James Damore of the infamous Google memo is autistic (not that he's using that as an excuse)

[Aeolienne]

He was fired from Google for arguing that men may be more suited to working in tech than women. Now James Damore opens up about his regrets – and how autism may have shaped his experience of the world

"I see things differently": James Damore on his autism and the Google memo

 

[Sid Delicious]

This whole thing really annoyed me. Damore did nothing wrong. I read what he wrote and listened to his interviews and he only stated what is already known. He wasn't bashing women or saying they CAN'T do tech work. If anything I would have gone further than him, as I've worked in the tech industry for a few years now and the industry goes out of their way to try and recruit women (at the disadvantage of men in many cases) but there simply isn't the interest or skill set there among most women. It was far easier for me to get a job in IT as a woman (without an IT degree, any real previous experience, no real contacts or anything else). If anything, his autism just allowed him to sidestep all the PC rubbish that gets thrown about and look at the data instead.

 

[onlything]

Bollocks. I read the memo, I'm a woman and I do not see anything sexist in what he wrote. I wouldn't call it a fully objective truth but from what I know, it looks correct. All this silly problem was created by one, a few words torn out of context, and two, denial to see the reality how it is by average people.

 

[Mr Allen]

Meh, in this day and age everything has to be "Politically Correct", regardless of whether you're Autistic, NT or an Elephant.

Everyone should know that, otherwise be prepared to end up as front page news in the Guardian.

 

[pjcnet]

It doesn't matter how much they are trying to push equal rights, men and women are different and always will be, although this is spoken generally and there's always going to be a lot of exceptions. For instance on average men are physically stronger making them a more likely candidate for jobs that involve labouring, while women are more likely to be better at other things. Many women can be excellent in tech positions and they should have equal rights and opportunities to pursue these positions if they choose to, but in my opinion a higher proportion of men are also currently more suited to these positions and this shows by the much higher proportion of men and this isn't because of any prejudice against women either, in fact if anything employers will often feel more inclined to accept women into tech positions because of the lack of them and fear of being called prejudice against women if they don't. So I'm sorry, but I have to agree with James Damore and I believe at lot of people also agree, but are too afraid to say so for fear of repercussions, look what has happened to him and in my opinion this is totally wrong, they've most likely got rid of one of their best workers and for what? How does his opinion on this matter effect his work? So much for a free country.

It is similar with racism, I am NOT racist and have had various friends and colleges from different races throughout my life, but I worked for a Council in computer technical support for quite a few years and I once went out to fix a fault at a centre that was for Afro Caribbean people, on arrival I was greeted with severe hostility demanding to know why I had been sent there because I was white, I got spoken down to like a piece of crap. I bit my lip and went back to the main office to complain about the way I'd been treated to my manager, but amazingly to me they'd already received a complaint from the person who'd spoken abusively to me. The man at the centre apparently demanded to know why they'd sent a white person to fix the computer fault and he was very angry threatening to take his complaint to the highest level, yet my boss was incredibly all apologetic to him and immediately sent out an Afro Caribbean technician with the highest priority to subdue him to end his complaint there (which he did). I complained and told my manager that the man was extremely racist and abusive towards me when I greeted him politely just to do my job, I wanted to file a formal complaint against him, but my manager told me to "shut up" and very strongly advised me to bite my lip and never complain about it ever again because he said I could lose my job if anyone else even as much as heard me complaining about it. Obviously the colour of one's skin shouldn't be relevant when fixing a computer fault and it never crossed my mind that it would be, but in this situation it most certainly was and this was totally wrong. Also in my opinion apologising to him will only continue to make matters worse and the racial divides larger in future. This is another example of how sometimes things can go stupidly the other way for political correctness and the same is happening with race, sex, sexual preferences and even disabilities, it's gone too far. I almost certainly would have lost my job if I'd dared to speak out about it at the time.

