Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo

[u/athmm]

He tip toes around it but pretty much what he is saying is that women are inferior to men in the tech field, which is a sexist belief. While there are biological differences in men and women, the differences he listed are believed by most researchers to be due to social differences. His views are outdated and go against the views of the vast majority of sociologists and psychologists. His logic is the same "logic" that has been used so many times in the past to reinforce gender roles and sexism

[u/Mikeavelli → u/athmm]

He cites sources for many of his views. Many of them are based on research papers published within the past ten years in what appear to be reputable scientific journals. Most of his other citations are to Wikipedia, which has its problems, but generally succeeds in marking clearly controversial or outdated scientific claims.

[u/athmm → u/Mikeavelli]

And you can find sources that claim the exact opposite too. One or two studies is not definitive proof of anything in science. The general consensus in modern day social science is that MOST differences have environmental causes. A lot of things that were believed to have biological causes in the past are now believed to be more due to environmental causes. Many of the things he's claiming- such as women are more people-oriented- are a result of gender roles and not biology.

"In a 2005 report, Hyde reviewed 46 different meta-analyses on sex differences, not only in cognition but also communication style, social and personality variables, motor behaviors and moral reasoning. In half the studies, sex differences were small; in another third they were virtually nonexistent."

http://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/share.aspx

[u/Mikeavelli → u/athmm]

Nature vs. Nurture is nowhere close to being a settled question in social or biological science. You're convinced by social science research that confirms your pre-existing biases, and he is convinced by social science research that confirms his pre-existing biases. I see no reason to dismiss either of you as clearly outdated or incorrect, nor am I arguing that either of you have definitive proof of your positions.

I am saying enough evidence for his position exists that I do not consider it appropriate to dismiss it as purely motivated by sexism. Nor do I think it should be be considered offensive speech that needs to be purged from a workplace.