as a liberal i find that it is important to not shy away
  from controversy: women and men are biologically different.
  i am sorry, but they are.

That you felt the need to apologize for a statement that is so blatantly obvious even a small child could see it is telling. I understand why you did and find myself doing similar things. It's pitiful.

Unfortunately, your pre-emptive apology for recognizing the obvious won't save you from the mob - those whose minds are so rotted and aloof they insist everyone indulge their fantasy because they can't cope with reality. Feelings, safe spaces, groupthink, and all that.

This is another maddening component - who actually argues that men and women are the same? Everyone courageously disagrees with this, but I seriously cannot find anyone actually advancing that viewpoint. It's this weird blind spot. I tried asking a few times in another thread, and the only replies I got were from people trying to debunk it.

Of course men and women are different, duh. The problem isn't that premise. The problem is the arguments people make from it.

You get the feeling that there are these legions of people that assume that liberals are in favor of diversity programs because liberals believe men and women are the same. And then these legions of people point to a study that shows men and women aren't the same, and then they feel, "A-ha! Take that, liberals!" It's completely mystifying to me.

We're not in favor of diversity programs because of a belief that men and women are the same. We're in favor of diversity programs because we know that people will use these differences as excuses to discriminate against women. This is not hard to understand!

There absolutely are people who are against any claims that men and women are biologically different, the president of Harvard got fired for even hinting that this was a possibility. Another way to look at it, if there are differences between men and women than you would expect men to be better at some things and women to be better at some things. Try claiming one of the sexes is better at anything and see how that goes over.

Larry Summers didn't merely say they were different, he used that to argue that it helped explain what others attribute to discrimination - that's different. (And from doing some googling, it's also apparently not why he was fired, even though it did cause controversy.) My point is that merely pointing out that men and women are different doesn't weaken any of the arguments that people tend to use to justify diversity programs.

It's not that people belive there is literally no difference. It's that people say the differences that do exist are irrelevant and/or aren't useful for making choices such as who might be better at what. If that's true, that these differences arent't predictive or actionable, then for practical purposes, there is "no difference". That's the crux of the argument -- are differences actionable? My hypothesis is that there are actionable differences in BOTH DIRECTIONS. Unfortunately a lot of assholes blew our ability to get to the bottom of which is which because they instead pretended to get to the bottom of things but really just rigged outcomes in favor of men. Now it's super hard to shed that baggage and actually try to make positive use of any actionable differences that may exist.

no, all of these diversity programs make the assumption that women want to do and can do everything a man wants to do and can do, and they strive to make workplaces half female and half male based on that assumption alone. if want to find people who align with the "men are the same as women" thing, just go to a public area and suggest that women dont like tech as much as men -- they will show themselves rapidly. just say that women arent as X as men and they will show themselves, as i have experienced many, many times, both directly and as a witness. i have tons of liberal friends who full on reject the notion that men are usually stronger than women, just based on muscle and bone mass and density. bill nye recently made rounds on the internet with his video trying to explain that chromosomes dont determine gender, and it went beyond what you identify as -- he claimed that sometimes both chromosomes types are found in the same person. he was suggesting that gender is a construct because thats the popular mantra. if you think that gender and gender differences are handled well in mainstream culture today then you havent looked hard enough.

I'm not sure if you read his document, where he talks about Google having lowered the standards for its employees.

But I'll leave that to the side - there's no reason to think that many of the differences he describes aren't socially constructed. Maybe the way we raise women in America/the West turns them off to pursuing tech careers.

Until we can resolve this, it's ridiculous to use psychology studies to ascertain biology - and even afterwards, our goal should be ensuring access to well-paying careers, not remaining shackled to our biology.

As an example, we have trained runners to break previously 'impossible' race times through training, technology and science - we realize that what we thought was impossible was simply not compatible with the system we previously had in place.

> the author of the memo is completely correct and, as others have said, his memo is drastically misrepresented in the coverage it has received. he simply points out that women could have less desire to go into fields such as cs because of their biological makeup.

I'm not sure you read the memo? The author never provided evidence for this claim - it's pure speculation. The only points he's able to support with science are the statements that there are biological differences between men and women. Quote:

"Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing)"

That is accompanied with citations. OK, sure, let's take that at face value.

Next, he says:

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

No citation, no nothing here - just pure guessing on his part. If you're going to make an assertion like this, you need evidence - just, "it makes sense to me!" isn't proving anything. I find it surprising and disappointing that so many fail to read this memo critically.

> men and women are not the same. The author is completely correct?

No one is saying men and women are the same. Similarly, no one is providing evidence to back up your and the author's assertions.

So much of what passes for liberal thought these days is so divorced from common sense.

My personal view about diversity and gender identity is simple: you do what you are good at and what you enjoy. The moment doing X or Y becomes a compulsion for a gender rather than a choice, you have a problem.

If you're a man and you enjoy crocheting and want to be a nurse, you go do that. If you're a woman and you like coding, you do that.

If you're a man and you're stronger than your spouse, you move the couch. If not, the woman moves the couch. My wife is taller than I am. I ask her to get things that I can't reach. I don't puff up and get all masculinist about it - it's just damn common sense.

"Do what you're good at. Do what you enjoy". Simple as that.

The biology is so radically different. You can't and shouldn't replace "men and women" with "different skin color" as the argument would be changed.

Men and women DO have different biological make ups, and there are detectable and measurable changes in statistical behavioral at large sample sizes. That's ok.

I don't condone hiring, firing, etc based on this information. And I do think diversity hiring is a good thing, as it pays dividends that go further than pure ability. Ideation is more powerful when diverse viewpoints and backgrounds are present, for example.

I think the author of the memo was wrong, but you can't de-construct his argument like this to subsequently claim an obvious moral authority.

Arguing the biological factors make a meaningful difference in engineering feels like arguing for vim or emacs makes for a better engineer, or Windows vs. Mac users, or Chrome vs Firefox. Even if you use a computer differently just considering how broad the field of engineering is, I cannot imagine a case where biological factors are a more likely predictor of success than plain old institutional bias.

> the biological factors make a meaningful difference in engineering feels like arguing for vim or emacs makes for a better engineer

the author wasn't suggesting they make better engineers, just that they make different career choices than pursuing engineering

Different skin color, unlike gender, has nothing to do with the level of testosterone one is exposed to in the womb :

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/

Abstract : "There is considerable interest in understanding women’s underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. Career choices have been shown to be driven in part by interests, and gender differences in those interests have generally been considered to result from socialization. We explored the contribution of sex hormones to career-related interests, in particular studying whether prenatal androgens affect interests through psychological orientation to Things versus People. We examined this question in individuals with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), who have atypical exposure to androgens early in development, and their unaffected siblings (total N = 125 aged 9 to 26 years). Females with CAH had more interest in Things versus People than did unaffected females, and variations among females with CAH reflected variations in their degree of androgen exposure.

Results provide strong support for hormonal influences on interest in occupations characterized by working with Things versus People."

(emphasis mine)

This is completely in line with the memo. I am so disappointed by Google.

So let me get this straight: supposedly women are less predisposed to be interested in X profession, thusly we should discriminate against those that are just so that we can match some magical speculated UNIVERSE_OF_WOMEN * WOMEN_INTEREST_FACTOR number?

Who is going to determine what WOMEN_INTEREST_FACTOR should be? You? Me? A panel of old white men in the Senate? (just like we do with women's reproductive rights?)

Wow, this has got to be the mother of all strawman arguments in this thread (and there have been many) !

Nobody said anything about discouraging or discriminating the many women who are interested in STEM fields. In fact, if anybody seems slightly obsessed with using discrimination to twist reality's arm into matching some "magical speculated" EQUALITY_RATIO (0.5), it's your side of the debate. And that's the whole premise the memo wanted to question.

I strongly believe and care greatly that any individual interested in a field of work should feel welcome to enter it regardless of gender, race, age or other personal factors unrelated to their ability. I have personally always tried my best to remove any specific hurdles my minority colleagues might encounter, and I will support anything that helps in this respect. But no more than that : make people welcome, but stop short of forcing them in or blaming the system if they don't come. This is where some diversity programs go IMHO too far by trying to fix what ain't broken, if their aim is social justice (the best defence for them is actually a business argument : greater diversity does make for better functioning teams, so it might be worth artificially forcing it)

The dogma that needs to be questioned (not least because the scientific evidence against it is overwhelming) is the idea that the gender imbalance in STEM fields (and in nursing/care/humanities) is more likely the undesirable outcome of sexism, discrimination and hostile environments, rather than the desirable result of free choices made by liberated western women following their hearts. Obviously, if it turns out to be the latter, it follows that the whole fight for parity at all costs (the "magical speculated number" of 0.5) looks like a rather moot and quixotic endeavour. How about just letting people be whatever they want to be ?

Occam's razor is again helpful here : on one side we have a very straightforward biology/hormonal influence-based theory supported by evidence. On the other hand we have something much more complex, bordering on conspiracy theory : "the patriarchy". While I agree that further replicated studies are probably required on both sides, as things stands I'm pretty confident which one is the more likely explanation that scientifically-minded people should reasonably lean towards.

> The dogma that needs to be questioned (not least because the scientific evidence against it is overwhelming) is the idea that the gender imbalance in STEM fields (and in nursing/care/humanities) is more likely the undesirable outcome of sexism, discrimination and hostile environments, rather than the desirable result of free choices made by liberated western women following their hearts

The dogma that needs to be questioned is the idea that, in a society where women were only given the vote in the last 100 years, were still relegated to the kitchen until after WWII and - to this day - are considered second-class citizens who can't determine what to do with their own bodies, we should be talking about them being in a "position of equality."

> How about just letting people be whatever they want to be ?

Is anyone forcing women to become engineers? I wasn't aware of that. Maybe you just have a pre-conception of what women "should do" and seeing them in your field strikes you as "someone must have forced them"?

> on one side we have a very straightforward biology/hormonal influence-based theory supported by evidence. On the other hand we have something much more complex, bordering on conspiracy theory : "the patriarchy"

No. Stop trying to make this some conspiracy theory. The "evidence" you are presenting as to why women behave one way is just a step above phrenology, which was wildly popular in the early 1900s and proven to be completely bogus since. You can't discount societal context when talking about behavior. Why do Norwegian and Swedish women behave differently than American women, if biology should explain everything?

