Revolutionary Ideas
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read

I won’t get into the multitude of studies that show that some of the assumptions you make about women are false

Except that James Damore was not making any assumptions. He was quoting the results of multitudes of studies (even though the gizmodo link you’ve shared does not include any of the original links and references he has included in his original paper):

Direct quote:

> Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things

This concept of “interest in things vs. people” has hundreds of research papers behind it (some built on larger datasets and having more citations than the papers Adam Grant is quoting in your link).

What are you doing when you are lost with your car:

  • Getting out the street maps and being hellbent of figuring it out yourself like a puzzle to solve?
  • Or finding a trustworthy looking local and simply asking them?

What do you like doing on your job?

  • Tinkering with a system and tools?
  • Or communicating with other people and building relationships?

etc

See:

  1. “Understanding current causes of women’s underrepresentation in science” (Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams) — a review of 20 years of data

2. “Men and things, women and people: A meta-analysis of sex differences in interests.” (Su, Rong Rounds, James Armstrong, Patrick Ian)

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-19763-004

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Things_Women_and_People_A_Meta-Analysis_of_Sex_Differences_in_Interests

3. “Gender-related individual differences in personality and interests”

http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x

Also, your “brief lesson in statistics” is kind of wrong. Certain physical features (like the Height, for example) might be Normally Distributed. Yet many others (especially when it comes to intellectual abilities) are best described by Power Laws (Long Tail Distributions)

…as for the actual differences in Math tests results, there are studies and meta-studies contradicting the sources you’ve shared. One example is the College Board Study of 2013 (which shows significant differences in Math and uses a sample of 1,66 million students, much bigger than the 1,2 million sample used in the study quoted by Adam Grant)

    Revolutionary Ideas

    Written by

    Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
    Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
    Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade