Some of you have surely heard of the recent case of the Google's software engineer's manifesto against the search giant's practices towards inclu...
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This is brilliantly stated. There are some people out their doing mental gymnastics to deny the necessary evolution in the inclusivity of our industry.
The analogy I keep running Through my mind when I hear about "lowering the bar" is a Major League Baseball team that wants to win by signing top players from non-US markets like Dominican Republic and Japan. In order to attract these players and help them fit in, a team has to jump through a lot of hoops to provide translators, train the players on the nuances of the American game and wait for them to get accustomed to the shocking culture. Does that mean the bar is being "lowered"? In a very naive sense, yes. An American college kid from Florida is going to be prepped to fit right in and know how to contribute from day one. But as we've seen, teams capable of being welcoming and leverage the capabilities of foreign-born players are the ones succeeding. At this point it would be considered moronic to not bend to the specific needs of a player who comes from a "different" culture and language.
So when people complain that companies need to go out of their way to support candidates and employees from diverse backgrounds and think of it as "lowering the bar", I think "Okay, you go start the company that lets 5% of the world's population do their best work, and I'll go start one that shoots for 100% and goes out of its way to do so."
That's a great analogy, Ben!
Gonna steal it for my next conversations on the subject. ๐ฎ
Here's one last thing that's been on my mind: It seems like me that the same people railing on Google for firing an employee for dissenting in this way over free speech are the same general crowd that backed Yelp's right to fire an employee for writing about her crappy pay/treatment. That's completely anecdotal, but it's what I've observed.
Good analogy Ben! I think that makes a lot of sense. The way I see it is I t's not about lowering the bar, it's about bringing the bar as many people as possible.
Disclaimer: I haven't been able to find a copy of the actual manifesto to read myself (for some reason nobody seems to want to link to a copy), so some of my information may not be accurate. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
From what I've read, the manifesto never said that women are "biologically less talented" than men. While this may have been implied, I don't think that was what Damore intended.
I think what Damore intended to state was that in general, men and women have different strengths, e.g.: most men may be better at building objects with sharp corners, but most women are better at building objects with more curves. Both men and women can build things, it's just that in general, men are better at building one type of thing where women are better at building another. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and there is a percentage of men that's better at building objects with curves, as well as a percentage of women who are better at building objects with sharp corners. Within these populations, there's an even smaller percentage of the whole that is able to build the other sex's "strong point" objects better than those of the opposite sex, i.e.: men who are even better than women at building curved objects, and women who are even better than men at building sharp objects.
The analogy of building sharp vs. curved objects, of course, could carry over to any skill in life, so when a woman is hired for "a man's job" (or vice versa), she should never, ever be worried that her colleagues think she had an easier time of it, or she took shortcuts to get where she is. If any of her new colleagues believe anything of that sort, they are the ones bringing down the company's ability to learn and grow.
I did read the original manifesto and he concluded women are less logical (and by extension make poor engineers) because of biological differences. The old myth that women are too emotional, anxious, and unable to cope with the intellectual stress was presented as scientific fact.
I don't buy the men and women have different intellectual strengths because of biology, because it ignores the impact of society and culture has on such things. When I was a little girl, I heard "Video games and computers are for boys. Go play house." I ignored that (mostly) but it has a profound impact. Here's some more history on the subject.
Ultimately, I am worried that my colleagues think I've taken shortcuts or have been let off easy, or slept my way to the top because they do think that. I know they do because I've been told that, repeatedly, throughout my career. The last time I received a comment like that was about 3 weeks ago.
I remember a few weeks ago I saw that Google and a few other big tech companies wanted to "solve" death. I laughed. I laughed because they'd figure out immortality before treating women and minorities like people. Cynical, perhaps, but for the vast majority of people there, diversity is a non-issue. They simply don't care.
And if you're horrified and wondering what you can do, I'll tell you. It's easy and it requires no code or internet connection. Are you ready?
You believe them.
Believe them when they say DudeBro said something inappropriate because the only thing I've heard more than sexist comments are "Are you sure? He's such a nice guy. I've known him for years and he'd never do anything like that."
And if you see or hear inappropriate comments being made, say something.
YES, default to believing them.
This isn't a workplace experience, but its the same fundamental issue and hits close to home:
One time, my neighbor grabbed my face and tried to kiss me. He didn't succeed because I pushed him away, and he literally ran out of the room. My boyfriend didn't believe me and thought I must have 'misinterpreted' my neighbors actions. He's such a nice guy, and he's my friend. The next day, my neighbor apologized to my boyfriend (not to me, might I add), and that's when he finally believed me.
I really hope it doesn't take experiences like this for the 'good guys' to finally 'get it.'
I don't think being less logical makes a poor engineer. It makes a different engineer. For example I am terrible at writing algorithms and mediocre at math (logical skills) and despite that I'm still a good engineer. My skills are just different. My product designer says she loves to work with me because I don't just think logically, but I'm empathetic to the needs of the end user. Engineering requires both logical and creative skills which are often hard to find in a single person. That is why non-logical thinkers (both men and women) can and do make great engineers.
Correct. I was paraphrasing Demore's argument.
And why is that a myth, not a fact?
Explain to me then why women and men playing chess in different leagues?
There are numbers if you want to search, proving that in a serious intellectual game women cant compete with men.
I think that's a really important message that is easily forgotten, whether it's because of blindness by privilege or letting our biases get in the way of reasoning.
