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On August 08 2017 18:22 SoSexy wrote:Only 20% women graduate in computer sciences. Therefore, expecting to have 50/50 gender distribution is nearly impossible. I'll paste a great comment from Reddit: + Show Spoiler +I work for a small, established Silicon Valley company of about 25 people. There were about 22 men and 3 women. But I felt the company is unbiased fair in its hiring processes. And of those 3 women, one was the VP of the company; a role no one ever doubted she deserved because she was exceptional at her job.
The reality at my company and at many companies across the tech industry is that there are more qualified men than there are women. Here me out before you downvote. Im not saying women aren't smart and aren't capable of being just as qualified for these jobs.
But, the thing is, this cultural push to get more women involved in engineering and the sciences only started in the 2000s. To score a high level position at a company like mine, you need to know your shit. ie, you need education and experience. All the people available in the workforce with the required experience have been working 10-30 years in the industry; meaning they went to college in the 1970s and 1980s.
So where are all the women with this experience and education? Well just arent many. And thats just a fact. In 1971-72, it was estimated that only 17% of engineering students were women. That trend didnt change much in the following years. In 2003, it was estimated that 80% of new engineers were men, and 20% women.
This isnt an attack on women, and its not an endorsement saying that there isnt sexism in the workplace - sexism can and does affect a womans career. But the idea that 50% of the tech workforce should be women is just not based in reason. Now - in the 2010s - there is a concerted effort to get girls (yes - this starts at a young age) and women interested in STEM at school and college. But these efforts wont pay off now. Theyll pay off 20-30 years from now.
There should be laws protecting women in tech; equal pay laws should apply everywhere. And claims that women are held back because of sexism shouldnt be dismissed lightly - it is a problem. But to cry wolf just because there is a disproportionate number of men in the industry right now is not a logically sound argument.
No one expects 50/50 gender distribution overnight or even expects it to happen. That Reddit post isn't even relevant to the point. The point is to make the future better by making certain jobs more attractive towards the opposite sex, especially when there should be no logical reason why its so unpopular. This isn't physical labour where strength and stamina is a must, its a sedentary job.
Select engineering courses and communities at university in certain disciplines are still very much old boys clubs. I studied engineering at the University of Melbourne and certain engineering communities, particularly mining and geology, are still absurdly chauvinistic. On the flipside, women often view other women studying these subjects with a bit of disdain (eg. dykes studying geology). The idea is to encourage more women in these subjects so there's less of a stigma to study a STEM subject and work at, say, Google.
This is exactly the same thing certain nursing courses attempt to do as well. Some nursing schools try and hire more men in an attempt to lessen the stigma so more men won't see it as an affront to their masculinity or whatever. Yes, this is a serious issue especially in countries with severe nurse shortages.
On August 08 2017 17:39 warding wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2017 16:41 rageprotosscheesy wrote:
The guy screwed up because he put a target in his back. If you are a woman, could you honestly work with this guy in good faith?
Unless your business is literally an old boys club, you're getting canned for doing something like this in corporate workplaces. You're not in an environment where you can sit in a cubicle where no one talks to you while you code 9 to 5 every week. You're going to have to talk, communicate and collaborate with everyone of different ethnicities, political beliefs, socioeconomic backgrounds and so forth.
You can have opinions about things in the workplace. But you have to not be an idiot and actually be mindful of what you say and do to your colleagues if you're not an anti-social tool. If you went to a KKK rally as an NBA player, you'd get traded to a bottom rung team before the end of the season because you're basically locker room cancer at that point. Same thing here.
And before anyone starts accusing Google of being snowflakes, you can still hold these opinions. You just can't be a tool about it, which so many people struggle to understand for whatever reason. What was it exactly that he wrote that could offend someone to the point of not being able to work with him? It really wasn't on the level of KKK or redpill or the_donald subreddits. I find it bewildering. In my company there are now 15 full-time people and we discuss these issues a lot during lunchtime and morning coffee, particularly the gender diversity in tech issue which is kind of core to our business. We have people more to the right of this Damore guy and we have people on the left. No problems have arisen and conversations have been quite open. The fact that these issues can't be discussed among coworkers at google means to me that the work environment there must be quite toxic.
You can talk about it. We talk about these issues as work. When we're talking politics at lunch, we're also not using linked sources and actually discussing these issues with utmost seriousness.