 

[Sid Delicious]

Exactly. Equality, for me, requires everyone to be treated as individuals and not a list of attributes such as gender, skin colour, age, appearance, etc. When I apply for a job, I essentially want to be treated as a 'man' in that I don't want my gender to have anything to do with my employment opportunities (whether or not the impact is beneficial to me). I want the employer to look at my skills, experience, achievements and what I can or can't do in that job. I don't want to be chosen just to tick a box on the company HR list. Not only is that unfair treatment for other candidates, but it also means the company is potentially hiring less able employees which is terrible business strategy. If I was world ruler, I would mandate completely blind hiring practices for every organisation. No name, no gender, no date of birth... no information given to the recruiters other than a list of skills, achievements, and experience. Interview questions asked by AI bots and decisions made based on the resultant data before any human gets to meet any of the candidates! We already have the tech available to do that.

These days, it feels as though society is going out of their way to highlight differences and treat people as members of a set group based on those specific differences. That isn't equality. It only encourages people to focus on gender, race, religion, etc even more. I've worked in some organisations that had special days or events celebrating 'women in tech' or something similar and I find it incredibly patronising; as though the company starts from the initial assumption that women are incapable of doing the job and therefore any women that manage to turn up and show basic competance in a role deserve a special award as a pat on the head!

 

[Mary Terry]

As a female, his opinions are offensive to me. He is now attempting to temper his original memo by expressing regret for his word choices and attributing his skewed opinions to his autism. No one knows if he is now sincere in his expressions of regret and belated clarification of his original memo, or faking it in hopes of getting another job. Either way, he has no credibility and lacks credentials to express the psychological opinions he gave. People like him damage women in the workplace. I think he got what he deserved - fired by Google. In light of his publicly expressed opinions about women, I'm surprised he didn't also include black people and homosexuals along with women as being less qualified than white males to work in the computer industry as I'm sure he could have found some obscure pop psychology sources to support those attitudes, too.

 

[Ameriblush]

As a woman, I think the reason there aren't many women in the field is because even though the opportunity is out there now for tech positions, we still raise women to be put into the cliche positions of nurse, mom, teacher, etc. It's not that we can't do it or aren't engineered for it, it's that we aren't raised into it, and that presents a problem.

Him saying women aren't capable of the job may just be poor wording on his part. Maybe he meant the women he worked with, or some higher ups he hated, and not women in general. He probably went off on some random tangent or meltdown and sent it without thinking first. Or he actually could be sexist but because of misguided opinions of women and bad encounters with them on the job.

This whole thing could be the first excuse, but that doesn't change the fact that actually chauvinist could still take this and the supposed data and use it for evidence of their cause.

While it's generally accepted that men are stronger and women pay more attention to detail, I don't believe the idea that women are less logical or mathematically gifted than men. Nor do I believe that men are soulless brutes while women are these perfect fairies of nurturing and care. Chauvinist can use this memo and the stats as support of the idea that women can't do tech work or anything complicated. Letting this memo slip by because of "data" can be even more controversial than simply letting it go because it might have been taken out of context by the pc people or just saying he's autistic, because we really don't need people tarnishing our situation by using it as an excuse when they say something tactless in a professional setting.

 

[Mr Allen]

Meh, as my Mother would say, anyone who says "I'm not racist but..." usually IS racist.

Because I'm NOT racist, I voted remain for the Brexit referendum last year.

 

[Mia]

How bias clouds our thinking about diversity and inclusion
James Damore
July 2017
Personality differences
Women, on average, have more Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systematizing)

Females are often socialized early and not as trained as males are to hide their emotions. There are also females who hide their emotions, and males who show their emotions. My direction has been ideas and things, and I expect that as a female I am not alone in this. How many thousands of women might that perspective include?

These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social
or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systematizing and even
within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both
people and aesthetics.

Social and artistic 'areas' are places where women often thrive, as there are fewer cut-throat power struggles. A program was recently set up to teach girls to code, over 40,000 girls have learned to code. Providing them with some opportunities that may in the long-term turn coding into a low-paying, dead end, like many jobs that become female-centric.

Extroversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher
agreeableness.This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences
and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a
women’s issue. This leads to exclusionary programs like Stretch and swaths of men
without support.

Personally I've known many women who are no way gregarious or extroverted, and they are assertive. Cultural norms have dictated that when women are considered assertive, they are called many unkind names. Some women see positions of power and influence as needless, unless they accomplish something valuable in social equality.

Neuroticism
(higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).
This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist
and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

High stress jobs? Teaching, nursing, doctors, social workers, air traffic controllers. Women and men do these jobs. Are the numbers for women higher as it relates to anxiety? Or do men simply control their anxiety in more acceptable and differing ways, driving fast, doing sports, doing more physical jobs?

There are far too many generalizations in this memo, many of which are untrue.
His own bias is so evident, that he fails to see it.

 

[pjcnet]

How bias clouds our thinking about diversity and inclusion
James Damore
July 2017
Personality differences
Women, on average, have more Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systematizing)

Females are often socialized early and not as trained as males are to hide their emotions. There are also females who hide their emotions, and males who show their emotions. My direction has been ideas and things, and I expect that as a female I am not alone in this. How many thousands of women might that perspective include?

These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social
or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systematizing and even
within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both
people and aesthetics.

Social and artistic 'areas' are places where women often thrive, as there are fewer cut-throat power struggles. A program was recently set up to teach girls to code, over 40,000 girls have learned to code. Providing them with some opportunities that may in the long-term turn coding into a low-paying, dead end, like many jobs that become female-centric.

Extroversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher
agreeableness.This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences
and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a
women’s issue. This leads to exclusionary programs like Stretch and swaths of men
without support.

Personally I've known many women who are no way gregarious or extroverted, and they are assertive. Cultural norms have dictated that when women are considered assertive, they are called many unkind names. Some women see positions of power and influence as needless, unless they accomplish something valuable in social equality.

Neuroticism
(higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).
This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist
and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

High stress jobs? Teaching, nursing, doctors, social workers, air traffic controllers. Women and men do these jobs. Are the numbers for women higher as it relates to anxiety? Or do men simply control their anxiety in more acceptable and differing ways, driving fast, doing sports, doing more physical jobs?

There are far too many generalizations in this memo, many of which are untrue.
His own bias is so evident, that he fails to see it.

It should say that a higher proportion of women have certain qualities / characteristics rather than speaking as if all women have them, but I'm not sure I agree with their last point about Neuroticism even as a higher proportion based on the large number of women in high stress jobs that handle them just fine, sometimes better than many men.

Men and women are on average different both physically and mentally, but this shouldn't effect equal opportunities as there's a huge overlap. For instance men are on average physically stronger than women and therefore more men are likely to be in jobs that involve labouring / heavily lifting, but there are also many women who are physically strong and some would even outdo most men, so if a women wanted to do a job that involved labouring she should be accessed entirely on her individual skills and not whether she is a man or a women.

Things are getting better although it's still for from perfect, if you went back 60 to 70 years it was almost impossible for women to be accepted into many roles and it was generally much more accepted that women should be at home doing the housework and looking after any children while the man went to work as the provider. Some women might still prefer that and if that's what they truly want then fine, but again they should have the same opportunities if they do prefer to work which a lot more women want these days. Even today however if a women chooses to be a "house wife" it is generally acceptable, but if a man chooses to be a "house husband" and lets the woman go to work instead he can be looked down upon as if something is unusual or wrong, or perhaps he's lazy making a women do all the hard work (even when often looking after children and doing housework Etc. isn't always the easy option). This prejudice further shows in legal custody battles where women nearly always win over men with similar qualities and this is obviously because women are still generally seen to be better and more suited to looking after children than men. So we still have quite a way to go to obtain true equality and I doubt it will ever be perfect.