What would have been protected vs. why he was allowed to be fired:

What he actually said in his memo:

​"I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism)."

To be fair, the rest of his memo was wildly unpolished and was filled with sloppy writing and language. Clearly this guy is a much better developer than he is a writer or scientist. His writing trips over itself throughout the memo, and his clear lack of editing and refinement of his ideas led him into a series of conflicting statements, plenty of which left the door open for the boot to his ass.

With that said, I think he was trying to communicate some very valid ideas and, unfortunately, fell victim to his own incompetence in expressing them in a clear, scientific, and objective way.

... And also circulated it within the company to get other "reviews" after the leadership team responsible for managing the discussion did not respond to his initial set of questions.

I read his memo after reading several articles about it, and i was pleasantly surprised to see footnotes, suggesting he had referenced actual studies supporting his claims, but no, his footnotes were just more of his own ideas and were often the "yes, but" part of the discussion that undercut the main point he was trying to make.

I don't think he genuinely believes "girls can't code" but even when articulating it as (paraphrasing) "we should make more non-coding jobs available" or "we should change the interview style to be less technical" the strong implication is that his view to get more women in the workplace is to get them out of coding jobs they are not qualified for, and that inherently they are unqualified because they are women.

He immediately followed that graph with calling women neurotic.

He did. The memo is really a work of shit - it's not very good at all.

Well at least we agree on something. Cheers to that.

Called it.

Where Damore went wrong was that he assumed that Google was the echo chamber. It's not - it's much bigger than Google and he's as fucked with the courts as he is with HR.

What I want to know is why the fuck our police aren't putting more women in prison. Clearly the statement that there are more men criminals out there is biased and wrong, so our police must just be fucking up and not catching them. You might say that women criminals are just better than men at not getting caught, but that's biased and wrong too.

Or what about day care? Why are more men not working in day care jobs, looking after children? Surely you can't believe that men are more likely to be abusive than women, can you? Surely it can't be that men enjoy looking after children less than women, right? These are old biases that need to die.

Seriously, society is not grown up enough to have this discussion yet.

Yet, men do not enjoy other people's children as much as women do. Men who do, are a bit odd.

No, sir, that is a bias right there, and an oppression. Men and women are the same, didn't you get the memo? If you think you're observing a statistical difference between a trait in populations of men and women it is you, sir, that is wrong. Clearly.

While there are biological differences between men and women, the vast majority of differences are social in nature. And those social pressures have locked women into highly specific roles for virtually all of civilized history. But when women try to break out of those artificial constraints, or when they demand fair treatment, dipshits like you start spewing pseudo-scientific bullshit. It's statistics! It's biology! I'm just telling it like it is!

Fuck off.

"While there are biological differences between men and women, the vast majority of differences are social in nature"

That's a bold claim. I know you used the word "pseudo-science", but I'm not sure you understand what it means. In science what you have just posited is a hypothesis. If you have some experimental evidence to support the claim you might argue for it to be given the weight of a theorem. If there is overwhelming evidence to support it you can call it a theory.

I don't believe such science actually exists.

If you want an example of real science, consider the following : Male monkeys prefer boys’ toys

Social science and statistics is my fucking job, dipshit. What isn't my job is to provide you with a basic understanding of research that is widely known and well supported. That shitty graph you posted is actually an excellent point - assholes like you ignore that vast overlap between sexes, and instead focus on those small biological differences or larger social ones to justify a sexist ideology, while you innocently proclaim, it's just the data! I've seen the data, it's my fucking job. Stay in your armchair, dick.

I can't imagine you are very good at that job if this is as good as you can do to remain dispassionate. I'm not sure about your field of publication, but in mine we generally hold to a higher standard of objectivity... or at least try to.

Why should he "remain dispassionate"? You're a sexist fuckwit with no legitimate argument.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, these discussions are not being made in good faith. If you want to make a point, make your point. There's no reason to be condescending, rude, or dismissive as outlined below.

That's a bold claim. I know you used the word "pseudo-science", but I'm not sure you understand what it means. In science what you have just posited is a hypothesis.

I can't imagine...or at least try to. - All pointless.

Know your audience. If you're arguing from the bottom of the hill (unpopular opinion, such as "maybe women deserve to not be included in STEM, just saying" - check out this study on monkeys!) be humble on your way to the top of that hill.

