> The assumption here is that employment in STEM industries fundamentally and solely involves "mechanically interesting things".
It's not. Read the original memo.
He especially mentioned that women gravitate to the more social jobs in STEM environments, but Google's diversity programs were trying to force them into the "code monkey" jobs instead, to spread them more evenly.
> Strong technology is important for success, but so is leadership, market fit, team dynamics, understanding the customer, etc. The hardest question in tech companies is not "how" to build, but "what" to build. This is essentially a people-oriented problem, since customers are people.
Absolutely. So why waste your people-oriented employees on jobs that aren't people-oriented?
I was writing about the article linked here. But since you mention the memo, I'll say this.
The current state of science suggests associations between gender, brain development, and career preferences. But women who are applying to Google for coding jobs are clearly stating their own individual career preferences. People apply for jobs they want.
Using population studies to try to contradict clearly expressed individual preferences is nonsensical; that's not how statistics works. It's like the old joke about the guy who carries a bomb onto a plane for safety, because "what are the chances that there are TWO bombs on one plane?"
And obviously associative data about preferences doesn't tell us anything about individual capability or qualifications.
Finally, if you actually ask women in STEM fields why they left or are considering leaving, career preferences are not the only answer. One also hears about disrespect, harassment, abuse--the glass ceiling. Again, this is real data that can't be lightly set aside just because it doesn't fit a narrative of biological determinism.
Thank you for the links. I don't think they are as convincing as you make them out to be (the second does not even talk about women specifically), but I don't have the time to discuss it further in all detail.
Harassment is bad, but I don't think "unwanted sexual advances" should categorically count as harassment. It all depends (of course some advances can be harassment, but just because some attraction is unrequited it is not harassment) - it is human to be attracted and fall in love.
Unwanted sexual advances in the workplace are always harassment.
There's a big difference between:
"Hey would you like to go grab lunch with me sometime?" (ok if not overly persistent)
vs
"You're hot, want to have sex with me sometime?" (never ok at work)
And I would suggest some introspection about why your bar to be convinced is so high. The persistent and sometimes aggressive disbelief that women face from male colleagues when they complain about harassment is a big part of the industry problem.
As I said, it depends on the circumstances, but I am sure a lot of "hey would you like to grab lunch sometime" end up as a number in those harassment statistics.
It is also a very one-sided narrative, omitting the advantages that being attractive also brings.
It's not. Read the original memo.
He especially mentioned that women gravitate to the more social jobs in STEM environments, but Google's diversity programs were trying to force them into the "code monkey" jobs instead, to spread them more evenly.
> Strong technology is important for success, but so is leadership, market fit, team dynamics, understanding the customer, etc. The hardest question in tech companies is not "how" to build, but "what" to build. This is essentially a people-oriented problem, since customers are people.
Absolutely. So why waste your people-oriented employees on jobs that aren't people-oriented?