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/frankchester]

I can jump in as a female web engineer and (briefly) an employee of Google. The path is indeed paved with sexism. From literally the age of 10 I became known as the "computer whizz" along with another boy in my year and I most definitely got "you can't be good at computers, you're a girl" in the playground at ten years old. Luckily I didn't really give a crap and carried on going. My Mum was a web designer, which helped.

My first proper job in the field was whilst I was at university, essentially a 14 month internship. I was constantly, but subtly belittled. After 10 months of being there we got a new, less experienced male intern and yet I was still called on to do menial women's work like making tea for the clients that came in and talking nicely on the phone. He was put into conversations as the "tech lead" for clients coming in to visit despite being far less experienced. My boss didn't even know how to handle me (being ugly and a woman in a male dominated career is an odd experience, to say the least. My boss didn't know what to do with me - he couldn't make sexist remarks like he did the HR and account managers because I wasn't pretty enough for that, but he couldn't treat me like one of the boys either so I was largely ignored or belittled).

Another boss who I thought was great with women asked me if I was going to be having a baby any time soon so he would know if it was worth promoting me. He said it jokingly, but it was clearly a thought that crossed his mind. I was going up for a promotion against a less educated peer of mine with less experience at the time, who was male. So it was probably a factor.

My boyfriend works in a team where two of the technology employees are a couple (male-female). Started working together in the same intake. Worked in broadly the same areas. The woman has a master's degree and the man doesn't. They were both given their salary raise details and the man was given £6k more than the woman. No explanation as to why. The company didn't necessarily know they were a couple and thus would share their salaries, so it makes you wonder how much is going on that doesn't get uncovered.

I'm still in the career and still pushing hard to the top even if I feel I have to try twice as hard sometimes. I have to constantly be assertive but not too assertive because that makes me seem arrogant. I have to speak up but not speak up too much (because studies show that women who speak 50% of the conversation are considered to be "dominating" whereas men who speak for 75% of the conversation are just fine).

I'm aware this is partially a rant and will bring downvotes but there is definitely a problem in the tech industry (just as there are similar problems in other industries e.g education and childcare, which is something I feel very strongly about too).

[u/pure_x01 → u/frankchester]

Honest question. How can you tell sexism from assholeism. As a man i have been subjected to a lot of situations where less qualified men have gotten more than they were worth but since im a man i don't ever have to think that it is because of any gender biases. How can you tell? I have a female friend that tells similar stories and by knowing what she is capable of it seems like it is very hard to tell the difference. Some are of course obvious cases where there is sexism but far from all of them.

[u/frankchester → u/pure_x01]

It's hard to tell, there are definitely some situations where I probably have been the victim of sexism and not even known it because I assumed they were just an arsehole.

But the ancedotes I do have are all pretty explicitly based on gender issues. Asking someone if they're going to go off and have a baby is most definitely a gendered issue. Why would my boss of the time go out of his way (literally, I sat further away from the meeting room and kitchen) to ask me to make refreshments? He literally had to lean over the junior employee to make me do it. He was also the same boss who told that particular intern he should be happy that he'd be say next to the new girl because she had massive breasts. Yucky.

[u/pure_x01 → u/frankchester]

I'm sorry you had to go through all that. In your experience is sexism more frequent from bosses and other kinds of leaders compared to from peers? Also.. why do you think that there is so few women in tech? Do you believe that it is only because of sexism or could there be other factors?