This is one we probably won’t agree on, but I don’t think James Damore should’ve been fired. I remember hearing about his memo on NPR, thinking “ugh, what an idiot.”
The memo was described as one where a Software engineer tried to justify the under-representation of women in technology, or at least at Google. So I looked up the manifesto, happy to study another example of overt ignorance, expecting to barely make it through the document.
What happened instead was a mix of annoyance and sympathy, a weird combination similar to when your ill child vomits on your shirt. I tried to work my feelings out and found it hard, eventually conceding that I’d never be able to get a clean, coherent position sorted. Instead, I made peace with the following lazy stream of thoughts as they came to me, somewhat summarized:
- What he wrote was nonsense.
Despite what it sometimes feels certain elements of pop culture are going for, I think it’s okay to say and agree that men and women are different in a number of ways, some of which may affect the way we work. What Damore’s work does, though, is imply inherent positivity or negativity to those traits. Biological differences have been used to justify all sorts of wickedness, in ways too recent to overlook. To the extent that Damore even toes in that direction, I’m not sure how he expected public reaction to be other than what he received. It’s too taxing to work through the flaws line by line, but a few of his submissions are easy to call-out:For starters, if I play out his “natural” reasons for the low numbers of women in Tech, I should see women make a higher percentage of in fields favoring the traits he names: “Openness towards feelings,” stronger interest in people,” “gregariousness rather than assertiveness,” “higher agreeableness”…that profile should see women the best Account Managers or Sales People around. But women only make up 30% of sales-people, and under 20% of sales people at leadership positions.Conversely, the idea that women have “higher anxiety and lower stress tolerance”, and that women avoid “long, stressful hours” doesn’t hold up in the face of Nursing, which is about 90% female.
A few other statements simply don’t make sense, and come across like someone trying to establish intelligence but really just confusing the audience. “We always ask why we don’t see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we see so many men in these jobs.” On some level, I see the question. But I’m too distracted by the obvious counter: if women aren’t in the jobs – and the manifesto is trying to explain to us why they aren’t – the only other option is men and if his submissions are right, the second question would be moot. The issue is too many people quietly think like Damore…which is why the question doesn’t get asked…
On and on it goes…
He suggestion that men take jobs in garbage collection and coal-mining because of…their drive for status?The suggestion that women are generally more interested in work-life balance than men (vs. the possible reality that many women simply have genuine concerns about the optimal time to at least have – if not also raise – children).
The lack of awareness in statements like “…reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing the same scrutiny in the reverse…” i.e. not reconsidering a set of people if it’s too diverse, which is hard to do when there are few such groups in tech.
Footnote #9, in which he suggests women get equal pay for equal work, which is demonstrably false. Would also love to see the citation on “women spend more money than men.”
The footnotes in general, in which he essentially backs out of every assertion he’d just made, confining his arguments to “mostly software engineering” in Google’s Mountain View campus.
There are a number of systemic reasons why women are under-represented in tech (work for another day), and while they aren’t necessarly discriminatory in themselves, they create an environment disproportionately populated by men. Acknowledging that isn’t necessarily accusatory, and for some reason Damore sounds like he’s objecting to being attacked.
- But he has the right to write it… While I disagree with almost everything he wrote, I also disagree with those fighting his right to write it. The memo is meandering and messy, drawing false equivalences in places and erasing decades of established research in others.
Despite that, I found a little irony in people protesting his memo as bigoted and intolerant, while demanding he be fired or otherwise punished for expressing a view that differed from theirs.
I know I’m approaching tricky territory – someone asked me if I’d similarly champion white supremacists’ right to assemble and march – but denying him the forum in which to express his views felt too close to the intolerance and close-mindedness that protesters were accusing him of. It is very hard to combat close-mindedness and ignorance with close-mindedness, and I don’t think open-mindedness always applies only when we think proponent’s content worthy or righteous.
At the end of the day, James Damore was fired not because of what he wrote, but because what he wrote offended enough people to make his memo a bigger deal than it might have been, and that’s risky territory. And this isn’t even a freedom of speech position – I personally don’t think that applies here. But what is the line between internal policy and censorship?
Would Google and the public have the same reaction if an employee had written a memo laying out the importance of examining biases at the root of gender inequities in Tech, and laying out ways in which men were guilty of creating a discriminatory and oppressive culture?
Does the response to his memo not demonstrate the exact position bias he called out? Is there as loud an outcry when skits and articles are written about how the world would be a better place if women were in charge? A Harvard Professor wrote an entire book on the subject, and no one got fired. Does the fact that the book was advocating for the oppressed absolve the fact that that same advocacy would see discrimination against men in the workplace?
- …and his firing only helps make part of his point…There’s one line I agree with: “If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.” My concern is that this country is rapidly losing its ability to have discussions about anything. Folks with opposing viewpoints are immediately shouted down, shamed, and then fired.
I do believe that you can’t get to the root of an issue without discussing it. Damore is now out of Google, with his views in tact, and he will – in all likelihood – persist in his beliefs. If he joins a company or starts one of his own, he will hire according to the ideas he laid out. There was an opportunity to correct some of his thinking and engage in meaningful dialogue. Unfortunately, society now views discussion as moral compromise, especially on issues of race, gender, and identity.
At the University of Washington, students decided to host a “Day of Absence” event, in which minority students wanted all white teachers and faculty to leave campus for a day. This was intended as a twist of the school’s normal Day of Absence, where minority students walked off campus to show the impact of their absence. A professor objected, noting – in summary – the difference between a voluntary walk-out and the forced (or strongly suggested) removal of others from an area as a means of protest.
The organizing students demanded that he be fired for “racism.” Such intellectual immaturity hijacks the real debate necessary to convert those who can be converted, and makes enemies of them instead. It also robs those who have a lesson to teach the opportunity to tweak their lessons and messaging and create something the world can understand and get behind.
I heard a view on NPR that Google was likely left without a choice, and felt that regardless of the correctness of his statements, they were essentially facing an HR issue. How would he function as a manager, potentially with women on his teams, after expressing these views?
I refuse to believe that an organization full of problem-solvers could think through that one. I’m sure a combination of training courses, time-off-desk, and re-assingment would’ve fixed that. I don’t think you combat a view that Google is intolerant of diverse viewpoints by firing someone with a diverse viewpoint.
Somewhere in his footnotes, he calls out that he might be biased and only see things in a way that support his position; he then welcomed a discussion of “any of the document further.” I think liberals and champions of rights water down their message if they can’t take up such offers without someone getting fired.
Is there a natural limit to this? Yes. I completely disagree with the ACLU’s defense of Neo-Nazi’s right to assemble, for instance. But my opinion is that there is plenty of landscape between misguided “intellectuals” and murderous fascists.
People all over the country has spent the past year bemoaning the division in the country, without acknowledging their part played in the “I’m right and you’re evil” climate we find ourselves in.
What Damore wrote was daft and easily dismissible, but I’m not entirely sure crying off-with-his-head at every right-wing statement will solve much. Are we not all just getting more entrenched in our battle trenches, while complaining that there are trenches at all?