[QUOTE=Cynthia Lee]
In the end, focusing the conversation on the minutiae of the scientific claims in the manifesto is a red herring. Regardless of whether biological differences exist, there is no shortage of glaring evidence, in individual stories and in scientific studies, that women in tech experience bias and a general lack of a welcoming environment, as do underrepresented minorities. Until these problems are resolved, our focus should be on remedying that injustice. After that work is complete, we can reassess whether small effect size biological components have anything to do with lingering imbalances.
[/quote]
I agree with almost everything you’re saying. It’s absolutely essential that women be treated with equality and respect in tech companies (and all companies). If they are ignored or looked down on, and particularly if they are harassed, that is absolutely unacceptable.
That said, while “That is what a lot of gender diversity initiatives are trying to address. They aren’t trying to make genders 50:50 in the office.” may or may not be true (beats me), the overall gender imbalance has certainly come to symbolize, to encapsulate, the issue overall. If, in fact, as I suspect (but do not know), there is (all other things being equal) sufficiently more interest in tech careers among boys/men than girls/women that the “natural” percentage of female programmers was, say, 30%, and society poured a lot of effort into getting the actual percentage up to, say, 35%, I strongly suspect that a lot of people’s reactions would be “well, that’s progress, but there’s still a long way to go”, as if a single private sector career field having a non-50/50 split MUST by necessity be a full-blown societal injustice.
Which, if you think about it, is just silly. There are plenty of careers, even high status careers, that are women-dominated, and no one cares. Veterinarians, for instance.
Women in tech (and all other occupations) should be treated well, period. Linking that issue to overall gender balance has the risk of backfiring, both because it gives the implicit message of “well, tech is only 20% women, of COURSE the men are going to be assholes”, as if that somehow gives permission for the men to treat the women poorly, and because if super-aggressive diversity recruitment ends up hiring candidates who aren’t ideal fits (which could be due to level of interest without having anything to do with biological aptitude), then that just gives ammunition to the bigots.
Perhaps, but if true, the symbolism goes both ways. The side that perceives sexism sees the imbalance as evidence that gender bias is at play, and the side the puts in credence in the natural proclivity theory sees the imbalance as evidence of that. In the middle is the view that both factors are likely happening to some extent, and since the numbers alone don’t tell us which is true, it makes sense to factor in what people are observing in the field. That means listening to women when they say the culture is unfriendly to women.
I’m a vet and people within the profession do care about the gender distribution. Recruitment of more men is a challenge that is regularly discussed at vet schools across the country. This kind of thing doesn’t get as much airtime as the tech stuff, but I assure you it hardly is an invisible issue.
I disagree, if anything because the imbalance is a relevant piece of evidence that bias might be leading to outcomes that then go on to further perpetuate the problem.
I hope nothing I have said suggests that I in any way attempt to downplay that very real issue. I’m just saying that a culture that’s unfriendly to woman is an issue that needs to be addressed, period. That would be true if women were 50% of programmers (or 80% of programmers), and is true if women are 20% of programmers due purely to sexism, and is true if women are 20% of sexism for any combination of other reasons.
I was not aware of that. But, and this might seem like an odd question, who cares? What if vets are 80% female? So what? (As long as we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s genuinely due to something benign like generally higher interest in being a vet among women and not sexism?)
Except that I think that you risk polluting the clear, important part of the debate with this murky possibly-but-not-certainly-related issue. To oversimplify, imagine this (admittedly exaggerated) dialog:
A: Tech culture is toxic towards female employees. Here are an avalanche of anecdotes of mistreatment. Also, google only hires 20% female programmers, so clearly google is sexist!
B: Wait, that 20% figure is right in line with the percentage of female CS graduates, haha, you are a stupid SJW and I have proven you to be stupid and dishonest haha!
Is a toxic culture in which women are frequently belittled and harassed an important issue that needs to be publicized and addressed? Absolutely, unquestionably, certainly. Is the fact that there are fewer women than male programmers an important issue that needs to be publicized and addressed? Umm, maybe? But it’s complicated and debatable, and now we’ve lost the clarity we got from the first question.
In the memo, Damore noted that women are more into aesthetics and more likely to work on front end projects, which suggests an equal interest but along different lines (builders vs. stylers). I don’t quite understand the biology of that but it’s true in my case; I have a definite lack of interest in the programming side of things and would rather be on the design side. One could make a career out of either side; tech education is widely available and it’s cheap. Google itself has partnered with Udacity to offer skills training online, and coding classes are everywhere.
It’s evident that women are not represented well in leadership in big tech companies and they are less apt to be highly-paid programmers; it’s not as obvious to me that women are way less interested in the tech field, or in seeking careers at big tech companies in some capacity. I still don’t know the specifics of the 50:50 ratio Google seems to want, either, and it’s hard to form an opinion without it.
And since you mentioned vets, Max, I pulled up this AVMA article about efforts to understand the underrepresentation of men in the profession. Lots of ideas are discussed that mirror what is speculated about women in tech, including this:
But one thing jumps out: the men interviewed don’t report being excluded, harassed, or disrespected because of their gender.
…we are talking about the executive team. You don’t get executive experience unless you are “aggressive” or “ambitious.” You don’t get executive experience without figuring out how to both have babies and be able to do your job. We aren’t talking about people who have “risen through the ranks” at google. Did that really have to be explained to you?
This is why Shodan’s assertions about “babies” and “ambition” are irrelevant.
[QUOTE=From the comments]
Google gets roughly 130 applications for each job opening. Again, to keep it simple, let’s say that 130:1 ratio applies across entry-level job openings, including coders. And let’s say that only the top 20% of applicants are good enough to meet Google’s standards.
