Women should not be men and other thoughts while reading Damore
For starters, it’s really interesting reading Damore’s full memo and would highly suggest reading this to anyone who’s interested in the issue of women in tech.
While I disagree with the majority of Damore’s conclusions (which include that women are biologically predisposed to being less successful, that men are being unfairly targeted for misogyny), but not all of them (including that the male gender stereotype should be loosened and that more opportunities for women can be opened in up in tech fields that suit their tendencies), I think some of his initial posits are at least somewhat correct (that men and women are biologically/socialized to be different in terms of behavior, and that there’s a great deal of overlap nevertheless). And while he does weakly mention a diverse workplace, I just…get mad. Here are a few of my thoughts on why this article failed despite some valid posits.
1. From a purely professional standpoint, publishing this paper is pretty much suicide for how he’ll be able to continue to work in his environment.
He’s polarizing an issue that makes it difficult for others to work with him, and has “just created a textbook hostile workplace environment.” (see Zunger below). Maybe if he were an outsider and/or not writing so specifically about Google, it wouldn’t have cost him his job.
2. From my standpoint as a feminist, it’s obviously problematic that he’s essentially stating that women are inherently inferior to men in terms of technical capability.
While women do tend to be slightly different from men in certain behaviors, it is the product of centuries, millennia, of social constructs that have taught us that these “masculine” traits are the only acceptable traits that can lead to a successful career. Why are “openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics”, “extraversion expressed as gregariousness”, and “higher agreeability” negative aspects? Why does someone have to assert themselves over other people and be fixated on more tangible products in order to be considered a worthy candidate for leadership? Why can’t emotional intelligence be valued? In fact, as Zunger states in his response to Damore, “all of these traits which the manifesto described as “female” are the core traits which make someone successful at engineering.” Gender equality doesn’t mean that the genders should be the same; rather, it wants all genders to be equally valued.
3. Most of his final proposals regarding “improving” diversity and tolerance in the workplace are frankly, very skeptical.
Restricting programs/classes to people of a certain gender, race, etc. is meant to give them a tiny edge to make up for their lack of white and/or male privilege. Unqualified women/minorities obviously shouldn’t be hired, but does hiring capable women/minorities really qualify as discrimination? And my biggest issue of all — that he implies microaggressions should be a non-issue. As someone who’s experienced plenty of microaggressions throughout my lifetime, including ones that have left me literally dizzy and unable to properly breathe, I will say that microaggressions ARE an issue, that words CAN be violence, that just because YOU feel uncomfortable keeping your damn mouth shut doesn’t mean that OTHER PEOPLE should suffer from hearing you speak.
These are just some of the things that the patriarchy has to slowly reconsider — a great leader, or team player, doesn’t always look the same. Women have the right to feel comfortable in the workplace being their authentic selves, away from even the most apparently well-intending misogynists, and we as a society need to slowly learn to appreciate traits that are different from current norms but equally valuable in a professional setting. Don’t insist that a woman has to be a deviant kind of female who is assertive and has been coding since middle school for her to be valued within the tech community.
— — —
Relevant links:
“Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” by James Damore, the article in question.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf
“So, about this Googler’s manifesto.” by Yonatan Zunger, a multifaceted response to Damore.
https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788
“Policing Women’s Speech”, a podcast episode by “Stuff Mom Never Told You”, which discusses how women are expected to act like men in order to be valued in a professional environment, with a focus on speech.
http://www.stuffmomnevertoldyou.com/podcasts/policing-womens-speech.htm