The courts have ruled against one side's argument. That doesn't make it the winner, but it means you're already starting from a society-at-large losing position.

If you strike a nerve, apologize, and clarify yourself. Assuming your intention is to actually have a discussion, you should be able to ignore any ad hominem attacks and not address them directly.

I think everyone here, other than donnie and possibly yourself, is trying to say that his memo, and the logic behind it, is sexist.

The courts ruled that Google was not at fault firing him because:

-Google discharged Damore only for his "discriminatory statements,"
-“Employers must be permitted to ‘nip in the bud’ the kinds of employee conduct that could lead to a ‘hostile workplace’
-"What separates this [memo] is its derisiveness and stereotypical characterization of one gender."

Everyone (other than donnie) has been saying the memo is discriminatory, the logic is discriminatory, and that the idea of "trait based recognition" is simply a workaround to be discriminatory.

The courts sent Damore, and anyone who thinks like him, back to the drawing board if they want to outwardly act like that and stay gainfully employed.

There's no substantive difference between saying "maybe women just don't want STEM jobs" and saying "maybe black people just don't want to go to college". One is sexist, one is racist, they're both bullshit and discriminatory as hell.

""maybe women just don't want STEM jobs" is sexist because, as it is generally interpreted, it is a broad statement that is targeted at the entire group of women, is demonstrably false, and aims to belittle the group by asserting that there are inherent deficiencies that apply equally to all women.

That's not what this is about.

The confusion comes from other similar types of statements we make which, in absence of any political sensitivity, people generally interpret in the way they are intended. Consider:

Men are taller than women

This is also a demonstrably false statement if we take it to mean that all men are taller than all women. When people hear a statement like this, however, we generally have no problem understanding it to carry the very much more correct and scientific meaning of (something like) :

"While men and women present in nature with a distribution of heights, and while this distribution is affected by numerous factors including primarily genetics and the quality of nutrition in developmental years, when these factors are controlled for there remains a measurable difference in the distribution of height between male and female populations. The mean height for women is lower than that for men, although the distribution is also narrower. Men are taller on average, but there is more variability among men than among women."

This second statement is not sexist - it is a scientific statement that is made with reference to experimental data that, to the best of our knowledge, is an accurate reflection of reality. If you posted a job with a minimum height requirement of 5'10" you would expect to have a talent pool that has more men than women in it. You may find this reality to be offensive, but silencing science because the results offend you is a brutal and archaic practice that helps nobody. Sometimes the world isn't as we would like it to be, but we should not stop looking when what we see frightens us.

Moving on, there is a wealth of scientific evidence to support the notion that the brains of men and women are not, in fact, indistinguishable. Given this data, it is a perfectly valid scientific hypothesis to ask the question of what the implications for this can be.

Now, Damore probably took this too far in inserting his own soup of "conclusions" into his very un-scientific memo, but I think the important thing to take away from this isn't the clusterfuck he got himself into, but at least to raise awareness that this actually is an important question that, at present, I don't think we have a satisfying answer to.

Google has taken the position that "We don't know the answer to this question, but we're going to start making policy based on the assumption that the expectation value of the demographic split in our talent pool is 50%". At this point, regardless of the science, the talent pool is not equally distributed between men and women. If Google hires a disproportionate number of women, all they will achieve is to dilute the concentration of women in the tech pool for other employers to select from and, quite possibly, in so doing will be creating one workplace (theirs) with a "better" gender balance, but will overall end up making the rest of the industry even more male biased than it already is. Is this a productive solution to the problem, whatever that problem may be? Is anyone thinking about this question? I think that's an important point this should be making us think about.

Boys ended up concentrated in tech because they played with computers when they were kids. They played with computers more than girls when they were kids because computers were marketed more towards boys, so clearly there is a certain social aspect here. Female participation in post-secondary tech education peaked when home computers became popular - after that, boys were showing up in colleges and universities with years of experience already under their belts. Anyone who hadn't been programming since they were 12 were already behind. Going forward, this is something that society can change, but Google changing its hiring policies based on a dream won't change the people at its door holding resumes today.