When you start saying (in this case practically writing an undergraduate length thesis) "women are X, men are X, stop this leftist hiring bias Google" and argue that their hiring practices prevent Google from being a meritocracy, you're going to piss a lot of people off. Especially when you offer no real solutions to any problem beyond "welp cultural/biological factors".
Most politically/socially aware women would tell someone who argues that women don't get better pay/promotions due to their lack of assertiveness compared to men, while completely ignoring the fact that assertive men are treated differently than assertive women, to go screw themselves. Because someone who makes that their argument is not debating the issue in good faith or is utter clueless about the issues facing women in the corporate space.
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On August 08 2017 19:36 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2017 18:19 warding wrote:
I don't think the argument was that women are generally worse at it, rather than that they are generally less inclined to pursue careers as programmers. But then he fails to provide any meaningful as to why and sort of just says "there has to be a reason, we shouldn't force it". It is the Tim Allen style of gender discussion, where women are this unknownable mystery of science and culture.
He provides the following as to why that may be:
+ Show Spoiler +- Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing). - These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics. - Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness. - This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a women’s issue. This leads to exclusory programs like Stretch and swaths of men without support. - Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs. http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320
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No one is forcing it. Most diversity initiatives focus on obtaining resumes from broad spectrums. It's not about the dreaded mythical quota. This dudes scree about diversity mostly read like a thinly masked plea to not have to complete with women and minorities. That he was comfortable with the safe space google had created for him and they shouldn't upset it with hires he viewed at unworthy.
Edit: warding - yeah that is gender stereotypes 101. He doesn't really back that up with much beyond "maybe women aren't built for my job?" It is the basic ask for meritocracy that just happens to keep people like him employed over all others.
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On August 08 2017 19:49 rageprotosscheesy wrote:
You can talk about it. We talk about these issues as work. When we're talking politics at lunch, we're also not using linked sources and actually discussing these issues with utmost seriousness.
When you start saying (in this case practically writing an undergraduate length thesis) "women are X, men are X, stop this leftist hiring bias Google" and argue that their hiring practices prevent Google from being a meritocracy, you're going to piss a lot of people off. Especially when you offer no real solutions to any problem beyond "welp cultural/biological factors".
He actually does offer some solutions, including better work-life balance (more part-time options), re-engineering work to better reward cooperative work (which in his view would favor women vs competitiveness which favors men), more pair programming...
Most politically/socially aware women would tell someone who argues that women don't get better pay/promotions due to their lack of assertiveness compared to men, while completely ignoring the fact that assertive men are treated differently than assertive women, to go screw themselves. Because someone who makes that their argument is not debating the issue in good faith or is utter clueless about the issues facing women in the corporate space.
I'm not sure he makes that argument. What he does claim is that men have a higher drive for status, because "For heterosexual romantic relationships, men are more strongly judged by status and women by beauty". EDIT: He does make that argument.
Given that the memo is not written in incendiary language and is respectful enough, the fact that it incenses one group is more telling of a lack of openness to ideas from that group than an indictment of the guy that actually wrote it.
Crap, I hate to be on the same side of Breitbart on an issue.
EDIT: Plansix perhaps his arguments aren't all that valid, and I'm not arguing for or against them. Only that they aren't incendiary, and that the general quality of his reasoning is still much higher than anything that has been written against it that I've seen - the vast majority hasn't actually bothered to actually addressing his arguments.
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Not all ideas were created equal and some of them are just masks for well trodden sexist stereotypes used in other professions to say women were not suited for the job.
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Norway28558 Posts
With the sidenote that I only read like 10% of the letter, I agree with warding here. I don't think all his arguments are valid, for example I think claiming universality regarding gender behavior relating to culture is bound to be wrong. But I don't think his arguments are incendiary. From what I saw, he's not attacking the women who are there and saying they are inferior biologically, he's saying there are explanations for why a 50/50 gender distribution hasn't been attained and reasons why it's not necessarily a goal to strive for. Personally, I think this is the type of difference of opinion that should ideally be permitted, and met through arguments (address where he is factually wrong) rather than firing him.
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I think the problem was less his having the opinion and more emailing the memo out to people, I mean can people shit stir at their place of work like that and not expect to be fired or something?
I'm not entirely familiar with the situation, I read most of the letter but didn't look too much into how this all got out.
Did he email this to everyone at Google? If yes, I have no idea what else he would expect to happen
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Those aren't solutions or even deal with Google's hiring of minority groups in a productive manner. What the hell is pair programming going to do to eliminate the stigma computer science has with women? It completely fails to understand the issues at hand and provides a solution to nothing as a result.