I don't think that's what he was saying. His point was if we have equality of opportunity, meaning that interviews/applications are completely blind (this is impossible to do 100% in practice) and "fair", what would we expect the application and hire rate of men vs women to be? Is it 50/50? Or might it be different distributions for different jobs depending partially on biological predisposition to certain interests? If there are less women and more men interested in that type of role, then that could be partially due to biological predisposition to wanting that type of job.

This is not at all to say that, as the person in charge of hiring, you should be concerned about these things. You should set objective standards for what you need in a particular role and hire the individuals that best meet those standards.

That being said, there is ample evidence that most of the disparity in tech in hiring is due to cultural/social factors and focusing on biological aspects is mostly a waste of time. I think a lot of the diversity-increasing efforts in place at companies such as Google are commendable and should be continued.

> depending partially on biological predisposition to certain interests?

This is a very, very, very slippery slope you are treading there. Again, going back to my point: who defines where that partiality starts and ends?

> there is ample evidence that most of the disparity in tech in hiring is due to cultural/social factors and focusing on biological aspects is mostly a waste of time.

And this is why bringing back the argument of testosterone is ridiculous. How can we know how many women are going to be interested in the field, when only recently we've realized that "jeez, they might be interested in something else than an oven and what cleaning liquid to use"?

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "who defines where that partiality starts and ends?". I'm not advocating that anybody be deciding it.

Here's my understanding. If a company posts a job and receives 30 applications from women and 70 applications from men, you need to explain the reason for the disparity. Why is there such a difference? I think it's generally accepted that in this case in the software field, the majority of the disparity is due to cultural/social factors. And there are a lot of programs dedicated to outreach, education, raising interest, etc to counteract these societal factors. And I think these are good!

The point I was replying to was whether or not some of the difference in application rates could be explained because women, as a distribution of individuals, have a lower percentage that are interested in a particular type of job than men, perhaps due to biological factors. I don't think there are any conclusive studies that have shown this to be a significant effect, but for the sake of argument, I don't think it's unreasonable to consider. Of course, if it's not backed up by the evidence, then I won't continue looking at it.

I think one of the many issues with the memo was that it significantly overplayed speculative (and incorrect) biological factors, while ignoring the many social and cultural factors that we know to be the cause of most of the lack of diversity.

> I'm not sure what you mean when you say "who defines where that partiality starts and ends?". I'm not advocating that anybody be deciding it.

I know, no rational person would. But on the other hand, assuming there is one such ratio and that "we shouldn't do anything to fix the current imbalance because the magic ratio explains it" is a terrible idea. That's what the whole manifesto was about really: let's not fix a problem that doesn't exist, because testosterone.

This is a straw-man argument, the point is that if women are predisposed to be less interested in a profession than maybe that explains why there are less woman in that profession. Also the memo is about evaluating everyone based on their merits, not sure how you got the idea that it was for discriminating against women.

> not sure how you got the idea that it was for discriminating against women.

Not sure where the author got the idea that Google is discriminating against men, either. As I said elsewhere: unless he has solid proof that the distribution of resumes Google gets and the number of people hired diverge significantly, and that the divergence is only explained through some form of discrimination, he's talking out of his ass.

There are differences in chimps about the propensity of genders to pick certain types of toys (train or doll iirc).

By contrast, the differences in racial averages in genetic makeup is often less than the genetic differences between two individuals of the same race.

That would make it a different statement which may we'll have a different truth value

Why? Those don't mean the same thing.

people of different races, different skin colors, different anything, are in fact different from each other in a genetic way. every person is different from every other person on a genetic basis. i am sorry to be direct, but it is with no hatred or racism that i say the following: if a group of people all share the genetic trait that their skin is a certain color, it is possible they share other common genetic traits. this is simple logic, and it is correct. how deep these differences are, whether or not they are cognitive or psychological, has yet to be scientifically determined or even investigated. personally, i dont think its important for these things to be investigated. as long as all doors of opportunity are open to all people regardless of any genetic quality, i think we will be ok.

it is important that we all broach the ugly subject of racial genetics with rational and compassionate minds. firing or punishing (socially and otherwise) people who try to discuss things such as this will lead to much worse outcomes in my opinion.

It seems like you're open to learning more about genetics (I think...) so I'll share some interesting findings that don't really fit with the popular conception of race.

It turns out that the most genetic variability lies between... black people who live in West Africa.

While we can use 'junk DNA' to classify people somewhat well, that doesn't tell us much about what makes a person a person.

This is not a controversial view - here's a discussion of it for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893020/

genetics is complicated. not only is there so called junk dna, there is also epi-genetics. and even the genes that we correlate with certain diseases are not understood well. we dont understand how our dna translates into our physiology. and at no point have i pretended to understand this.

Totally agree! Especially as a PhD student in genetics.

Just wanted to put out the point that race as we understand it does not map cleanly onto distinct phenotypes.

race does not map onto distinct phenotypes? what exactly do you mean?