This is something that has to start early - it's a change that will take decades (if we work from the assumption that parity can sensibly be had at all). More than other occupations, software development is one that is associated with continuous learning. Even after 20 or 30 years, developers are always learning new things and it is experience that no amount of education can substitute for. Regardless of gender, if a student is showing up for their first day of a CS degree having never seen a line of code in their lives it is simply very, very late - probably too late - for them to excel (on average). You can certainly learn to program at any age, of course, but discounting exceptional individuals, the average person will have a very hard time becoming competitive when they are a decade behind on the experience curve. For kids that are starting with this missing decade already baked in, it's a struggle the whole way.

If we want more girls getting into programming jobs, the hiring gate at Google is way too late in the game to start promoting change. The results are cooked by then and nothing Google can do will change that. Altering their hiring policy is therefore demonstrably counterproductive. If they really want to see change, Google should start to think about how to get girls interested in programming in elementary school. In fact, with home computers these days being more like toys and media consumption devices and much less like the computer science tools our generation had as kids it's probably something that should be coming up in discussions about elementary school curriculums - why aren't kids doing more programming at age 10-12?

In fact, if you'll stay your "sexist" whip for a moment and permit me a statement, girls have lately been demolishing boys in school performance generally. Putting CS into the curriculum at younger ages might completely tip the balance. Boys ended up dominant in CS, in some ways, by accident. Computers and video games got boys interested in computers and, incidentally, these have led to very lucrative careers for many. Few, I expect, actually planned for their childhood hobbies to be stepping stones to a future career, But girls are often better at planning, setting goals, and working to achieve them than boys - this is part of the reason they do so much better in school. What they need to be competitive in CS is no different than what boys had a generation past - an early start.

In any case, there is a very serious, very worthwhile set of issues here that, as adults, we should be able to discuss from an objective and scientific viewpoint without it turning into a hissing and scratching match over ideology or whatever other bullshit. You can't have a serious answer without a serious question, and if the discussion stops before the question is even allowed to be asked then we get nowhere - Google's efforts will demonstrably fail, and the real goal of getting more women into tech jobs will simply not progress.

You seem to be wanting to fight something no one else is. Women are different than men. No one is arguing that.

You do not get to push the idea that BECAUSE of these differences that women should be barred, provided obstacles, or not be allowed into any positions in which they want to participate.

Google has created minimum requirement in diversity, as is their prerogative.

Boys ended up concentrated in tech because they played with computers when they were kids.

That is a grossly broad statement, and not something that could be used in hiring in any way, shape, or form.

This is something that has to start early...

This whole paragraph is ridiculous. “Women didn’t play with computers as kids, and so will never rise to the level of boys that did?”

“A kid that grew up in a household without guns can’t be law enforcement because law enforcement carry and use firearms. It’ll be a struggle the whole way because of that DECADE lost.”

Just, no. You’re judging an entire gender based on a stereotype (that only you and a select few hold) of how children were raised and what the long term benefits of that stereotype means.

the hiring gate at Google is way too late in the game to start promoting change.

Lol, “too late to promote change”? What the hell is “too late to promote change”?

So we should just throw our hands up and hire men only, while “women get up to snuff in elementary school”. You’re going ALLOW -THAT- generation of women to compete with men. Not before?

Google is promoting change by allowing women to hold positions that they have sexistly been pushed out of in the past. I think the real panic is coming from the group that previously held a majority in this field. That they will be required to compete with a group they otherwise never had to compete with that is (by your own article) “demolishing them in school performance.”

Google's efforts will demonstrably fail, and the real goal of getting more women into tech jobs will simply not progress.

So specifically hiring women in a field their gender have previously been pushed out of will cause... less women to get into tech...

This “we need to look at the traits” argument is sexist.

You do not get to push the idea that BECAUSE of these differences that women should be barred, provided obstacles, or not be allowed into any positions in which they want to participate.

Agreed, I didn't suggest that at all.

That is a grossly broad statement, and not something that could be used in hiring in any way, shape, or form.

Of course it's broad, and it has nothing to do with hiring. It's simply an observation that does partly explain why CS classes (were) are filled with far more males than females. It's observing how we got to where we are and what it might teach us about how to change going forward.

“Women didn’t play with computers as kids, and so will never rise to the level of boys that did?”

No, that's not what I said.