His entire argument is nothing but sourced gender predisposition bullshit. There's nothing respectful there, especially if you're a politically aware woman. Its actually pretty offensive and none different than a woman who argues that female dominated professions should stop hiring men entirely because they're more likely to drink, drive and beat their wives and children. Its largely nonsense because evidently not everyone is the same and you don't need sources to know that argument is completely bogus.
The dude literally wrote this:
Neuroticism is a reason why there are less women in computer science. This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.
When women dominate fields, like nursing, where they have to deal with hundreds of injured, dying and dead patients in their working life. Compared to computer science, that shit is the definition of stressful yet the guy is throwing biotruths like no tomorrow. Again: people who make these sort of arguments about women are either arguing a point in bad faith (which is disrespectful and makes him an asshole especially in a collaborative environment like this) or are wholly ill informed (which just makes him an idiot). Considering he's upset at Google's leftist bias (he literally uses this phrase), I'm going to put the most weight on the former and this is exactly why his arguments are getting so much heat.
Just because his memo is not written in incendiary language and is seemingly respectful doesn't mean it isn't stupid and actually pretty offensive in many ways. If I sent a huge memo in my mapping company arguing that we should be allowed to spend significant amounts of time and resources researching the flat earth theory, a lack of openness and actual hostility to my ideas would be the expected response.
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I'm still surprised by Trump's approval ratings amongst republicans. How one can expect him to solve anything, specially the very complicated NK problem?
It's so different from Europe where voters have unrealistic expectations and heavily scrutinize the President's actions resulting in a quick fall in the public opinion after the few months of "immunity" gained by being elected.
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On August 08 2017 20:45 rageprotosscheesy wrote:Those aren't solutions or even deal with Google's hiring of minority groups in a productive manner. What the hell is pair programming going to do to eliminate the stigma computer science has with women? It completely fails to understand the issues at hand and provides a solution to nothing as a result. His entire argument is nothing but sourced gender predisposition bullshit. There's nothing respectful there, especially if you're a politically aware woman. Its actually pretty offensive and none different than a woman who argues that female dominated professions should stop hiring men entirely because they're more likely to drink, drive and beat their wives and children. Its largely nonsense because evidently not everyone is the same and you don't need sources to know that argument is completely bogus. The dude literally wrote this: Show nested quote +Neuroticism is a reason why there are less women in computer science. This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs. When women dominate fields, like nursing, where they have to deal with hundreds of injured, dying and dead patients in their working life. Compared to computer science, that shit is the definition of stressful yet the guy is throwing biotruths like no tomorrow. Again: people who make these sort of arguments about women are either arguing a point in bad faith (which is disrespectful and makes him an asshole especially in a collaborative environment like this) or are wholly ill informed (which just makes him an idiot). Considering he's upset at Google's leftist bias (he literally uses this phrase), I'm going to put the most weight on the former and this is exactly why his arguments are getting so much heat. Just because his memo is not written in incendiary language and is seemingly respectful doesn't mean it isn't stupid and actually pretty offensive in many ways. If I sent a huge memo in my mapping company arguing that we should be allowed to spend significant amounts of time and resources researching the flat earth theory, a lack of openness and actual hostility to my ideas would be the expected response.
Oh, I didn't know he was suggesting that Google should stop hiring women entirely. That's horrible of him, then. He should be fired.
Perhaps the reason why more women are willing to tolerate the stress from nursery jobs because they are more nurturing. Like, their nurturing nature more likely outweighs the levels of stress for nurturing jobs, but not for other certain types of activities. I'm not phrasing it 100% accurately, but hopefully the point comes across.
Say you get 100 points of stress from both jobs, but for many women only the nurturing jobs give 100 'anti-stress' or 'joy' or 'satisfaction', while programming gives 80 points due to a lack of interaction with people or whatever reasons.
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On August 08 2017 20:34 Zambrah wrote:
I think the problem was less his having the opinion and more emailing the memo out to people, I mean can people shit stir at their place of work like that and not expect to be fired or something?
I'm not entirely familiar with the situation, I read most of the letter but didn't look too much into how this all got out.
Did he email this to everyone at Google? If yes, I have no idea what else he would expect to happen
This is all that really matters really. It seems wildly inappropriate to widely email something like that around a company and apparently unsolicited at that.
If such a thing was posted independently of the person's company it would be an interesting discussion about a company firing an employee for independent speech and beliefs.
