Ask a Female Engineer: Thoughts on the Google Memo

I think the larger problem is that this is an overstatement. Women might not be interested in joining the current tech culture, but that doesn't mean they aren't interested in tech to a larger extent than the current numbers suggest.

Part of the disconnect is that these initiatives are aimed at changing the culture to be more attractive to women, and the people who really like the culture don't see the need.

Certainly the current tech culture is effective and fairly productive, but I certainly don't know that it will be more, equally, or less productive with these culture changes.

I don't think you can claim that "tech" and e.g. civil engineering have much in common in terms of culture, but they still share the lack of men/women parity.

If you find it objectionable to change the phrase in such away, consider the fact that, as a computer scientist, I went to school and took classes with many mechanical, civil, and electrical engineers. I'm still friends with them today. The cultures are intertwined.

Nor does Damore.

In Damore's memo, the table of left vs right bias was ridiculous, even if we agree on those biases, which we don't, I'd argue why use those, and why pick n number of biases and leave out others? This isn't a rigorous paper.

The toy hypothetical following the table is such a overly simple contrivance, are we supposed to be taking this seriously? So many assertions...

Perhaps the bar is too low at Google.

You're ignoring that girls are socialized to think they're bad at math, science, etc. Boys are told the opposite and are pushed in this direction. I certainly was. My parents were drilling me on math by age five.

Not sure why, but I know one possible explanation.

In developing countries, people are pressured by their basic needs. An engineering job generally pays well. People in such countries are less likely to do what they want and more likely to do what pays well, so gender ratio in engineering is close to 50/50.

In developed countries, people are guaranteed to survive even without a profession or job. Less financial pressure, more freedom of choice, less women in engineering.

Does Zimbabwe have better or worse gender equality than the USA or other Westernized nations?

That factor hasn’t stopped women from becoming e.g. doctors and lawyers.

Just 50 years ago, very few women did that, because discrimination (e.g. for healthcare in America, gender-based discrimination was only banned in 1975) and culture norms.

But now it’s pretty close to 50/50 gender ratio in these areas (females are 47.3% of law students in 2007, 46.7% of medical students in 2013).

That's a bold claim with zero sources. Consider this a "citation needed".

And yet over 40% of graduates majoring in math and statistics are women. How does this sit with your explanation of social conditioning?

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...

The misogynism we're imploring ourselves to eradicate is so subtle, it's unconscious biases and micro-aggressions (that is, agressions you don't know you're committing). When we can barely detect them ourselves, how would they be able to embed themselves into the subconscience of millions of young girls across dozens of quite different cultures?

And that's without considering the quite numerous fields with a high degree of misogyny embedded as a broad popular culture trope. "Suits" does not envision a law-field that is particularly friendly to women, "Billions" : finance, "Scrubs" : medicine. Women have no issue with pursuing careers in those fields. That's not excusing bad behaviour, just observing that this behaviour, and broad knowledge of it, does not appear to deter women, and to serve as a counterpoint to the assertion that the far more subtle and much less broadly portrayed alleged misogynism of tech should be detering women.

Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

"Most of the girls we talked to from other countries had a slightly playful approach to Stem, whereas in Russia, even the very youngest were extremely focused on the fact that their future employment opportunities were more likely to be rooted in Stem subjects."

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39579321

In the west women have more choice. So why do they choose not to do technology once they are free to choose what they want.

I think being exposed to history in greater depth and variety was a greater boon than suspected because there have always been great women in science and engineering, they just rarely if ever got a line of mention in common text books. how was society to interest women in such careers? Television surely wasn't, it was always wives, nurses, and secretaries, for the most part.

i would love to see a yc article from the same women and more revealing their generation and what influences they experienced that led them to their career and where they think we are doing it right and wrong this day. we will eventually arrive at a time where memo's like this don't even come about

Is it safe to infer that, in th developed world, given a career choice women have a propensity to not choose tech ?

[1] http://www.ibtimes.com/girls-stem-parent-stereotypes-may-dis...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_role#Gender_stereotypes...

To be fair... How often do you create "a rigorous paper" before you engage in an internal discussion at your company? Is that the standard? And if so, when do you have time to do actual work?

Try at least not to have completely unreasonable expectations.

The link between wealth, marriage suitability and social status is well observed for men, and in stereotypical pattern boys are pushed towards professions which maximize the potential for high income. Since society do not measure the value for women on how much money they bring, it follows that girls are not pushed with the same fever towards high paying jobs except if local situation causes families to do so by necessity (which is one explanation why certain countries have higher ratio of women in typical high paying profession).

I have the theory that if you want to get equal amount of young girls and young boys in STEM careers you need to remove focus on how such choice can lead towards high income. It would not increase the encouragement for girls, but fewer boys would be pushed in that direction and as a result the difference between the sexes would decrease.

I consider it more likely that now women do what they want to do. And that is in many ways a good thing.

In other words, if true, we should strive to understand why fewer women choose tech in developed countries and fix it, not automatically assume it's because they are inherently less interested.

I am going to go further and suggest that software engineering is just not that desirable of a career, no matter who you are. Given that compensation is a function of supply and demand, and this career is fairly well compensated, the lack of people – both male and female – entering the career path would suggest is not the top choice of anyone.

What appears to be happening is that some men are willing to put up with an undesirable career because of the higher than average compensation, while women are less wooed by those monetary factors.

