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The Googler causing such a controversy isn't even remotely a great software engineer. Sure, he went to great schools, passed some logic tests, and ended up on the Search team at Google.
This dude likely spent three years learning everything he could from better software engineers trained in ya know, computer science and software engineering. And likely learned some mad skills from at least some minority colleagues who taught him how to program. How does he pay it back? I'm so wicked smart and the ladies can't solve for x. He likely can't solve for y. I'd bet upon closer inspection, given his background, he's been riding coat tails for years. This is a moo point, you know, like a cow's opinion... to quote Joey from Friends. |
"you probably are not a good coder because you are a woman and women are on average not as smart as men, and are more neurotic." not any different. certainly not any different in how they'd make a woman feel. |
i have been doing software development in this area for over 30 years, assembler to fortran to C to java to ruby/rails. I can count on one hand the number of great woman software developers I have worked with over the years. I don't know why, but there are very few woman that do coding, and those that did usually had short, 35 hour weeks. very few were the lead developers building a product on the usual crazy development schedule. I do think it is more to do with intelligence, in that women are smarter! They see the shit job coding has become, and especially how bad it has become over the last 10 years and moved into careers that had more stability and more career growth and less H1Bs. I know my daughter is a better programmer than my son, so I really doubt it is because of ability to code, but she said there was no way she was going to be a programmer. Somehow the american kids going into college, have learned how bad a career it is from high school, newspapers and friends. She is focusing on neurology. |
I can see from that statement you made, how women may find that insulting, but that is not the way I interpreted the original statement. I took it as "Women are less likely to have traits that lead to success in technology and leadership, which in part explains why there are fewer women in technology and leadership.", followed by supporting evidence. I see it much the same as "Women are less likely to have traits associated with criminality, which in part explains why there are fewer women in prison.", followed by supporting evidence. The evidence does appear to support that there are differences between male and female intelligence, and that women experience higher levels of anxiety and depression than men (and are taking drugs to treat them at higher rates). One can certainly debate if those differences are statistically significant or not (I would not say so when looking at mean scores, but have a possibility in terms of percentage of population who pass the 120 point threshold. As for someone else who mentioned the discontinuity between m/f ratio's of intelligence and presence in STEM, I think they raised an interesting point), or if someone with diagnosed neurosis would have an easier or harder time in the workplace or getting promoted. Essentially when it comes to the facts presented in the googler's essay, its the old nature/nurture type debate (though he provides many possible solutions). Some posters here feel the societal conditions are hurting women far more so than any possible biological factors (or there aren't any biological factors), while others take the opposite viewpoint. I don't think anyone is going to persuade anyone else one way or the other. |
Interesting perspective, and as a female tech manager I generally agree. Most skills are becoming commoditized and automated, and the value add for a talented engineer is via the ability to take a systems approach in integrating components in a usable way. And also the ability to build teams that can work together to deliver a complex solution and update it continuously. I'm working on a product whose ultimate value proposition is around providing the tools for developers to more quickly transform their teams to CI/CD, and it's amazing how much resistance the alpha-male programmers have to what tons of data support is where the industry is headed because it unequivocally produces better results faster. |
again, this is not a logic puzzle. the statement communicates an open, negative stereotype about women in the workplace. It's fine to make on your own time, but say that crap in the office to your female coworker, and you will get in trouble. do you really not see that there is little effective difference in telling a woman: "you MIGHT be incapable of doing this job because you are a woman" vs "you ARE incapable because you are a woman"? |
DP. No PP, the person you are responding to doesn't see the difference. This is how we end up with men thinking the manifesto is ok and not controversial --just a statement. You're wasting your time with PP. |
I'm the "logical reasoning" PP you are referring to. Its obvious from online reactions that men and women come with different interpretations of this statement, so I agree with you. I would think that alone would demonstrate that there are different opinions and one can't say one viewpoint is exclusively true or not, since we all have our subjective realities. I think that is part of what the Google guy was trying to get across in his essay, and that leaping to the idea that there is only one correct viewpoint (all other views be dammed) is not good for the workplace. |
What the Google guy was trying to say is that it is not realistic to have outreach to women for STEM because they have traits that make them not good at engineering. When a woman has to work with a man who says women are biologically not as good at engineering it creates a hostile workplace. He was not fired for stating a viewpoint, he was fired because his statements (not based in science) is hostile. |
YOU AREN'T GETTING IT. You don't have carte blanch to express your "alternative viewpoint" at work, if that "alternative viewpoint" involves advancing harmful, gender-based stereotypes about women or minorities. You just don't. Under the law there in fact IS one correct viewpoint: advancing harmful stereotypes about women in the workplace, and basing workplace policies on these stereotypes, is unlawful. And that's exactly what Damore did: advanced several negative, gender-based stereotypes, and called for Google to change its policies to conform to those stereotypes. His publication of the essay alone may or may not have constituted actionable gender-based harassment under the law, but Google was certainly justified in terminating him for it, as he had shown himself to be insubordinate and now incapable of working with women. |
Yup what sunk him was actually saying what we all think and know out loud. People should know its never a good idea to say anything at work these days. Still waiting for the liberal outcry about the lack of diversity efforts to push for more whites in the NBA |
You're missing the point. Are there a bunch of white men saying that they are unfairly discriminated against in terms of NBA hiring? Does the NBA (or any particular team) have reason to believe that they would better achieve their objectives through racial diversity? You keep making strawman arguments that diversity is about equal outcomes, when it's not. Women are actively discriminated against in tech, and one way to counter that is to increase their representation which has been demonstrated to change cultural norms. Maybe women will always be a minority in tech, but that doesn't mean they have to be harassed at work by the likes of manifesto-guy. |
That is not what he said.
It's clear that promoting a marginalized group over others is discrimination, its just not illegal discrimination when it is done for protected classes. None of what he wrote said it is unrealistic to have outreach to women, please provide a quote. Instead he "suggest[ed] ways to address them to increase women’s representation in tech and without resorting to discrimination". He readily admits sexism (discrimination) occurs (its in the opening line of his essay). Nor do I recall him saying that all female engineers at google have traits that make them bad engineers (which appears to be what you feel he is implying), but we already disagree on that interpretation and won't have a productive discussion on that point. |
You do realize he wrote this on a private Google plus forum and it got leaked out? It wasn't a public post. |
You hire the best talent for the job that's the point. Black males are better basketball players. Males are better coders. Evidence almost all top CS/Engineering/Programs are vastly majority male. |