Also, when seen through the perspective of evolution, diversity is exactly what's necessary for advancement. Shows how ironic it is to try to replicate and homogenize company culture. Although I may have gone on the deep end of generalizing evolution (oops).
You really struck the right tone addressing the past events in this article.
Great article!
This is something that an amazingly high number of people don't seem understand clearly and somewhere along the road they'll surely end up crashing...
So before I make this comment, I want to make my political views clear. I am a leftist who believes in equality and disersity of all kinds. I think it makes us stronger to see other perspectives and helps us to challenge our own biases. Over the past few weeks I've been struggling to develop a firm opinion on this story.
Part of your post says the Damore presented his misconceptions poorly, that he should have provided strong scientific evidence to support his points. I am unsure of the accuracy of Damores sources or the concensus of the scientific community on this issue, but I've heard experts defending both sides and I do not have the time to look deeper into the reputability of the sources. However, my point is, I don't think Damore should be fired for presenting his perceptions (however misguided they may be). He presented what he thought were facts and Google disagreed with him on the truthfulness of those facts. He started the memo stating that he feels Google is an echo chamber where he is afraid to express his views and when he expressed them Google proved him correct.
In an interview, Damore started that he wrote the memo in the hopes that coworkers could tell him why he is wrong in thinking this way, he hoped the memo would spark a conversation about diversity in which he could learn about why Google's policies are the way they are, or if they could be better then it would reveal ways to improve them.
As I said at the beginning of this post, I am a leftist and I believe strongly in diversity of all kinds, and that includes diversity of ideas.
Damore had ideas, and he was fired before he even knew why those ideas were bad. I really believe he wrote the memo because he was looking for an explanation on his own for the company's policies but couldn't find one. I think this could have been an opportunity to have an internal conversation at Google about why gender and ethnic diversity is a thing to strive for and instead it was taken as a chance to fire someone who asked questions. Damore said that a large amount of Google employees privately expressed support for him and now the opportunity to educate those misguided employees is gone because they are now even more afraid to state their beliefs and we will never be able to have an open conversation with them about why their views are incorrect. These people who agree with Damore will instead maintain their misconceptions and quietly reaffirm them and potentially erode the diversity culture Google tried to protect in firing him.
PS - Like Damore, I am merely stating what I know from what I've seen. I am presenting my ideas in the hopes of having them proven wrong or if they are strong enough, challenge the misconceptions of others.
Thanks for the post! It helped me gain a bit more perspective on the issue and come closer to figuring out where I stand on it. :)
People should be able to say what they think. Then we can all think about it and come to our own temporary conclusions - and continue to have conversations and see things from different (often ephemeral) points of view. That's also diversity.
That being said... the whole idea of "The bar" is nuts. There is no bar. In the end - this job, this industry - is (should be) about Design and humanity and empathy. Most of the jobs have nothing to do with jumping high. The fanciest code in the world (assuming Google has it... right?) CLEARLY doesn't add up to the best products. Maybe if they had a wide variety of people working on them - someone would be honest enough to say "Google: you're getting worse all the time... this stuff sucks..." - this "bar" is just keeping the right people out / which is a very silly business decision - and that's great - because businesses that are silly should probably fail and leave room for good ones. We don't need to "fix Nike" and hail these corporations for "Treating people with decency" - when we really have the power to build our own companies.
I think the commonly expressed view that free speech is only that "the government can't arrest you for speech" is too reductionist. if you get fired, loose all your friends, are banned from every internet community, and are made to feel like a bad person, then it is pretty clear your ability to speak freely is being, at least hampered.
Technically, you can still speak. And freely. But that's all you can get: you'd speak on your own, with nobody listening or offering you a stage to speak from.
After all, you can't expect to get any sympathy from the others if you say things nobody likes. Nothing gets hampered just because you don't have access to things you've been giving for granted before.
The first step to solve our problem is to acknowledge that we have that problem. Hopefully, events like this one will bring people together and we will realise that we must do better.
Fantastic article! Thank you for restoring sanity and reason to the whole topic.
Also, this is the first I heard that jerk was sacked, and as a lead developer and administrator at a programming company, I'm glad to hear it. The sort of vitriol Damore spouted is a disgrace, not just to the industry, but to intelligent humanity altogether, and worthy of this:
Itโs very simple, if you have the smarts then youโre allowed through the door, if you donโt go somewhere else. Itโs worked that way for centuries for a reason.
Canโt believe I wasted my time reading this.
And yet you took the time to write this comment too.
I think I've addressed this very point of view in details. It's not "very simple", just as life isn't. If you think it is, you should explain why instead.
When I was in my early 20s I complained to a mentor about someone who would come over and look at my work and offer all kinds of what I considered to be not so helpful advice. They'd never actually done the work I was doing but they opined on how to do it often.
The mentor listened to me for a bit and then said "You know, you can learn something from anyone if you listen to them." That shut me up and humbled me and after getting over the hurt and pondering it I decided to look for the truth in it.
Not more than a week later the same guy who'd been bothering me came over and looked at what I was making and offered a suggestion that ended up making me a lot of money. He couldn't make what he suggested, he didn't know how or have the skills, but he knew I did and could.
How do you measure that in a job interview?
I don't know the answer to that but I could easily measure how much faster, easier, and more profitable that one suggestion was before I even implemented it.