“A kid that grew up in a household without guns can’t be law enforcement because law enforcement carry and use firearms. It’ll be a struggle the whole way because of that DECADE lost.”

Guns have one button. I'm not sure how this is relevant.

You’re judging an entire gender based on a stereotype (that only you and a select few hold) of how children were raised and what the long term benefits of that stereotype means.

I'm not judging anything. There are far fewer women programmers out there right now than men. If anything, I'm offering thoughts on how this state of affairs came to be by examining social phenomena that may have contributed to lower female participation in software education. These are things that aren't biological and that we can change as a society. I'm not even sure you're reading any of this, to be honest.

Lol, “too late to promote change”? What the hell is “too late to promote change”?

Perhaps the point we're failing to connect on here is the fact that it takes years of study to become a developer - particularly a high achieving developer of the type that Google is looking to hire. The problem is that the talent pool (ie : trained developers) is not a pool at gender parity. For a hiring policy to seek gender parity it must have a talent pool that can provide it. For the talent pool to go from "not parity" to "parity" is a pipeline problem. CS enrolment is also not at parity right now. At very best, with immediate social change, there won't be an equal number of male and female applicants at Google for probably another six to ten years while the next generation of kids works their way through school.

It's too late in the sense that Google can't magically make women developers appear out of the aether, overnight, by decree. All they can do is hire from the pool of people who apply - if they hire to parity when the talent pool is not it still doesn't change the fact that women are woefully under-represented in the field.

This whole discussion is about the ridiculousness of Google's hiring policies that target gender parity amongst their developers. The point of it is that Google targeting parity doesn't actually change anything because it's not doing anything about the root causes of why they have three women at their door with resumes for every seven men. They're hogging a 50% gender spread in a zero-sum game. To effect real change they need to be thinking about getting more girls interested in programming at a much earlier stage. At least that will give them a change of actually getting a parity workforce out there in the next decade or two.

You can't change the past - that's what "too late" means.

So we should just throw our hands up and hire men only, while “women get up to snuff in elementary school”. You’re going ALLOW -THAT- generation of women to compete with men. Not before?

No! Where are you getting this? Seriously. I think your brain is damaged.

Google is promoting change by allowing women to hold positions that they have sexistly been pushed out of in the past.

Well, I think the issue here is not that Google is hiring women, but that they are targeting a gender balance that is out of step with the gender balance of the talent pool who are available for hire. The issue is that they are preferentially hiring women for reasons other than performance. The effects of this are [1] : Google ends up with a disproportionate number of female developers compared to the rest of the industry, (Google's problem)[2] Google ends up passing up better qualified male candidates to meet quotas for females (also Google's problem), and [3] Google dilutes the pool of female developers available to other employers. Other employers, therefore, end up with an even stronger male bias than they would have if everyone simply hired fairly and ignored gender completely. At least in that case *all* workplaces, at least, would have more female developers (which is probably better for dev culture overall) rather than Google hogging more than their reasonable share for arbitrary reasons.

So specifically hiring women in a field their gender have previously been pushed out of will cause... less women to get into tech...

No, again wrong. I really must be awful at explaining myself...

“Women didn’t play with computers as kids, and so will never rise to the level of boys that did?”

No, that's not what I said.

"Anyone who hadn't been programming since they were 12 were already behind. If a student is showing up for their first day of a CS degree having never seen a line of code in their lives it is simply very, very late - probably too late - for them to excel" (your words)

--------------------------

“A kid that grew up in a household without guns can’t be law enforcement because law enforcement carry and use firearms. It’ll be a struggle the whole way because of that DECADE lost.”

Guns have one button. I'm not sure how this is relevant.

That's on me, I apologize, I'm used to talking to the people at work. Firearms are not a point-and-click at the bad guy interface regardless of what movies and school shootings might teach you. They require discipline, control, and practice to get good at their use (especially the different types). Lack of knowledge/immersion in early childhood does not make one worse or better. Practice and dedication does. I'm showing a comparison that will most likely be lost on you. Never mind.

There are far fewer women programmers out there right now than men. If anything, I'm offering thoughts on how this state of affairs came to be

Except that in NONE of your explanations do you admit or even speak to the rampant sexism that has existed in these fields. We've gone through this with the profession of lawyers, doctors, CEOs, police officers, even presidencies that women are inferior BECAUSE there are not more of them in these professions as opposed to Occam's Razor which would point at that men have traditionally excluded women, purposefully and with sexist malice.

You can say that sexism never existed, and even worse, no longer exists. You'd be a fool.

Google is one of the top tech companies in the world right now. It is the PERFECT place to push for social change. To put women in positions of power, design, and control to show women and girls that you CAN be interested in in TECH, that female ideas and perspective have value.

You may call this artificial manipulation of the hiring process. It was artificial manipulation of the hiring process (sexism) that kept women out of tech, doctoring, management, and politics throughout history. Consider this a market correction.

It just got tougher for men to get a job at Google, as they are competing for fewer slots. They do not qualify for the other slots. You are not required to work at Google. As you stated, there other employers. Diversity is important to Google, and while they could hire 10 men for 10 spots, Google would prefer to have diversity of ideas and opinions (and surprise, some of those men are going to be hired anyways). I think they're going to be just fine.

Also, Google isn't "diluting" anything if these women are applying to work at Google. Businesses do not have to "share" minorities. If there's only 2 women programmers in the world, Google isn't "hurting everyone else" by hiring both of them.

I really must be awful at explaining myself...
Probably the only thing, you, hellboy, and I will agree on.

You're not the first person to say "but what about the qualified menz?":

[1] "Anyone" != "Women". Trust me, I've had my fair share of male interns who didn't start coding until university and they were shit. The gap in performance is massive. That was my point - if you want more women to program we need to be thinking about the long game; long before they show up (or don't) with resumes.

[2] Police don't need to be marksmen (or women). A cop that can hit three out of ten shots is not really any better or worse at being a cop than a cop who is a sniper with their pistol. Programming is different. A mediocre developer can easily be ten, twenty, a hundred times, or even infinitely less productive than a very good developer. I've seen - same problem; one dev will crack it elegantly in a week, sometimes another would take six months to figure it out or just give up altogether.

[3] Except that in NONE of your explanations do you admit or even speak to the rampant sexism that has existed in these fields.

The point is that it's irrelevant in the context of Google's hiring process - the damage has already been done when they're staring at 98 male applications and two women for a single job. My point is that, whatever problems exist, they are not caused by Google hiring based on merit (and hiring women disproportionate to the applicant pool, ergo, will not fix the problem). If there is sexism in the pipeline that carries children through to dropping off resumes at Google then the solution to the problem is there, not at the HR desk.

[4] If there's only 2 women programmers in the world, Google isn't "hurting everyone else" by hiring both of them.

Well, if we're proceeding from the notion that all workplaces would benefit from having a better gender balance then, yes, they are hurting in the sense that, outside the Google utopia, they've just driven down the gender balance at every other workplace (thereby sweeping "the problem" out to other workplaces to continue to fester).

So do the long game, reach out to the women in college. Make diversity hires redundant because there's already enough applicants all around. In the meantime, Google is free to reserve 2 out of 10 of their spots for diversity hires.

Google wants diversity of opinion and thought NOT just programming skill. It cannot be achieved by having all men. All men will not be able to fulfill that role. For the first time in their life, there is nothing they (men) can do to get those spots. Should be a very eye-opening experience for many of them.

The inability to get a job regardless of how hard you work? If there was a way to bottle the irony, we could probably sell it.

That is an awful lot of work to say "I have no fucking idea how diversity hiring actually works."

There is nothing more pathetic than a butthurt Straight White Male.

Well, you explain that to the butthurt female engineering project manager at Google who essentially says the same thing.

All she cared about was skill (not diversity):

-These women show up at work and perform not as great as we want them to

And she further explains that the women had to meet or beat the TOTALLY REALISTIC /s expectations of their male counterparts:

-It reinforces to the male population that was already peeved by the diversity push that women aren’t that good at tech after all

Well, and now we're really getting to the core of the matter. You have to make a choice as an employer - either you hire with zero bias, doing your best to find and keep the best candidates - or you hire for other reasons beyond the ostensible job description.

The problem with diversity hires is the message it sends - not just to men, but to women also. It says "you can't compete with men on equal footing so we're hiring you because you are women, not necessarily because we think you're the best candidate". I mean, isn't that the attitude we'd both like to see gone?

