funnyguys

I read in comments from people who claimed to work for Google - diversity initiatives in Google aim to bring the diversity close to the male-female ratio in the applicant pool. Couple of other companies I know where number of employees are in thousands, the diversity initiative aims to achieve something similar. That does not seem like a bad idea at all.

Humans are complex beings. Is interest in a specific field or profession a function of only gender? Would not the surrounding environment, role models, religion, books read, experiences in life and various other countless factors affect a person's interest and character?

I don't think he was wilful. He was wrong to reduce a complex subject like human interests and behaviour into a simple statistical function.

Are there any studies that concludes empathetic people become psychologists (honest question as I do not know)? Or is it an assumption that we make because of the nature of the profession?

Also, is empathy a function of only gender - would not the surrounding environment, role model, religion, books read, experiences in life and various other countless factors affect if a person develops empathy?

In the memo, he mentions that the gender differences "may" be the reason for the lesser number of women in technology. There are no studies which link the differences with ability to work as a computer programmer. I would prefer we do not impose labels or assume certain characteristics on people just because they belong to specific gender, race or come from specific background - especially when it is not something they control and when the link is tenuous.

My view was like yours before and the movie Gattaca was among the most important things that changed it. In short humans are far more complex and trying to say that a person may not be interested in software engineering just because the person is of specific gender is disservice to half the population and not helpful.

This is not the same thing, is it? From reading the comments in most forums, looks like people seems to at least partially support the contents of the memo and the guy for writing this. Also, he is not speaking out in support of the minority, he is insinuating that they may be biological not suited for the job.

<s>If only we could decide the characteristics and job of a person based on the person's birth, race and other things totally out of a person's control, society would be so much better.</s>

This is not just PC assertions. Generalizing characteristics of people based on their gender is harmful and exactly the reason racism is frowned upon.

If biological reasons can determine if a person is fit for a particular job, let us start deciding the traits of people based on the gender, race and blood samples and assign jobs based on that. If you haven't, please watch the movie Gattaca.

This exactly - it was mediocre crap. When you insinuate that some of your co-workers have certain drawbacks because of their gender, it makes that gender more aware of their behaviour and they are put in a position where they to take extra effort to prove otherwise. This is creating hostile environment for them. This is the reason why similar forms of generalisation, like racism, is frowned upon – not just because of innate sense of right or wrong. If this is being politically correct, then damn right I am politically correct.

This reminds me of the movie Gattaca - let us start deciding the traits of people based on the gender, race and blood samples and assign jobs based on that.

Yes, like in Gattaca we will decide the traits of people based on the gender, race and blood samples and assign jobs based on that.

Quote from another article: "All of these traits which the manifesto described as “female” are the core traits which make someone successful at engineering. Anyone can learn how to write code; hell, by the time someone reaches L7 or so, it’s expected that they have an essentially complete mastery of technique. The truly hard parts about this job are knowing which code to write, building the clear plan of what has to be done in order to achieve which goal, and building the consensus required to make that happen."

There are some good points in the memo - like having training and support for men, but it was largely an exercise in casting doubt on the ability of certain subset of your co-workers to do their job.

Any one even remotely thinks that the memo was right should read this : https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-man... There are some good points in the memo - like having training and support for men, but it was largely an exercise in casting doubt on the ability of certain subset of your co-workers to do their job.

When you insinuate that some of your co-workers have certain drawbacks because of their gender, it makes that particular gender all the more aware of their behaviour and they are put in a position where they to take extra effort to prove otherwise. This is creating hostile environment for them. This is the reason why similar forms of generalisation, like racism, is frowned upon – not just because of innate sense of right or wrong.

Being white male, I bet most of us would never have faced any significant discrimination and please stop pretending that we know how other side feels.

Some people are suggesting Google's stance on LGBT is alienating people - Really? So, people who advocate taking away LGBT people's rights and opposed to their ways of life are complaining of persecution?