The “Googler Manifesto” and My Favorite Response
By now, many have heard that a so called “Manifesto” was written and distributed by a (now fired) junior Google employee detailing how women are inherently and biologically unfit to be engineers and detailing several “solutions” that the author proposed for edging women out of his workplace. If you haven’t heard about it, there’s a fairly fact-based article at Business Insider. The document on its face isn’t that surprising to me. Yup… there are misogynists in the world. That’s not news to anyone. It included a bit of pseudoscience and some good old fashioned, “I’m special-er than everyone else,” type thinking, but nothing that’s new or unique in the world of sexism.
Remarkable Responses
What is remarkable to me, however, are the responses that have come out in response to the document. My favorite, penned by an ex-Google exec, Yonatan Zunger, was published here on Medium.com. While Zunger is far from the only person to react to the document, I’d encourage anyone interested to read his response. Rather than focusing on all of the inaccurate and disproven “facts” about gender that the author used to support his position, Zunger focused on what it means to be an engineer. What do engineers do, and what traits are needed to be successful in that function. Unsurprisingly, Zunger pointed out that many of the traits that the document identified as feminine were traits that not only make a better engineer, but that actually defined the role.
Engineers as Problem Solvers
One quote from his article particularly stands out to me: “Engineering is not the art of building devices; it’s the art of fixing problems. Devices are a means, not an end. Fixing problems means first of all understanding them — and since the whole purpose of the things we do is to fix problems in the outside world, problems involving people, that means that understanding people, and the ways in which they will interact with your system, is fundamental to every step of building a system.”
From the beginning of human existence, long before we had job titles to hand around, human beings have looked at a problem, experimented and tinkered, and come up with a solution. We’ve improved on previous solutions, and found ways to make our environment safer and our lives easier. We’ve built homes, cities, and nations. We’ve come from using simple stones as tools to creating a worldwide infrastructure that allows instant communication and collaboration. We’ve drastically altered our existence from a creature who lives only to find the next meal and stay alive long enough to mate to a thriving race capable of creating art and philosophy. Every single step that mankind has taken throughout history has been due to problem solving.
Reasoned Response to Outrage
I think what I love most about Zunger’s response is that he doesn’t take the time to try and convince anyone that the author’s pseudoscience is exactly that. He doesn’t bother picking apart every little inaccuracy or bit of circular thinking found in the document. Rather, he stays at a much higher level, focusing broadly on what engineering is, at its core, and how those traits identified as harmful in the document are, in fact, benefits to engineers and to problem solvers in general. With my own experiences as a women in the tech industry and as a small business owner, Zunger’s response stood out to me as a remarkably clear headed and no-nonsense approach to the exploring the effectiveness of “feminine” traits in engineering.
Mika Hutton is an owner of Interplanetary Designs, providing handcrafted space and solar system jewelry. An ameture astronomer and astrophotographer, Mika writes about space news, women in STEM fields, small business ownership, and craft business practices.