Given those numbers, for any entry-level coding job Google would typically have 26 qualified applicants: 20 men and 6 women. That’s the 80:20 ratio referenced above, with the ‘extra’ qualified applicant a woman, based on the GitHub study results.
If Google hire a qualified man from that pool of 26, they will turn away 19 qualified men and 6 qualified women. If they hire a qualified woman from that pool, they will turn away 20 qualified men and 5 qualified women. Either way, they will turn away about two-dozen qualified applicants, including both men and women.
If Google decide their code shop should more closely resemble the demographics of their market — roughly 50:50 m/f — they have plenty of qualified women in the pool for a typical coding job.
[/QUOTE]
The same would apply to the executive team: the same would apply to pretty much any organization. The pool of qualified applicants is more than large enough to be able to find 4 women with ambition who can also manage their private lives. I haven’t argued that google should do this. I’m arguing that it isn’t as impossible as Shodan posits.
You just admitted that there is sexism. Diversity programmes are about working to remove sexism from the equation. Sexism exists. All things are not equal. Working to eliminate sexism and to make things more equal is not inherently problematic.
My cite does not say that every single black worker in computer related fields in Washington are inferior to every single worker at google. This is the conclusion you have reached based on my cite. I’m asking you what specific part of my cite have lead you to that conclusion.
I didn’t ask about “likelihood.” How do you quantify that? Why do you keep dodging the question? We’ve gone from qualifications to likelihood.
I asked if they could do the same job. If two people with identical qualifications who both passed the application process and were given the same job: your assertion would be that the person from the University of Texas El Paso wouldn’t be able to do the job as well as the person from Stanford? Is that correct?
But we aren’t talking about high-school drop outs. We are talking about people with identical qualifications who have gone through identical screening/interview processes. Why is the the University of Texas El Paso student less likely to do the job as well as the person from Stanford?
If you are going to assert that my statement of "Nobody is advocating google hire unqualified women is a “non-factual assertion” I’m going to keep on using the word “unqualified” until you admit that what I stated was indeed factual. Nobody is advocating google hire unqualified women is a correct statement: do you agree?
A warm body who can meet a minimum standard does not fit my definition of “qualified.” You seem to be laboring under some sort of misapprehension.
I can’t tell if this is an attempt at humour, a strawman, or something else entirely.
That’s true, and that’s why I don’t think we should think of lower men in the veterinary profession as a problem. I do think there are unquestionably problems for women at Google and in other technology-related fields, as well as in engineering. But I don’t think we can conclude than in a world without exclusion, harassment or disrespect the ratio of men to women at google would be 50:50.
Correct. And women are less likely to be as aggressive or ambitious and more likely to take time off to have children than men. Since this is the case, men are going to predominate.
Again with the manufacture of words to try to put in my mouth. Your allegation that I have said it is impossible is non-factual.
Nice try. Of course, by “nice” I mean “silly”.
Yet another example of you making things up to attribute to me.
He or she would be less likely to do the job as well as someone from a more demanding university.
No, in fact we are not talking about people with identical qualifications. An MIT graduate has better qualifications than a graduate from a lesser school. MIT is a better school than most. So, QED.
…once again: how is this applicable here? The average age of the executive team is over 50. How many of them are planning to take time off to have a baby?
Why is this not the case in industries that women predominate? Do they not have babies in those industries as well?
I stand by my interpretation. Its just silly to claim that lack of ambition and taking time off to have children is a limiting factor in selecting an executive team.
I haven’t done anything but interpret your words.
I haven’t made anything up at all.
I asked you:
“So in the DC Metro area, where black people make up 17.3% of the jobs in the computing occupations, those businesses have hired inferior workers?”
Your response:
“Compared with the workers at Google? Yes.”
That 17.3% of black people would include people who have qualifications from prestige universities like Stanford or MIT. Yet according to you they are still inferior to workers at google. The only common factor of that 17.3% is the colour of their skin. I’ve asked you to clarify why that 17.3% of people are inferior: but you refuse too. So what other conclusion do you want me to come too? If you refuse to clarify, I’ll stand by my conclusion.
But google have now tripled the places they recruit from, including many “less demanding universities.” Are they doing it wrong?
Google determines what qualifications are required for the job, not you. And they have determined that these people from these “lesser schools” are indeed as qualified as people from the "better schools. So QED. Knock yourself out.
And of course one reason women might tend to be less aggressive in the workplace is because aggressiveness from women tends to be perceived more negatively than aggressiveness in men, because… ta-da! Sexism.
I think it’s hilarious this programmer hitched his wagon to the Alt-right just before they carried out a terrorist attack. “Hey, this programmer looks good for the new position, let’s just carry out the standard Google search of him. Oh no, no, no.”
Well that’s a bit of a fucking stretch. You seriously think that anyone who opposes gender quotas in IT jobs is somehow associated with Nazis? Talk about Godwinning a thread.
Do you think anyone who fights for any civil rights for black people is responsible for the Black Lives Matter guy who shot a bunch of cops in Texas?
Stefan Molyneux, and Jordan B. Peterson are not Nazis, not anything close. Neither is Milo. All that article says is that Damore used a photographer who has photographed alleged Nazis, and who photographed Damore for free. If a landscaper who has landscaped for Nazis offers to mow your lawn for free and you accept, does that make you a Nazi?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if the programmer’s name became a term for a type of loser like Quisling’s did? The name of the programmer is James Damore. It’d be hysterical if henceforth a damore is someone who makes himself unemployable for life by joining a fascist movement the week before in commits a terror attack.