Sounds like the same workers that cheered when one of their colleagues was fired in retaliation for offering a counterpoint to identity politics based HR policies. You reap what you sow.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice was written about 200 years ago and is as current as ever.
The “counterpoint”, that women were not as well suited toward engineering roles due to their biology, was “offered” on a company mailing list.
While this is, notably, what a Microsoft employee in a non-engineering role reportedly said (in an unclear and unexplained reference to purported "thought patterns") referencing their own diversity efforts, Damore's memo did not allege that women at Google or any other company might be less suited; only that the pool of those who would be interested enough to pursue the field in the first place might be smaller.
It did though. Damore hedges a bunch, but
>I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.
Can be reduced to
> I’m simply stating that the distribution of [...] abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.
It is really saying there are fewer suitable women. Which is true, and there is a huge movement to remedy that by making it more inclusive. Not that I'm on-board with lowering the bar hiring unqualified applicants or anything, but I think changing project structures to use better use underutilized talent is great for employers and employees.
Though, IMHO, the most honest way to do any of this is by evaluating candidates sight unseen, with no name presented, to remove bias. I like that other approaches are attempted, but this one is my favorite. It doesn't make my resume less favorable. :)
About abilities, it's well known that men have a higher standard deviation of IQ, which, as Damore explained, means there are more men of high IQ than there are women. Google preferentially hires high IQ people so it will be skewed towards men, all else being equal.
Not really. Science certainly agrees that there are differences between males and females. But if you can find me a peer reviewed article showing a causal relationship between sex and performance in a software engineering career, controlling for environmental and social factors, you'd be the first.
> Google preferentially hires high IQ people so it will be skewed towards men, all else being equal.
Note here you aren't arguing about performance, but about culture. But to throw a wrench in your argument, Google hires mostly college graduates, which as we all know, skew female. Sprinklinga wrong "ceteris paribus" into your line of thinking isn't conducive to interesting discussion.
Yes, I think they probably do get more females by preferring graduates than they would if they didn't have that bias towards graduates.
What do you mean by a wrong ceteris paribus? Of course it's wrong in the sense that all else isn't equal in reality, but you can still consider what would happen if it was. Or do you mean it's not even possible for all the other factors to be constant because they're correlated with the one we're changing so we still have to make a choice about which ones to really hold constant?
And that said, obviously retaliation is going to vary on the scenario. You're essentially saying that they deserve retaliation for reporting sexual harassment etc because of an entirely separate incident.
No, that's a complete non-sequitur from what they said.
It's bizarre how such an obvious point is being described as grasping at straws, a non-sequitur etc.
Of course, there are individuals like yourself who have a different perspective on that -- and for the purposes of keeping this discussion on topic I'll avoid sharing my views on that. Regardless, it is different from being fired or punished for reporting sexual harassment or racial discrimination. There is substantially no political group who, at least publicly, would espouse the view that such reports are wrong, or should be punishable in any way. Except I suppose if they are found to be baseless. So if someone suffers adverse consequences due to making such reports, assuming they are made in good faith, almost everyone would agree that that is retaliation.
Not quite: retaliation is when someone experiences adverse consequences for using the proper channels and methods to try to do the right thing.
They are allowed to be wrong about whether their complaint or concern is actionable; as long as the employee was proceeding properly they are protected against retaliation.
It is not true that he stated women are less suited to the job. It is possible that he was implying it. Firing him for something he did not say, but may have implied, is weak. Destroying a person's livelihood for an imagined offense WHILE the company releases a statement that they encourage widespread opinions is even weaker.
I don't understand how that's relevant. I mean I grant you that wrongdoers often believe they are doing right. That is true in almost any context. The issue is about whether wrong is being done -- by which I mean, the consensus viewpoint on that question -- not how the wrongdoers feel about their wrongdoing.
(I see your other paragraph, but I'm not responding to it because, as I said earlier, I don't wish to discuss my views on it. I'm not afraid to talk about it, but I don't think it would move this particular discussion forward.)
Also, politics is human decency. It's a way of imposing our morals onto everyone else. Some people (protesting Googlers) think killing people in wars is against human decency. It is, and it's also political.