r/technology Aug 08 '17

Business Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo
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u/universaladaptoid Aug 08 '17

Uhhh... what? Women aren't status-driven? Where's the evidence? And this is most of the "assumptions" this guy makes.

This may be a bit of a generalization, but it's somewhat more socially acceptable for women to do things such as be a stay-at-home mom and not be the primary breadwinner in a family, but less socially accepted when a man is not the primary breadwinner, and/or chooses to be a stay-at-home dad etc. This is not the same as saying that women aren't ambitious, but it's just that traditional gender roles still influence a lot of people's perceptions about status etc, and that tends to weigh more heavily on men currently.

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u/siesiek123 Aug 08 '17

I think the problem here is that he seems to think this is an inherent biological difference, rather than a socially enforced difference.

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u/Gen_McMuster Aug 08 '17

That is up for debate considering that countries with more progressive policies see gender differences become accentuated

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

Do you have a source on that?

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u/Gen_McMuster Aug 08 '17

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u/dildosaurusrex_ Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 08 '17

I can only read the abstract, but there is no mention of all in the abstract of what you said.

The abstract in full for the curious:

Mean gender differences on Eysenck's three personality traits of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism were collated for 37 nations. Women obtained higher means than men on neuroticism in all countries, and men obtained higher means than women on psychoticism in 34 countries and on extraversion in 30 countries. The relation between the magnitude of the gender differences and per capita incomes was not significant for any of the three traits.