It also sends the message that "We'd like more women around...not because we need you to be good developers, but, you know, just as set dressing to help improve the mood". I mean, that's really awful. You might as well add "getting coffee" to the job description.

Diversity hiring is fundamentally an activity that continues to promote the divisive attitudes and negative stereotypes that it is ostensibly trying to correct. It's a bad approach that is ultimately self defeating. If you think you need it, things are still broken and doing it adds fuel to the fire. If you fix the underlying problem, the need for it goes away - and it needs to go away because it's sitting there like a splinter keeping the wound from healing.

doing your best to find and keep the best candidates

They are finding the best candidates for what they want to do. You think it is all about programming skill and it is not.

I mean, isn't that the attitude we'd both like to see gone?

Would love to see it gone. Only the people ineligible for the position are complaining or saying that the people occupying said position don’t deserve it. Sexism is still a problem in society.

"We'd like more women around...not because we need you to be good developers, but, you know, just as set dressing to help improve the mood"

Because women couldn’t possibly be good developers AND offer their own unique perspective? If someone is occupying a reserved spot, OBVIOUSLY they’re just set dressing? As I said, sexism is still a problem in society.

If you fix the underlying problem, the need for it goes away

Which convienantly will take generations to “fix”.

IN THE MEANTIME, minorities can be offered reserved spots to ensure that unique viewpoints, ideas, and perspectives are preserved. Especially after that minority just finished facing close to a century of sexist viewpoints which excluded them entirely from the field (and look! continues today.).

If you want it to go away, start getting rid of those sexist viewpoints. Push for women to enter STEM. Show them that women can not only do the job, but be successful, like at Google.

I had a plush T-rex and Aliens action figures - THEY'RE NOT DOLLS MOM - as a little girl. Boy or girl's toys?

It's not about the toys, per-se. The critical question is how they are interacted with. In the study with the apes, for example, the plush toys were variously cuddled and comforted as well as having served as targets for more aggressive and competitive behaviour. The questions this raises are more to do with how those behaviours represent statistically across the genders and are not so much about the specific form that the toy takes.

Are you saying they didn't cuddle with the hard, wheeled toy? Well I never!

Let's also consider the language you used here - "...the vast majority"

Does that mean that there are a minority of traits that are linked to biological differences and that have different distributions in the male and female populations? If so, then at least we agree in principle and have only to better understand where that line is drawn. What distribution, for example, of men to women would you expect to find among, say, building inspectors?

I don't think anyone can answer that question scientifically, at least in a quantified way, at present, but I think the probability of the answer being 50% for all occupations is effectively zero. The only sane answer, and the best answer for equality, to simply evaluate every individual on their own merits and let the numbers fall how they will. Trying to correct one bias with another is not logical.

Logical in an autistic sort of way. I mean i have no doubt that the metrics will bear out the desired conclusion you're looking for after just the right ones have been cherry picked.

It's funny that in all these discussions, no one ever touches on the fact Damore has autism.

Maybe Donnie does too?

What I want to know is why the fuck our police aren't putting more women in prison. Clearly the statement that there are more men criminals out there is biased and wrong, so our police must just be fucking up and not catching them.

Women are being caught at the rate they’ve always been caught. It is only in the last century that they have had access (opportunity) to the types of jobs that would allow them to commit the crimes that men are typically arrested for. Money laundering, for example, has a key ingredient that you need access to in order to perform. When prior to 1950 women were housewives or secretaries (yes yes generalization) they were either in non enforcement areas (home) or had such little opportunity to commit crime of note (the kind that puts you in prison) that the numbers are skewed.

The same sexism that has kept women down in previous generations actually works in their favor when it comes to crime now. People, including law enforcement, have underestimated women’s potential and ability. When women would claim ignorance of wrongdoing, enforcement and the courts were bending over backwards to conform to the stereotype. This issue is known, and is being corrected through procedure and training. As with all things, it’s going to be some time (longer than most people are willing to wait) before the stastics bear out the changes.

Or what about day care? Why are more men not working in day care jobs, looking after children?

There ARE men working in daycare jobs. They are not banned, and no one is discussing via memo that men are inherently inferior to others watching children (in order to explain their low numbers and possibly why that trend should continue).

