Google male engineeer saying female engineers shouldn't be engineers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So the distribution of traits is not backed by science? The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity appears to get nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right (note his time spent in PhD studies in Biology at Harvard). In the case of personality traits, evidence that men and women may have different average levels of certain traits is rather strong. Among commentators on DCUrbanMom who claim the memo’s empirical facts are wrong, I haven’t read a single one who appeared understand sexual selection theory, animal behavior, and sex differences research. From what I understand of 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 preference 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. Even wikipedia, which is far from biased to the right, notes the same exact things, if one cares to peruse it.

Furthermore, women appear to seek treatment for anxiety at a higher rate than men. An analysis of prescription claims data from 2.5 million insured Americans from 2001 to 2010, by a major medical insurer disclosed that one in four women is dispensed medication for a mental health condition, compared to just 15 percent of men. Now is that due to women consuming more health care (a trait by the way) or are women inherently more subject to anxiety? I would hope it is the former more so than the later.

I'm 13:22 from today who posted above. I did not question the science (though I admit I'm not familiar with all the research, but I'm willing to accept the data for the sake of argument). I did, however, post reasons that his conclusions based on the data are suspect and reflect a biased framework for interpreting how to apply the findings. I specifically addressed how you might interpret data suggesting more women than men seek treatment for anxiety. Notably, no one responded to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Top Engineering/CS programs are still overwhelmingly male so I am going to view Females with suspicion

You fix the issue by getting rid of the diversity program, its a similar issue for African Americans if you want me to not judge you get rid of Affirmative Action. Otherwise, I have ever right to assume you are a diversity/affirmative action hire and not as qualified.

You have every right to assume whatever you want. And your employer still has every right to fire you if circulating your assumptions in a 10 page manifesto violates its company code of conduct. It also has every right not to hire you at all. That's the free market that you love so much.

Regardless, it's funny that AA makes you predisposed to judge all women and minorities as unqualified unless proven otherwise. In my experience, most women and URMs in tech are top performers, since they would have dropped out long ago if they weren't. While white men exist at all rungs of the ladder, sheer numbers and basic stats tells me that the majority are mediocre. As a result, I assume all men I meet in tech are mediocre until proven otherwise. I have every right to make that assumption, and I can back mine up with math

-- Woman in Tech whom you can assume is unqualified if you want, but my paycheck and industry recognition allows me to not GAF what you assume about me

The code of conduct defense might not work actually. Google has also most likely violated the political viewpoint retaliation and whistleblower retaliation provisions of the California Labor Code. There are now screenshots Googles internal network showing managers refusing to employ/take on people for projects who hold specific political viewpoints. Likewise these same managers have claimed to have blackballed these same googlers for positions outside of google. It is interesting to note that the author of the 10 page essay already filed with the NLRB regarding googles conduct and all this dirty laundry will certainly help him for that filing as well as any other wrongful termination lawsuit filed against google for retailiation (due to the NRLB compliant) after the google CEO's comments.

California Labor Code § 1102 requires that “no employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.” Furthermore, the “whistleblower” provisions at §1102.5 prohibit employers from adopting rules preventing disclosure of, or retaliating against an employee for having disclosed, “information … to a person with authority over the employee, or another employee who has authority to investigate, discover or correct the violation … if the employee has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses a violation of state or federal statute, or a violation of or noncompliance with a local, state, or federal rule or regulation, regardless of whether disclosing the information is part of the employee’s job duties.”

The memo in question quite plausibly falls into both statutory sections — advocating that someone “stop alienating conservatives” sure sounds like political activity, and warning of corporate policies and procedures “which can incentivize illegal discrimination,” and asking that the employer cease “restricting [certain] programs and classes to certain genders or races” sure sounds like information which an employee would have “reasonable cause to believe” concerns noncompliance with federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

Even better: Somebody could go to jail for this.

Section 1103 provides: “An employer or any other person or entity that violates this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable, in the case of an individual, by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year or a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000) or both that fine and imprisonment, or, in the case of a corporation, by a fine not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000).

Seeing Google CEO Sundar Pichai, or Google Chief Diversity Officer Danielle Brown led away to the pokey in cuffs would be poetic justice indeed. Not that such a thing is at all likely in the People’s Republic of California, of course.

lol, no. you can't hide gender harassment behind political viewpoints. Also Google has a bona fide reason to fire him - he manifestly cannot work with women anymore.

Are you sure you read the same document? I would be curious too see which statements you construe as harassment.

are you kidding? it's a long screed about why women are not good leaders or coders due to biology. It's canonical discrimination on the basis of sex.

Again, can you point to specifics?

Everything he says about "distribution of traits," women being neurotic, and therefor they should be presumed to be inferior.

