I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year olds --- let alone 9 and 7 year olds --- neither has any clue what they're really going to end up doing.

The piece culminates in a recommendation that we focus our diversity efforts on college admissions and earlier stages in the pipeline. But that's a cop-out. We should work on all stages of the pipeline. It's unsurprising that a Google engineer would believe that gender balance can't be addressed without fixing the college pipeline, but the fact is that virtually none of the software engineering we do in the industry --- very much including most of the work done at Google --- requires a college degree in the first place.

Most importantly, though, the only contribution this post makes to the discussion is to add "I'm a woman and I agree with one side of the debate" to the mix. Everything in it is a restatement of an argument that has been made, forcefully and loudly, already. Frankly: who cares?

Edit: I added "some of the" to the beginning of the comment, not because I believe that, but because I concede that there are arguments in the post that can't be dispatched with a single paragraph in a message board comment (through clearly there are some that can.)

EDIT: Also she recommends these at the bottom of her piece:

""" Start a mentoring program.

If you are a manager, make sure women who work for you are properly treated and recognized.

Educate men and women about how to detect and correct subliminal biases.

Find men who are willing to educate other men about this to make the message more effective. """

...the mentoring program could be for girls and young women, but it could also be for women already on the payroll. The rest of the recommendation are for after hiring has already taken place.

How is that fair for boys/men if they're excluded from mentoring opportunities (eg in a company that hires them) simply because they're male.

This is "fine" if your objective is "hire more women". As someone who supports equality of opportunity I don't see how compounding more sexism will ever lead to less sexism.

In the UK, overall, young men get poorer school results, are less represented at university, receive lower wages than women (up to the ages when people choose to start families) ... how does this sort of sexist mentoring policy fit in here? Is it really enough to say "well if we look only at this industry segment"?

What's wrong with equality?