Surely you can't believe that men are more likely to be abusive than women, can you? Surely it can't be that men enjoy looking after children less than women, right?

If you were to say these things at an interview as to why you were not hiring the man in front of you applying, they would (rightfully) be able to sue you for gender discrimination. It’s almost like we, as a society, passed laws against this kind of thing because we want these biases to die.

Seriously, society is not grown up enough to have this discussion yet.

It’s exactly why we have you donnie, so that we, as a society, can learn from the people that have it all figured out.

The point is that we are (rightly) not letting guilty male criminals off lightly when they commit crimes simply because they are overrepresented in the prison population. Likewise we are not putting more women in prison for minor reasons that don't merit punishment simply to achieve some arbitrary "balance".

And, of course, there are men employed in child watching jobs. Not nearly as many as women, however, and that very statistical distribution is what this discussion is all about. And I think if any daycare out there solicited applications for workers that said "women need not apply - we have too many already" there would be an uproar - again, rightly so. The real question is - are there fewer men watching children because of societal biases, oppression, etc, or is it simply the case that between the genders there are a disproportionate number of women who have the right aptitudes and interests to be attracted to that type of job and to do the job well?

Why aren't there more women in jobs like coal mining, firefighting, and garbage collection, by the same token? Why aren't more men interested or employed in the very prestigious and lucrative medical fields of Speech Language Pathology and Occupational Therapy?

The vast majority of professions in the spectrum of human endeavour have some degree of gender bias in representation. I think the core question that is being raised here is why this is a problem in fields like leadership and STEM when it isn't seen as a problem elsewhere; and asks, critically, what scientific evidence do we have to suggest that exact parity, in absence of any oppressive or coercive interventions, should be the expected distribution for gender representation in all occupations?

The point is that we are (rightly) not letting guilty male criminals off lightly when they commit crimes simply because they are overrepresented in the prison population.

As I said, the authorities are aware of the problem, the injustice, and are actively working to correct the problem. We will start imprisoning women at a rate you find acceptable as soon as possible.

The real question is - are there fewer men watching children because of societal biases, oppression, etc, or is it simply the case that between the genders there are a disproportionate number of women who have the right aptitudes and interests to be attracted to that type of job and to do the job well?

You’re not going to “fix” cultural bias, not through legislation. All you can do is make the playing field as fair as possible, and remove those that would try to “blind” us with the new discrimination fad “individual trait recognition”.

The argument being: Don’t exclude women because they’re women. Exclude women by looking at a specific stat, and argue you’re just trying to min/max efficiency. We’re just looking at the traits! Biology is the sexist, racist, etc.! *smokebomb* *escape*

Why aren't there more women in jobs like coal mining, firefighting, and garbage collection, by the same token?

You’re missing the forest for the trees. The idea is NOT to simply shore up the numbers. The idea is to prevent artificial barriers to entering the field for those that want to participate. The google engineer pushed the idea that “maybe this just isn’t the field for women” and that google was “artificially propping up” women’s participation.

“As soon as we start to moralize an issue, we stop thinking about it in terms of costs and benefits”

We, as a society, are not a zero sum game. We are not a cost versus benefit society. There are going to be those that “cost” more than they “benefit”. We do not exclude them, we do not abandon them. They get to participate.

I think the core question that is being raised here is why this is a problem in fields like leadership and STEM when it isn't seen as a problem elsewhere.

In leadership and STEM there is and has been a clear, artificial, stereotypical, discriminatory exclusion of women. The google engineer was trying to normalize it by saying “that’s just how we are, it’s natural”.

You appear to be saying that until ALL disproportionate positions are “cleared up” and match population distributions, we can’t focus on leadership and STEM. You are incorrect sir.

"You appear to be saying that until ALL disproportionate positions are “cleared up” and match population distributions, we can’t focus on leadership and STEM. You are incorrect sir."

No, I'm saying that if we can admit that disproportionate representations are a natural expression of the underlying population then, regardless of the field, aiming for parity as an arbitrary goal is ill founded. Google might be able to achieve that goal, for example, but if Google's 50% utopia is not in line with the actual distribution in the talent pool then all they are doing is forcing up the concentration gradient in the rest of society - Google's 50% distribution gets paid for by other tech companies ending up with a counterbalancing excess concentration of males. Policy can't magically cause more men or women to appear with the skills to do certain jobs. I mean, if wishes were horses...