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On August 08 2017 20:21 Plansix wrote:
Not all ideas were created equal and some of them are just masks for well trodden sexist stereotypes used in other professions to say women were not suited for the job.
The female vs. male propensities he's listing are well documented in clinical psychology. It's all backed up by actual, peer reviewed science based on sizeable group samples dealing with children as well as adults. I know that because it's been popping up a lot, lately. You should really look into it, since you seem to be dismissing it with particular zeal as something not based on actual evidence - something like gender studies, for example.
On the other hand the idea that men and women are interested in the same or even similar things, and / or motivated by the same or even similar environments and topics, is to a clear degree disconnected from "manifest" reality as it is expressed in roughly 95% of the population (across cultures and time).
It's just so incredibly, blatantly obvious how different we are that it's literally contingent. You can attribute it to social construction, sure, but that has turned out to be factually wrong. To a major extent the social constructivist myth is biologically untrue, it is psychologically dishonest, and the nonsense has to stop sooner rather than later. Warping the work environment of specific industries to shove women into professions they aren't even interested in will address exactly nothing.
Besides, women are free to start an all-female software company where they can thrive in a non-patriarchal environment and organize themselves as they please. Maybe they're more interested in fashion&lifestyle blogging, tho? I don't know.
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...Is this a joke? I got exactly 30 points- even with my STEM masters degree- and that's supposedly the lowest you're allowed to score to be able to apply? Unless you're rich, a genius, or an Olympic athlete, you wouldn't be able to immigrate to the United States, if Trump gets his way? Can someone please confirm whether or not this is satire? Over 90% of Americans wouldn't even score 30+.
Find Out If President Trump Would Let You Immigrate to America
President Donald Trump announced his support last week for a new "merit-based" immigration bill that would screen visa applicants using a point system.
The Republican-backed proposal, which would significantly reduce the number of people allowed to legally immigrate to America, would weigh each person's age, education, English ability, job offer salary, investments and even whether the person has an Olympic medal. The Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act, or RAISE Act, favors people between the ages of 26 and 30 with a doctorate, high English proficiency and a job offer with a high salary.
Applicants would need at least 30 points to be eligible to apply for a visa under the proposal, and the fastest way to get there is to have received a Nobel Prize or comparable international award, which gives applicants a head start of 25 points. Applicants with the highest number of points would go to the front of the line to receive visas.
The bill, introduced by Republican Senators David Perdue and Tom Cotton, has failed to gain traction beyond the President's endorsement and is unlikely to pass Congress. But if Trump had his way and it became law, here's how you would fare if you were trying to immigrate to the U.S. under the restrictions:
Would You Qualify for Legal Immigration to the U.S.?
Answer the following questions to find out:
You need at least 30 points to be eligible to apply for immmigration
How old are you?
Under 18 cannot apply
18-21 6 points
22-25 8 points
26-30 10 points
31-35 8 points
36-40 6 points
41-45 4 points
46-50 2 points
Over 50 0 points
What's your highest level of education?
Less than high school diploma 0 points
High school diploma or foreign equivalent 1 point
Foreign bachelor's 5 points
U.S. bachelor's 6 points
Foreign master's in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics 7 points
U.S. master’s in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics 8 points
Foreign professional degree or doctorate in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics 10 points
U.S. professional degree or doctorate in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics 13 points
What's your english ability?
Poor 0 points
Moderate 6 points
Good 10 ponts
Excellent 11 points
Fluent 12 points
Do you have a job offer?
No 0 points
Yes, with a salary less than $77,900 0 points
Yes, with a salary of at least $77,900 5 points
Yes, with a salary of at least $103,900 8 points
Yes, with a salary of at least $155,800 13 points
Do you have a Nobel Prize or major international award?
Yes 25 points
No 0 points
Have you won an Olympic medal in the past 8 years?
Yes 15 points
No 0 points
Do you plan on investing money in the U.S.?
No 0 points
Yes, with foreign currency worth less than $1.35 million for a new commercial enterprise 0 points
Yes, with foreign currency worth between $1.35 million and $1.8 million for a new commercial enterprise 6 points
Yes, with foreign currency worth at least $1.8 million for a new commercial enterprise 12 points
See my results
Methodology
For greater clarity, some answers are simplified from what appears in the bill. For example, the legislation proposes an English test, with points allotted based on the applicant's performance. We instead created categories ranking English ability. The question about job salaries took the bill's original language regarding "150% of median income" and calculated actual salaries based on the U.S. median household income of $51,939 in 2014. The full text of the bill can be found here. http://time.com/4887574/trump-raise-act-immigration/
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My issue with the gender/race issues in the STEM field is how do we measure succes? When we have a distribution that represents the population at large?