The only 'fix' here is to drive home the importance of doing unhappy careers for big money towards the female population. But do we really want to do that? That does not really seem like a great goal. There is more to life than money.

So it was incumbent upon Damore to do a lot of work, and come up with something both rigorous and novel. If he didn't, and he still thought that rehashing a whole bunch of stuff that had been discussed before was sufficient to "advance the conversation" about such a controversial topic he is an idiot who deserved to be fired and forgotten.

The nicest way to say this is the way one of the women the TFA put it: 'a general lack of consideration for his female colleagues.' Then again, she has a lifetime of politely dealing with male chauvinist idiots, and has learned that calling them out doesn't get her far.

[1] Source: my own life experience.

What matters here is that, with the right incentives, women can be as successful as men in this field. Note that the converse is also true. This automatically destroys the notion that there is some kind of biological (or inherent, whatever) impediment for women, which is what the memo was fundamentally about.

PS: for that matter, my personal experience -- coming from a family of scientists who aren't rich, and which includes my mom -- is that there are other factors at play beyond money. Note I don't live in the US.

But we're talking about the population at large, not the tiny group of 'geeks' who revel in the tech environment. There are always outliers.

If the general population – both men and women – wanted to do this kind of work, they would be falling all over each other to do it, just as they do in careers that are desirable. Instead, you see businesses falling over the few people who are willing to do it. That is not a sign of an attractive career path. Quite the opposite.

Again, not even men want to do this type of work. This is not even a gender issue at the heart of it.

> I'd question whether this is a desirable state of things.

But can you fundamentally change the job so that it is desirable to the general population? Programming is simply an awful time that most people wouldn't wish upon their worst enemy. It is as simple as that. We can go around and try and blame things like culture, but at the end of the day the work that has to be done sucks.

Yes, some people are wired strangely and happen to like it. Pick anything you find distasteful and I can find you at least one person who loves it. That's the nature of having 7 billion people and all of their random mutations. That does not mean the masses have any interest whatsoever.

> What matters here is that, with the right incentives, women can be as successful as men in this field. Note that the converse is also true. This automatically destroys the notion that there is some kind of biological (or inherent, whatever) impediment for women, which is what the memo was fundamentally about.

Your overall point may be true, but your logic seems flawed. The fact that women can be as successful as men in the field does not mean that there is not some biological reason to not want to do the job.

If you are going to write on such a controversial topic and don't want to be seen as a self absorbed attention seeking polemicist [1], you ought to be more careful. In other words, you need to hold yourself to a higher standard than normal office write-ups. Otherwise, you take an unnecessary risk drawing the wrong conclusions and do a lot of inadvertent harm to your fellow human.

[1] Still learning to politely deal with male chauvinist idiots.

This link tells a different story, and in complete sentences: http://uk.businessinsider.com/wall-street-bank-diversity-201...

(Also, the relevant number for Google is 20% of tech employees. They have 48/52 balance in non-tech. The BI link similarly provides business area breakdowns.)

> But can you fundamentally change the job so that it is desirable to the general population?

But it's not the general population we're talking about; that's a straw man. We just must strive to create a work environment that's not hostile to women and which doesn't discriminate against them based on prejudice. And yes, not excluding a segment of the population just because of irrelevant biological traits is desirable and worth the effort.

> Your overall point may be true, but your logic seems flawed

To me it's logically flawed to claim there's a biological impediment and when shown cases where women are successful, to suddenly claim "of course, they do it for the money in third-world countries!" as if this somehow explained biological differences. Money is not a biological factor, it's a societal one! The logical disconnect is so pronounced that it must point to an emotional blind spot.

Then why are men and women alike rejecting the field? Men less so, perhaps, but neither gender are jumping at the chance to have the job. Not even the well above average compensation that attempts to attract them to the industry.

> Sorry you feel that way, maybe consider changing jobs?

This is not my opinion, this is what the data shows. I'm glad you do not feel that the professional is awful. I personally do not feel that way either, but we cannot use our biases to believe that everyone feels the same way. Be very careful of your biases.

> We just must strive to create a work environment that's not hostile to women and which doesn't discriminate against them based on prejudice.

In order to even think about whether the workplace is hostile to women, we first have to determine why neither gender is interested in the profession. Again, this is not my opinion. This is what the data is telling us.

> To me it's logically flawed to claim there's a biological impediment and when shown cases where women are successful, to suddenly claim "of course, they do it for the money in third-world countries!" as if this somehow explained biological differences.

Let me be clear: I am not saying it is explained by biological differences. I am saying that your explanation does nothing to exclude biological differences. Women proving success in the tech workplace does nothing to discount a biological aspect, and it is flawed logic to believe otherwise.

This is false.

> but we cannot use our biases

Exactly. Please re-examine what you're saying in light of your own advice.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15014895

Men and women living in richer and mostly western countries have the luxury to choose the jobs they are attracted to even if that attraction is to some extent based on biological factors and not societal or economic factors.

I don't think the point is that women can't successfully tackle engineering, they can. But that doesn't mean that they have a predisposition towards it. If you encourage (or even force) someone into a particular profession, they might excel at it, but that doesn't imply that they would've picked it on their own.

More women choose engineering when they have fewer career choices, because they take the freedoms they can get; Iran also has a high ratio of female engineers. In virtually all countries where women are free to choose any career, they largely don't choose engineering.

Where can we find data to support or refute this point.