Lynne Batik
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

“The original manifesto wrote that ‘our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber’” …and the manifesto writer then went on to write things which were profoundly disrespectful of his female colleagues and which attempted to shame managers who spoke up for equity of opportunity.

There are ways to questions programmes and cost-effectiveness of efforts you don’t agree with, without saying that you think that the people around you don’t deserve to be there — and if you do say that the people around you don’t deserve to be there, then you’d better have some very solid, tangible and well-documented examples of precisely why and how they aren’t doing a good job. Instead, as has been pointed out, what the manifesto writer did was indeed create a classic “hostile work environment” — and by ‘respecting’ his opinion, management would send the message to those who were being denigrated that they were not worthy of respect.

The fact is, too, that the manifesto writer was not a proud rebel against the status quo. He was repeating the same claptrap that the vast majority of women in tech hear in almost every job, and have been hearing for decades, evidence against the claptrap notwithstanding. It isn’t “courageous” to stand up for attitudes which hold sway in a majority of places.

And calling out bigotry as bigotry, is not equal to bigotry.

In the case of bigots, they are devaluing other people based on group membership and on what they supposedly are, not what they have done. In most cases, the targets have in fact done nothing but exist and try to do their jobs. In the case of people calling out the bigots, they are pointing to how specific behaviors of that individual are affecting others adversely.

Google has a need for technical collaboration and peer review within its workforce. A significant proportion of that workforce got told that some of their colleagues resent them being there and that it’s likely those colleagues aren’t going to see them for who they are or what they can actually do. Before you leap to the defense of the poor manifesto writer, examine why you value his being welcome in his job so much more than you value the opportunities of all the people his attitudes affect in their jobs, and why you think a company’s HR should bend over backwards to accommodate one person who makes trouble for a lot of others through deliberate actions.

    Lynne Batik

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    An autonomous locus of free will.