So the distribution of traits is not backed by science? The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity appears to get nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right (note his time spent in PhD studies in Biology at Harvard). In the case of personality traits, evidence that men and women may have different average levels of certain traits is rather strong. Among commentators on DCUrbanMom who claim the memo’s empirical facts are wrong, I haven’t read a single one who appeared understand sexual selection theory, animal behavior, and sex differences research. From what I understand of 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 preference 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. Even wikipedia, which is far from biased to the right, notes the same exact things, if one cares to peruse it.

Furthermore, women appear to seek treatment for anxiety at a higher rate than men. An analysis of prescription claims data from 2.5 million insured Americans from 2001 to 2010, by a major medical insurer disclosed that one in four women is dispensed medication for a mental health condition, compared to just 15 percent of men. Now is that due to women consuming more health care (a trait by the way) or are women inherently more subject to anxiety? I would hope it is the former more so than the later.

It's the conclusions he makes based on that (flawed) science, on top of the central fact that women are an insular minority suffering discrimination under the lad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So the distribution of traits is not backed by science? The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity appears to get nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right (note his time spent in PhD studies in Biology at Harvard). In the case of personality traits, evidence that men and women may have different average levels of certain traits is rather strong. Among commentators on DCUrbanMom who claim the memo’s empirical facts are wrong, I haven’t read a single one who appeared understand sexual selection theory, animal behavior, and sex differences research. From what I understand of 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 preference 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. Even wikipedia, which is far from biased to the right, notes the same exact things, if one cares to peruse it.

Furthermore, women appear to seek treatment for anxiety at a higher rate than men. An analysis of prescription claims data from 2.5 million insured Americans from 2001 to 2010, by a major medical insurer disclosed that one in four women is dispensed medication for a mental health condition, compared to just 15 percent of men. Now is that due to women consuming more health care (a trait by the way) or are women inherently more subject to anxiety? I would hope it is the former more so than the later.

I'm 13:22 from today who posted above. I did not question the science (though I admit I'm not familiar with all the research, but I'm willing to accept the data for the sake of argument). I did, however, post reasons that his conclusions based on the data are suspect and reflect a biased framework for interpreting how to apply the findings. I specifically addressed how you might interpret data suggesting more women than men seek treatment for anxiety. Notably, no one responded to me.

don't bother - the brogrammers are convinced that science proves girls are bad at coding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Female software engineer here. This guy is an outlier. Yes, institututuonal sexism exists. Yes, I deal with it daily. Yes, it's a male dominated industry. Yes, you have to prove yourself over and over again compared to male peers to gain the same respect given equatable skill sets.

The positive. I've had the pleasure of working with many, many great male software engineers over 20+ years who respect talent without gender bias.

Once you one up these sexist outliers in a public manner a couple of times, they tend to crawl back into their Reddit hole.

You'll still deal with the brogrammer pretending to be an expert in a topic with which they have zero experience, mansplaining, etc... but highly collaborative, agile engineering teams all know everyone's strengths and weaknesses and can pin the tale on the asshole blindfolded with amazing accuracy.

Oh you're the "cool girl," right. Got it.

What's that supposed to mean?

It means that if a woman in tech speaks up for herself, she will immediately be mocked! Luckily, women in tech are generally not susceptible to this kind of lame-ass taunt. Men, on the other hand, have to Shut! Them! Up! Every! Time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

1) the presumption that hiring the highest IQs available, as opposed to also looking at other factors, is the only consideration in hiring a competent workforce;
2) the presumption that IQ tests are accurate measures of ability, and that the gap is inevitable
3) the presumption that we have a "free society" where people are choosing professions with no reference at all to background social/economic conditions
4) the presumption that all coders are and must be "elite"
5) the presumption that the work of Google engineers is to "solve the hardest puzzles," as opposed to being good engineers
6) the presumption that success as an engineer in the real world does not require verbal intelligence
7) the presumption that women leave stem because they are inferior women, not because they are discriminated against
8) the presumption that "the work that drives society forward" is equivalent to an IQ test (probably the dumbest presumption of them all)

I think you're inserting quite a few biases/presumptions of your own there rather than what was explicitly written, but I would be happy to respond after taking care of dinner, later this evening. Virtually none of what you wrote appears in my text.

I don't really need to hear any of your blathering anymore. thanks. you might just take to heart that your supposedly high IQ doesn't actually mean you know everything or always have the right argument.

I don't recall ever stating my IQ. I did say that there is a point of diminishing returns about IQ though.

Lets discuss your presumptions:

1) the presumption that hiring the highest IQs available, as opposed to also looking at other factors, is the only consideration in hiring a competent workforce;

I have never stated that this is the only consideration. I have stated that there is an IQ threshold to complete a STEM related degree. I have stated that there is a larger pool of men than women with higher IQs to draw upon for these programs and for those who have completed the programs. Please don't insert words into my mouth.