The assumption is that we have a problem because the percentages of women and minorities are low relative to their percentage of population. This may be an issue and maybe there are barriers to entry that need to be addressed. But say you address those issues and the distribution remains the same. What then? Do you determine there must be some other barrier for entry that you didnt address? Does this go on adnauseum until you hit your desired percentage?
My concern with this whole thing is it seems altruistic at face value but as i think about it more it feels more like putting people in boxes. What happens whem we hit our perfect percentages ? Do we no longer hire some people because it will skew the percentages again?
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On August 08 2017 21:18 Kickboxer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2017 20:21 Plansix wrote:
Not all ideas were created equal and some of them are just masks for well trodden sexist stereotypes used in other professions to say women were not suited for the job. The female vs. male propensities he's listing are well documented in clinical psychology. It's all backed up by actual, peer reviewed science based on sizeable group samples dealing with children as well as adults. I know that because it's been popping up a lot, lately. You should really look into it, since you seem to be dismissing it with particular zeal as something not based on actual evidence - something like gender studies, for example. On the other hand the idea that men and women are interested in the same or even similar things, and / or motivated by the same or even similar environments and topics, is to a clear degree disconnected from "manifest" reality as it is expressed in roughly 95% of the population (across cultures and time). It's just so incredibly, blatantly obvious how different we are that it's literally contingent. You can attribute it to social construction, sure, but that has turned out to be factually wrong. To a major extent the social constructivist myth is biologically untrue, it is psychologically dishonest, and the nonsense has to stop sooner rather than later. Warping the work environment of specific industries to shove women into professions they aren't even interested in will address exactly nothing. Besides, women are free to start an all-female software company where they can thrive in a non-patriarchal environment and organize themselves as they please. Maybe they're more interested in fashion&lifestyle blogging, tho? I don't know.
I'd say one very valid point has been made is that some people perceive assertive women differently. However, I would say that those same people are also likely to see non-assertive men differently.
There will obviously also be people who use the differences between men and women to actually discriminate against people based on stereotypes even when they do not apply. Women can definitely do all of the things that men can do, and some choose to do those things. The same is true the other way around.
It only becomes a problem when people make assumptions based on these stereotypes that aren't true for certain individuals.
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On August 08 2017 20:28 Liquid`Drone wrote:
With the sidenote that I only read like 10% of the letter, I agree with warding here. I don't think all his arguments are valid, for example I think claiming universality regarding gender behavior relating to culture is bound to be wrong. But I don't think his arguments are incendiary. From what I saw, he's not attacking the women who are there and saying they are inferior biologically, he's saying there are explanations for why a 50/50 gender distribution hasn't been attained and reasons why it's not necessarily a goal to strive for. Personally, I think this is the type of difference of opinion that should ideally be permitted, and met through arguments (address where he is factually wrong) rather than firing him.
He didn't claim universality. He specifically said he doesn't claim universality.
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On August 08 2017 20:45 rageprotosscheesy wrote:The dude literally wrote this: Show nested quote +Neuroticism is a reason why there are less women in computer science. This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.
Except he didn't write that first sentence. you wrote that. He wrote that it may contribute. You wrote that it does. See the difference?
(he also provided links to back up all his claims, by the way .. but I guess we are going to ignore that and go with our opinions instead)
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Norway28558 Posts
On August 08 2017 21:47 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2017 20:28 Liquid`Drone wrote:
With the sidenote that I only read like 10% of the letter, I agree with warding here. I don't think all his arguments are valid, for example I think claiming universality regarding gender behavior relating to culture is bound to be wrong. But I don't think his arguments are incendiary. From what I saw, he's not attacking the women who are there and saying they are inferior biologically, he's saying there are explanations for why a 50/50 gender distribution hasn't been attained and reasons why it's not necessarily a goal to strive for. Personally, I think this is the type of difference of opinion that should ideally be permitted, and met through arguments (address where he is factually wrong) rather than firing him. He didn't claim universality. He specifically said he doesn't claim universality.
'On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:
They’re universal across human cultures'. Beyond giving birth, there are very, very few things that are actually universal across human cultures.
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