Has the ACLU ever cared about corporate censorship? I doubt it. It’s a pretty gigantic stretch to go from “nobody will sell my book” to “I’m being oppressed.”
The misogyny wasn’t in nitpicking gender differences (which may be as much socialized as congenital, but that’s besides the point), it was in the conclusions he drew from them. That was unquestionably misogynistic.
If you’re going to flounce from the thread you started, just do it, it doesn’t require such obvious setup
In as profoundly a misogynistic society and culture as ours, how could anyone at all have any confidence that it’s biology, not culture, responsible for an imbalance in a particular job that has nothing to do with physical size or strength?
Is it going out on a limb to hypothesize that biological differences between men and women lead to cultural differences? It’s the nature/nurture argument, is it not? And if culturally, women are better at care taking than men (for example), might it not also be true that culturally men approach problem solving differently than women. In short, it’s both, and you’ve posed a false dilemma. Certainly misogyny has exploited these differences and made them worse. It did not create them.
Yes, of course, with a demonstrated history of women pioneers in the software field, and then blatant evidence of systematic discrimination and exclusion of women in hiring, promotion, and work culture, we just have to assume with zero valid evidence whatsoever and based solely on my culturally biased assumptions that the biological differences between men and women must explain the disparities.
It’s undeniable, isn’t it?
Bullshit. At least bullshit that it would be possible to make any sort of conclusion about this in such a profoundly misogynistic culture and society. It’s no different than blaming biology for differences in test scores when society is so racially biased.
Women and men differ in physical size and strength, on average. There’s no evidence I’m aware of for inherent differences in ability to be an engineer, or a computer scientist, or a doctor, etc. Just assuming that biology is part of this strikes me as lazy at best.
Look, penis controlled scroll wheels were, admittedly, with hindsight, a sexist idea.
Yeah, looks like an assist is in order, ironically from the company that fired James Damore. Google “Google misogyny fired,” and you get that link.
Meanwhile, tech is a notoriously misogynistic field, in which too many male engineers feel at liberty to behave like they’re on Mad Men: 2020. Google, like many other tech giants, wants to attract the best engineers to the field, which means being an attractive workplace for male and female engineers alike.
Getting rid of a guy who tells his female coworkers that they’re bad engineers because women are neurotic? That’s a savvy business move.
Once again, when you actually look at the details of a case of so-called “cancel culture,” it’s a real good thing. This Damore asshole was rightfully kicked to the curb.
I see what happened now. I said, “different” and you assumed I meant “less capable”. It’s that pesky culture thing that bothers you, isn’t it? If we could just convince humanity to be rid of it once and for all, what a wonderful world it would be.
Why even assume any such differences at all?
That blew up quickly.
I read the full memo yesterday, and I don’t agree with everything it says, but I do think the ideas it includes should be acceptable to debate.
For greater understanding, please can you all clarify whether you think believing in biological differences between the sexes given current evidence is misogynistic, believing in the possibility and investigating whether there might be biological differences is misogynistic, or something else.
You can compare societies with more and less strict gender roles, and more and less individual freedom to see how preferences differ. And you can compare jobs that require similar skills but are more people orientated or more thing orientated.
Besides, supposing a difference in preferences is due to upbringing and not innate, that doesn’t help Google change it at the point of hiring.
I guess your lifetime has been short, because in my lifetime white supremacy was not only within the pale, but used as a campaign strategy by Southern governors. And I’m not letting northerners off the hook. For many it was a default, though we’d never vote in laws or politicians making this view explicit.
Do you think this attitude has totally vanished in 60 years?
I’m not assuming them. I’m simply not dismissing them.
And if you continue to treat every single issue like a social justice crusade, I’m pretty sure you’re going to continue to always come up with the same answer. Doesn’t that get a bit tedious?
People don’t want to remember this shit.
This was Boston in 19 fucking 76,
I’ve worked in tech for 40 years. You think the women who apply to Google meet your gender stereotypes? Especially after they’ve had to struggle against them since elementary school?
And do you think Google wouldn’t be creating even more of a hostile environment against women if they didn’t push back against this kind of stuff?
I, as a man, have seen tons of this crap. I could only imagine women have seen 100 x more. My daughter, who exhibited math skills while still in her crib and is a professor in a male-dominated field, certainly has.
I didn’t even think of that, but very true. I was thinking of more subtle racism. In 1975 my father got all sorts of shit for selling our house to a Haitian who was a cop. And this in a liberal area.
I’ll dismiss misogynistic, evidence-free screeds like Damore’s (you should too!). I wouldn’t dismiss someone hypothesizing that it’s possible that there are some differences in gender and sex beyond physical size and strength (and the few other clear physical differences), as long as they don’t make misogynistic and/or evidence-free assumptions or leaps.
I don’t do this. Just the ones regarding misogyny, white supremacy, etc.
Why give the benefit of the doubt to Damore? Have you read what he wrote? It’s full of misogynistic bullshit.
I’m far from convinced that this would be anything close to definitive or conclusive, considering how hard it is to qualitatively measure things like misogyny… but let’s see such data. Has someone done studies on this? If so, let’s see it.