Personally I think you can find racial and sex differences if you look for them. The athletics world championships are on at the moment. What race wins most of the races? Why do we have separate men and women's events? And yet we are told that despite there being obvious physical differences, there are no differences in non-physical aptitude, and furthermore, even to ponder the idea is heretical. I don't get it. Do we really think that if differences were found we are about to start herding one race off to labour camps? Or ban men from going into child care because they don't have the natural aptitude for it?
I always think it's worth questioning prevailing beliefs, at least within my own head.
One note I can think of, using your running analogy: focusing on the natural abilities at the very top of the echelon (or even just the pinpoint average) may ignore the massive spread of ability among the general population. Men are naturally going to typically be faster runners than women (larger heart sizes and stronger muscle density -- testosterone traits, in essence). However (and you can look at any mass-participation 5K to verify this), this ignores the wide spread. It is safe to say that your top male athlete will almost always outrun your top female athlete. I think it is also safe to say that a woman who extensively trains will almost always be able to outrun any man who simply shows up at a running event with zero training at all. Certainly there are differences in non-physical aptitude between the sexes, too; however, I also can imagine that there's a wide spread of innate ability here, too, with training also as a differential factor.
I don't think pondering the idea should be some sort of heretical thing, no, but especially with this subject, you have to be careful. I think part of the reason there's a large amount of discomfort about this is part historical example (eg eugenics). If the conclusion drifts into "inferiority / superiority" angles, it can be used by powerful people to exploit tribalism to do awful things.
Here's an example of a measure of male strength where virtually no women are stronger than men: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/4vcxd0/alm...
The idea that all races and sexes have the same potential is not borne out by the facts. Nature is important. It's comforting and fashionable yet intellectually soft minded to blame it all on the patriarchy or imperialism. All the diversity programmes in the world can't change nature. Nothing should be out if bounds for discussion. In the nicest possible way, if I am not trying to harm people or encourage anyone else to do so, who the hell are you or anyone else to tell me what to say or think?
Yes, on the topic you selected, grip strength, almost all men are going to be stronger than any women.
To go back to running though. You missed for instance where I said "men are naturally going to typically faster runners than men", which also is true. If you look at this large dataset of compiled 5K pace times, (http://www.pace-calculator.com/5k-pace-comparison.php), you will see that men have a very distinct advantage at all levels (usually a minute and a half pace difference on average).
But you cannot say "almost all men are going to run faster than women", due to the wide spread of pace. There are a significant amount of women capable of an 8 minute / mile pace; this pace is faster than the male average 5K pace at any age.
Nature is important; so is environmental factors. By mentioning that environmental factors exist, I am not dismissive of biological differences. I do think particularly on things like personality, intelligence, and other non-physical traits, it is fairly difficult to pick out what causes what. Testosterone / estrogen traits are fairly easy, we can see the results. Debugging the brain on the other hand is a lot harder.
I did not mention patriarchy or imperialism or feminism. I mention eugenics and tribalism because of the sordid history of this sort of thing; it's a serious warning flag to not rush to conclusion. You can say what you want and think what you want, but I personally would not take any person who does not recognize this warning flag very seriously, to be honest.
In theory, nothing should be out of bounds; in practice, this type of conversation easily degrades into tribalism, which yes I believe human beings are very prone to. (I mean, why else bring up feminism / left wing / patriarchy / imperialism? I didn't mention any of this.) That's not to say "don't discuss this", but I'm not going to say anything else if bringing up the fact that environmental factors exist turns me into some sort of left-wing caricature. :)
I'll try and avoid "the most famous and pervasive lazy cheat in American dialogue about free speech" in the future. :0
I really think it's worth reading the employment lawyer piece I linked, it's good to get the actual legal perspective on this whole situation.
I think it's not a legal issue - clearly Google can fire him without cause. But it's a cultural issue; is it morally acceptable to still work at or with Google, even though they show this behavior?
Personally, this pisses me off enough that I've switched to DuckDuckGo for the moment.
The most eye opening piece of advice I've received on these subjects has been to try and listen to and believe as many people from these disadvantaged groups as possible. Women and minorities all have rhyming stories of being discriminated against. Part of the nature of systematic discrimination is that it is mostly invisible to the majority that benefit from it. It has to be, because when we notice it, it feels wrong.
The vast majority of women I've seen speak on the issue of this manifesto have said similar things: that they recognize the type of man who would write it, that they've had to deal with that type of man their whole careers, and that giving credence to his arguments by airing them in a company sanctioned forum is demoralizing, making their jobs more difficult, and making them feel more like outsiders to the company.
I believe in the paradox of tolerance. In order to build a tolerant environment, there are some things that cannot be tolerated.
That I can choose to have a coworker fired over my projection, from his writing, of his internal psychological state is new to me.
The race to be the biggest victim makes sense to me now. That's awesome power.
What I'm trying to point out is that people on the receiving end of discrimination in our industry have recognized patterns of behavior that mostly pass beneath my (and perhaps, your) radar. But they are patterns that women across the board, in different companies, in different fields, recognize and can name to one another. This is what structural sexism means, these patterns are built into our society, today. And this manifesto matched perfectly with a number of negative patterns, hence the strong negative response.
(also, writing is inherently a projection of internal psychological state so I'm not sure I really understand the problem you are talking about)
I tought I wouldn't see that in my lifetime, that it was a thing of the past. Reading of totalitarian societies I always wondered how it could happen, and now we see it develop right before our eyes. It is fascinating & terrifying.