CATHY YOUNG: Googler fired for diversity memo had legit points on gender.
The most incendiary part of the 10-page document was the assertion that gender disparities at technology companies including Google (where women currently hold about 20% of tech jobs and 25% of leadership positions) are due at least in part to biological differences. Damore has been assailed for supposedly saying that “women are unsuited to tech jobs,” dismissing his female co-workers as “unqualified tokens,” or “demanding (an) end to inclusion of women” and minorities. But the memo says nothing of the kind. At most, Damore argues that because of innate cognitive and personality differences, a 50/50 gender balance in the tech sector may be unrealistic.
The memo also argues that expanding diversity is good but Google is going about it all wrong — for instance, by offering gender- and race-exclusionary support programs, favoring “diversity” hires, and promoting hypersensitivity to “unconscious bias” and unintentional offenses. And it suggests alternative strategies, such as drawing more women to software engineering by making some of those jobs more people-oriented, more collaborative and less stressful (though Damore notes there are limits to such change).
Is Damore right about sex differences? It’s complicated. Of the four scientists who commented at Quillette, a libertarian-leaning online magazine critical of “political correctness,” three, including neuroscientist and science writer Deborah Soh, thought the memo was almost entirely correct. University of Michigan psychologist David Schmitt, whose research was cited in the document, thought it overstated some fairly modest sex differences (in ambition and vulnerability to stress, for example) and was too negative about efforts to remedy societal disadvantage. Yet Schmitt also emphasized that biological difference as a contributor to occupational gender gaps should not be off-limits to discussion. . . . Could the memo contribute to negative stereotypes of women in tech workplaces? Perhaps. But the overreaction, including Damore’s firing, is likely to do far more harm. It will make anyone who questions the “diversity” party line — who believes, for instance, that unequal numbers may not automatically prove discrimination — feel that he or she is a hostile environment. And it will lend credence to complaints in the modern workplace, men are the beleaguered sex.
We must not allow even the faintest trace of badthink, comrade! And the reaction to the memo certainly contributes to stereotypes that women are hysterical and unable to engage in rational discussion.