox was right.

You're black, you're fired, try it sometime and see what happens. After all, you can fire someone for ANY reason, right?

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As for Googlebro's "bullshit pseudoscience-backed opinion", I'd like to point out that actual scientists in the field that have reviewed his memo generally agree with him:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/

"The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right. Its main points are that: 1. Neither the left nor the right gets diversity completely right; 2. The social science evidence on implicit and explicit bias has been wildly oversold and is far weaker than most people seem to realize; 3. Google has, perhaps unintentionally, created an authoritarian atmosphere that has stifled discussion of these issues by stigmatizing anyone who disagrees as a bigot and instituted authoritarian policies of reverse discrimination; 4. The policies and atmosphere systematically ignore biological, cognitive, educational, and social science research on the nature and sources of individual and group differences."

"In the case of personality traits, evidence that men and women may have different average levels of certain traits is rather strong. For instance, sex differences in negative emotionality are universal across cultures; developmentally emerge across all cultures at exactly the same time; are linked to diagnosed (not just self-reported) mental health issues; appear rooted in sex differences in neurology, gene activation, and hormones; are larger in more gender egalitarian nations; and so forth (for a short review of this evidence, see here.),"

"For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate. Moreover, they are stated quite carefully and dispassionately. Its key claims about sex differences are especially well-supported by large volumes of research across species, cultures, and history. I know a little about sex differences research. On the topic of evolution and human sexuality, I’ve taught for 28 years, written 4 books and over 100 academic publications, given 190 talks, reviewed papers for over 50 journals, and mentored 11 Ph.D. students. Whoever the memo’s author is, he has obviously read a fair amount about these topics. Graded fairly, his memo would get at least an A- in any masters’ level psychology course. It is consistent with the scientific state of the art on sex differences."

"Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at."

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As for Googlebro's "bullshit pseudoscience-backed opinion", I'd like to point out that actual scientists in the field that have reviewed his memo generally agree with him:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170808013732/http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/

"The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right. Its main points are that: 1. Neither the left nor the right gets diversity completely right; 2. The social science evidence on implicit and explicit bias has been wildly oversold and is far weaker than most people seem to realize; 3. Google has, perhaps unintentionally, created an authoritarian atmosphere that has stifled discussion of these issues by stigmatizing anyone who disagrees as a bigot and instituted authoritarian policies of reverse discrimination; 4. The policies and atmosphere systematically ignore biological, cognitive, educational, and social science research on the nature and sources of individual and group differences."

"In the case of personality traits, evidence that men and women may have different average levels of certain traits is rather strong. For instance, sex differences in negative emotionality are universal across cultures; developmentally emerge across all cultures at exactly the same time; are linked to diagnosed (not just self-reported) mental health issues; appear rooted in sex differences in neurology, gene activation, and hormones; are larger in more gender egalitarian nations; and so forth (for a short review of this evidence, see here.),"

"For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate. Moreover, they are stated quite carefully and dispassionately. Its key claims about sex differences are especially well-supported by large volumes of research across species, cultures, and history. I know a little about sex differences research. On the topic of evolution and human sexuality, I’ve taught for 28 years, written 4 books and over 100 academic publications, given 190 talks, reviewed papers for over 50 journals, and mentored 11 Ph.D. students. Whoever the memo’s author is, he has obviously read a fair amount about these topics. Graded fairly, his memo would get at least an A- in any masters’ level psychology course. It is consistent with the scientific state of the art on sex differences."

"Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong. This is not information that’s considered controversial or up for debate; if you tried to argue otherwise, or for purely social influences, you’d be laughed at."

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGr2AQaUIAExqQP?format=jpg&name=large

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGr2AQaUIAExqQP?format=jpg&name=large

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The sad part about all this is it furthers the problem. People know women and minorities are not competing on the same level so when they get a job they get treated like a token hire until they prove they aren't. If the standards were identical it would do a lot more to bring people together

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If Google doesn't say why diversity is good, how can the fragile white men there grasp it? via @latimesopinion  https://t.co/c84H4ID5Ib pic.twitter.com/OsEi1EHGwz

Los Angeles Times  (@latimes) August 8, 2017

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"“First, let me say that we strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves..."

