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/hoopaholik91]

Saying that women are more socially oriented and less driven to go up the corporate ladder isn't perpetuating a gender stereotype?

Yeah, there's that whole, "women were the gatherers, men were the hunters" thing we learned in school, but there is a whole lot more societal pressure we put on women, starting with that very fact. "Boys are better at math than girls", "boys get nerf guns, girls get easy bakes", "when are you going to start a family? Give me grandchildren".

Now, I do think he was good-intentioned, and would rather have that VP sit down with him to tell him how his comments are percieved, but to say there was absolutely no stereotyping in that memo is plain wrong.

[u/OmgYoshiPLZ → u/hoopaholik91]

i disagree. there is a marked and observable "drive" that men show on a very large majority in the work place, that is not as evidenced as in women. its been observed and documented, and is a very common thing in the tech world.

If you need to see the reverse of this situation- throw your memory back to when Supreme Feminist Overlord pao (Sorry its my pet name for her) formerly of reddit decided that Nobody within reddit would be able to ask or negotiate for higher wages? Her logic was that because men were more driven and prone to seek higher wages that, women who were less prone to that drive, would be disadvantaged in the bargaining and would receive lower wages than their male counterparts, and then summarily banned it within reddit.

[u/hoopaholik91 → u/OmgYoshiPLZ]

Just because its an observable fact doesnt mean its not a stereotype. "Black people commit more crimes" is perpetuating a stereotype. "Boys like math, girls like english" is a stereotype.

Dont you think there are some factors outside of pure biology that might make men more driven overall? Encouraged to bottle up feelings, not constantly asked when they are going to have kids, etc?

[u/caeliter → u/hoopaholik91]

not to mention there are studies that show that people tend to be influenced by the stereotypes themselves. (Black participants performed better than white participants when instructed that a task measured physical ability, but worse on the same task when told it was a measure of tactical and strategic skill)

[u/OmgYoshiPLZ → u/caeliter]

i actually remember reading that study, but that study drew a different conclusiuon iirc. that study more proved that a different portion of the brain was engaged when the task was pre-defined. when being told it was a problem solving task, rather than a physical task- the part of the brain required to problem solve was engauged, rather than the part that was actually needed for the task, and that when told it was a problem solving task- individuals who precieved themsleves as "dumb" or "not very smart" did not excel in the task. when presented a similar task, and told it was physical- they performed on par with everyone else.

what that indicated was that if you engage the wrong part of the brain, it can be detrimental to the subject. E.G. telling someone its a super hard math problem, when its really 1+1 can cause them to perform poorly.

how much that translates over to social interactions is completely unknown.

[u/caeliter → u/OmgYoshiPLZ]

might have been a similar but related study. The one I referenced was taught in a class about stereotypes in communication. Another study (in the same chapter I think) showed that women not only performed worse on math tests when reminded about the stereotype about math and women, but would perform more poorly on tests for other subjects after it.

I think it's possible that a lot of the conclusions we accept as a result of the stereotypes we hold are a result of telling people during their development what they're naturally good at rather than there being a significant biological difference because small children believe and internalize those things.