As you are presumably aware it is illegal to test for IQ as part of the hiring process (Griggs v Duke Power Co, 401 US 42). College degrees became a proxy for this in part. Furthermore, Google and other software companies have a pretty intense hiring process. Asides from standard interviews and technical interviews, they have a logical reasoning interview, where not only are you graded on your response time to the questions, but your logical reasoning ability (legal by the way per the previously cited decision because its considered a relevant factor to the job whereas general IQ is not). Google has a huge number of applicants and is highly selective for elite applicants.

2) the presumption that IQ tests are accurate measures of ability, and that the gap is inevitable

There is a strong correlation between IQ and educational outcomes, in part because most IQ tests measure a number of things short-term memory, analytical thinking, mathematical ability and spatial recognition. There is a correlation between spatial intelligence and success in STEM coursework. Studies have shown that women can improve spatial intelligence and achieve better results in STEM programs, but men who went through the same training also appeared to improve at a greater rate. As I pointed to earlier, this is one of the few areas for intelligence differences where there is agreement, likewise the development of this one of the few portions of the male brain that is different from the female brain. IQ is certianly not the only element required for success, but I would hesitate to neglect the potential expressed in what it measures.

I would certainly agree that when it comes to nobel prizes in the sciences, it is relatively rare to see exceptionally high measured IQs.

3) the presumption that we have a "free society" where people are choosing professions with no reference at all to background social/economic conditions

The US lacks a caste system. Anyone is free to choose their major in college. This is not the People's Republic of China where you must test into a specific major (a student's performance on the "gaokao" which decides what university and major a high school graduate can pursue). The registrar won't prohibit someone from choosing to study philosophy or marine biology. While I would agree that due to assortative mating patterns, or certain cultural pressures, some kids may be highly encouraged to select certain majors in college. Women have agency, this isn't the third world where a male relative chooses their life for them.

4) the presumption that all coders are and must be "elite"

I did not say that. Programmers at google could be considered elite since Google is highly selective. Their hiring practices are well documented online. While coders can be dismissed as "code monkeys" Google is more known for algorithim development/applications than enterprise applications.

5) the presumption that the work of Google engineers is to "solve the hardest puzzles," as opposed to being good engineers

Google/Alphabet spans a number of subjects, mostly concerntrated on software. Some of these hardest puzzles have eluded engineers since the dawn of the information age. This includes Artificial Intelligence, particularly applied to machine learning, machine vision (their self driving car work), accurate heuristics models etc.. They're there to solve difficult problems that require being a good engineer. They're probably closer to the old Bell Labs model than most other companies out there today.

I'm curious why you wouldn't assume they're working on the hardest puzzles, in the software related fields?

6) the presumption that success as an engineer in the real world does not require verbal intelligence

Please show me where I stated that. You need high mathematical ability to solve engineering problems. High verbal ability is useful for conveying those solutions to others or for collaboration (best engineers have both). Having high verbal ability, but lacking high mathematical ability will make success in engineering very challenging.

7) the presumption that women leave stem because they are inferior women, not because they are discriminated against

Please show me where I stated that. I stated that there are proportionally fewer women with higher IQs than males which gets into rather large skews at higher measured IQ scores and that men tend to have higher spatial intelligence, which is not inconsequential to some STEM coursework.

Women do tend to favor more work life balance than men. Male dominated work environments are different than female dominated work environments. There are cultural differences in terms of how groups of men treat each other and how women treat each other, though explicit discrimination in this day and age is much different than 40-50 years ago. Discrimination is not the only possible reason why women would leave STEMland.

Female labour force participation is lower than that of men, and the rate certainly drops once children come into the picture as society expects women to take on more of the childcare role than men.

8) the presumption that "the work that drives society forward" is equivalent to an IQ test (probably the dumbest presumption of them all)

Please show me where I stated that. Technology has been a driver that has allowed for female independence from the home and child-rearing, that has enabled social progress on a level not seen before. In otherwords, without increases in technology, productivity in myraid areas ranging from the agrictulure, energy extraction, biochemistry and the like has brought an unparalleled bounty of resources enabling us to have the peaceful, prosperous and liberal representative democracty we all enjoy today with a standard of living far beyond that of the royalty of yesteryear.

[Anonymous]

^^ blah blah blah

[Anonymous]

TL; DR. @21:09. Classic COBOL programmer.

He likely actively participates in Toast Master and is so verbose in email that any engineer visibly eye rolls anytime his email arrives in their Inbox.

We created an AI algorithm for this type of engineer's preferred corespondense of lengthy emails reducing length by 2/3 without losing any understanding. Outputs were often funny, and we had loads of fun tweaking the algorithm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TL; DR. @21:09. Classic COBOL programmer.

He likely actively participates in Toast Master and is so verbose in email that any engineer visibly eye rolls anytime his email arrives in their Inbox.