Sure you do...

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Just had a great conversation with James Damore about his controversial Google memo, company culture and the insane media reaction. #OutSoon

Stefan Molyneux  (@StefanMolyneux) August 9, 2017

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So why can't some of your more introverted employees learn to speak for themselves? Does your workplace not offer or partner with companies that teach how to deal with different types of people in a professional setting?

Continuing professional education is good for the business and good for the employee. A good manager recognizes this and encourages growth in his employees.

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Do you claim they don't?  Men and women, as groups, don't think the same, and the differences are notable across cultures, so there IS evidently some biological component to that fact, and it's perfectly normal to opt for jobs that one has an aptitude for, whenever possible.

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As for the former coworker, she was protected in her incompetence by her gender, I've known plenty of competent females working in IT, although they're still a minority (and again, more common in other parts of IT than system, storage, and network administration, most seem to be in database administration or project management).  If you think that experience is unusual, you've led an unusually sheltered life for someone who claims the experience level you do, it's widely known that standards are frequently enforced differently when minorities involved, and that discussing such too openly is considered a career-limiting move.

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Absolutely I've provided that coaching and advised professional development. My answer was in the context of what do I do to combat sexism. I answered narrowly in what I do myself to combat sexism, not what I do to help employees endure or combat it themselves. Probably an overly pedantic answer on my part.



I wasn't saying people don't self select, I was pointing out that in the context of James Damore's memo, "suitable" is semantically equivalent to "attracted to".  And as I said, there is always some truth to stereotypes which is what makes them dangerous.  

Another view on this topic: Differences between Men and Women are Vastly Exaggerated



I don't think that is unusual in fact is has been more common in recent years. And I 100% agree that discussing such a thing too openly is career-limiting.  These are two valid points that need to be discussed at Google.  Too bad he led with the psuedoscience blather. The more people push claims that women's biology limits them to non-technical fields the more it will impede discussion of these and other valid points.

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I wasn't saying people don't self select, I was pointing out that in the context of James Damore's memo, "suitable" is semantically equivalent to "attracted to".  And as I said, there is always some truth to stereotypes which is what makes them dangerous.  

Another view on this topic: Differences between Men and Women are Vastly Exaggerated



I don't think that is unusual in fact is has been more common in recent years. And I 100% agree that discussing such a thing too openly is career-limiting.  These are two valid points that need to be discussed at Google.  Too bad he led with the psuedoscience blather. The more people push claims that women's biology limits them to non-technical fields the more it will impede discussion of these and other valid points.

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Absolutely I've provided that coaching and advised professional development. My answer was in the context of what do I do to combat sexism. I answered narrowly in what I do myself to combat sexism, not what I do to help employees endure or combat it themselves. Probably an overly pedantic answer on my part.

I wasn't saying people don't self select, I was pointing out that in the context of James Damore's memo, "suitable" is semantically equivalent to "attracted to".  And as I said, there is always some truth to stereotypes which is what makes them dangerous.  

Another view on this topic: Differences between Men and Women are Vastly Exaggerated

I don't think that is unusual in fact is has been more common in recent years. And I 100% agree that discussing such a thing too openly is career-limiting.  These are two valid points that need to be discussed at Google.  Too bad he led with the psuedoscience blather. The more people push claims that women's biology limits them to non-technical fields the more it will impede discussion of these and other valid points.

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transman: "i have a 'male' brain"

media: ahhh yes, very wise

googleman: "i have a 'male' brain"

media: blasphemy! guards, arrest this man

— Tech Kaczynski \uD83C\uDF39 (@TechKaczynski) August 8, 2017

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I wish I was this witty. Spectacular.

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http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/