I will take your bait and summarize it thusly:

Today, the focus on gender / diversity and overall representation "equality" is focused in STEM fields, and specifically in high tech jobs, because that was the primary lever the Obama administration had to work with: "if you want to win a lucrative government contract for services, you have to make your company more representative of the US population". These companies didn't all decide to start publishing "diversity reports" out of the goodness of their own hearts. I was actually thinking this might change under Trump but so far hasn't happened.

And certainly people will give lip service to, and some actually believe, that having a more diverse workforce will provide a better overall product, but the real impetus here is simply because they were forced to. Companies like Google that have international offices are not looking to bring more white people to their Indian or Chinese development offices, and no need for more Africans in their Ukranian development sites. It is strictly focused on their US offices (typically because of their headquarters being in the US) and is to align their workforce to US demographics, by hook or crook.

But i'll reiterate this is "Today" in that they need to start somewhere, and in reality they focused on STEM because the roles are more lucrative and they are hoping to use this as an indirect way to bring more POC into higher "class" living standards than statistically have been. Also to provide reasonable public figures for POC to aspire to be.

But i don't know if it is going to work out that way, ultimately, and there is clear resentment on both sides.
Picture yourself being the "token" person who gets asked "Hey Carl, can you look at this print ad and tell us if there is anything overtly racist in it to you?" - that was the implication from the recent "black boy wears monkey Tee in UK ads" broughaha, that if only some person of color had looked they would have seen it instantly (even though, in the UK, they don't have the same institutional racism history of the US and calling dark skinned people "Monkey", or "Ape" or "Gorilla" is an inherently US thing to do...)

Or picture yourself as the Indian / Chinese immigrant (or citizen) being told "no thanks, we have enough of you lot, we're only interested in "under-represented" minorities. Go take your PHD learnings to some other place.". Never mind the crusty old white dudes who are effectively aging out of the program in their fifties because the company needs to make room for more women, minorities, etc who also happen to be younger and cheaper.

TL;DR, there is a "pipeline problem" identified in STEM that is actively being worked on. There may be similar issues in other industries for people of all genders and colors, but those are not getting dealt with at the same priority as it is assumed the biggest "bang for the buck" in terms of income redistribution and elevating the status of key groups, is through STEM.

There is a tendency for set cultures to emerge in fields. This leads to problems when a lack of divergent viewpoints arises compared do the general population. Women and men have different experiences then men, and while I don't care about 50/50 representation, I think its clear that issue grows with the gap.

In stem and politics at least, I feel like this issue is one of the easiest to notice. Politicians are more likely to blunder and anger a unrepresented population if they don't have anyone with a good perspective of that populations experience. if this happens enough people will care more about being unrepresented. The same can be viewed for industry, but with biases in work causing issues with biased results, something particularly bad for stem industry.

I don't doubt a lack of male positions can causes issues as well, I just don't think its always as apparent do to the current distribution of gender in fields.

Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the fact that a child care worker makes barely above minimum wage.

Speech language pathologists make crazy money. Why so many women? Men also work plenty of minimum wage jobs where they are similarly overrepresented.

When women increasingly entered the workforce over the mid 20th century and barriers to their entry were removed there were plenty of occupations that rapidly converged to near parity (marketing, pharmacists, electronics assembly, probation officers, etc) or, even, where women rapidly dominated (opticians, HR, bill and account collectors) where men once had overwhelming majority representation. Others did not converge, even in the seeming absence of any barriers whatsoever.

even in the seeming absence of any barriers whatsoever.

...which doesn't apply in the case of STEM.

Speech language pathologists make crazy money.

It doesn't really look like they do.

More than a senior web developer... If Lucy became a SLP and Mary studied C#/ASP.NET, they'd probably have similar salaries. This is about women in tech, right?

Less than a senior web developer, and that requires maybe a Bachelors, but not really, while a SLP absolutely requires a Master's degree.

For anyone interested in a related dataset to browse... this is quite interesting.

Most Female and Male Occupations Since 1950 :
The shifting majorities of the sexes in the workplace.

I love how deeply and passionately neo-libs will debate a non-issue if it's gender, race or sexually related.