We created an AI algorithm for this type of engineer's preferred corespondense of lengthy emails reducing length by 2/3 without losing any understanding. Outputs were often funny, and we had loads of fun tweaking the algorithm.

Oh, please run the post through the algorithm and share the output.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As The Washington Post's Jena McGregor wrote in March, just 1 percent of Google's technology employees are black - a percentage that hasn't moved since 2014.

Indians do not hire African Americans, we have seen this at Infosys, Cognizant, Hexaware, TCS, and Wipro

IME, Indians only hire Indians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As The Washington Post's Jena McGregor wrote in March, just 1 percent of Google's technology employees are black - a percentage that hasn't moved since 2014.

Indians do not hire African Americans, we have seen this at Infosys, Cognizant, Hexaware, TCS, and Wipro

IME, Indians only hire Indians.

Indian woman in tech whose white male new hire just started today. See, I have anecdotes too!

[Anonymous]

So, some actual scientists who specialize in the field have posted their own opinion of his manifesto. As I read it, they say the science he cited is generally accurate.

The site with their opinion is overloaded, but here's a site with a copy of it:
https://archive.is/z6xxP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's a rank and file nobody. He probably thinks, "I've made it to Google! I'm the best of the best!" while he plays ping pong and rides the bus back to San Francisco to go sleep in a shared yurt.

Guys like this are the worst. They're completely insecure now that they're among the best, and look around to see who they might put down to elevate themselves.

One of my friends is a woman who was an English major who took a few computer science courses and went from that to programming and running all sorts of IT systems. She's just plain smarter than most other people.

It seems to me that the Google engineer who started the current controversy was probably exaggerating the magnitude of sex-based differences, but that Google went overboard when it fired a guy who expressed a controversial opinion about this.

But I think the real issue is trying to figure out some way to make jobs like Google software engineer and new physician more compatible with making the daycare pickup deadline.

Whether women are, on average, worse at programming than men or not, many women are clearly capable of being great coders. But it's hard to combine working an 18-hour day and being the lead parent for a child.

Figuring out how to put a hard 12-hour cap on people's workdays might do a lot more to help get ahead than obsessing about sexism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, some actual scientists who specialize in the field have posted their own opinion of his manifesto. As I read it, they say the science he cited is generally accurate.

The site with their opinion is overloaded, but here's a site with a copy of it:
https://archive.is/z6xxP

1) psychology is not "science." these are not issues amenable to double blind studies. there is no way to separate out the impacts of discriminatiom from supposed gender-based performance differences
2) all these appeals to science to justify gender inequality are reminiscent of the "science" proving black people were inferior and should remain slaves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's a rank and file nobody. He probably thinks, "I've made it to Google! I'm the best of the best!" while he plays ping pong and rides the bus back to San Francisco to go sleep in a shared yurt.

Guys like this are the worst. They're completely insecure now that they're among the best, and look around to see who they might put down to elevate themselves.

One of my friends is a woman who was an English major who took a few computer science courses and went from that to programming and running all sorts of IT systems. She's just plain smarter than most other people.

It seems to me that the Google engineer who started the current controversy was probably exaggerating the magnitude of sex-based differences, but that Google went overboard when it fired a guy who expressed a controversial opinion about this.

But I think the real issue is trying to figure out some way to make jobs like Google software engineer and new physician more compatible with making the daycare pickup deadline.

Whether women are, on average, worse at programming than men or not, many women are clearly capable of being great coders. But it's hard to combine working an 18-hour day and being the lead parent for a child.

Figuring out how to put a hard 12-hour cap on people's workdays might do a lot more to help get ahead than obsessing about sexism.

I agree except can't you see the obvious? why should women be the "lead parent"? the fact is that many arguments about women not being "willing" to do time consuming jobs are premised on her husband's failure to be an equal partner. If highly motivated women could be serenely assured that their children were receiving excellent loving care by their other parent (and dinner and clean laundry magically appeared) then they would be free to shoot for the stars. High acheiving men very often have a sah.

[Anonymous]

I was a top student and researcher (grad school) getting out of engineering undergrad and grad school and I ran right smack into ignorant ass wipes like this in the workplace. So so many of them. And many of them were dumb - like needing special permission to graduate with some 'D' grades in their engineering classes dumb. At best average., but they thought that whatever they thought in their heads was important and should be said often and they acted like a group to exclude the women from certain jobs and tasks. They acted like a group in not listening to the women's ideas and it was awful and ignorant. Engineering men are the worst and the workplaces can be awful. I mean look at this guy -,he's young. He's not an old ignorant geezer he's an ignorant young person. Ignorance like this is effectively excluding an academically and technically strong group of people who work hard and bring a fresh perspective to engineering - good for Google for putting a stop to this ignorance. The fact that this is still going on with young people should tell people how bad it's been for years and years.