This may be wrong(I don't have any evidence to back it up, and neither did Damore), but it is wholly different from the sinister undertones you are seeing.
(In fact, taking your "mentorship" interpretation, it is entirely possible that the women would be the one doing the mentoring, if their skill at engineering was hampered by a disinterest towards purely thing-oriented pursuits).
I'm sorry, what?
> A way more good faith interpretation would be the very simple equation of "working with just computer - more thing oriented, working with computer + partner - more people oriented".
Except that women entering the field now have no such expectations but he is still complaining about special treatment.
Pair programming is not a "social" outlet. It's collaborative, but "social?" That's quite a stretch of the word from where I think James used it.
You specifically said that the suggestion of Pair Programming, was due to James thinking that women are "less capable of individual action".
But you also said "It's a technique to improve product reliability and give more practical mentorship opportunities." Which is also my understanding. I know at least one shop where everybody pair programs. It has nothing to do with programmers being inferior. I also agree that paring is more sociable since every day I will have to greet my team mate, talk about stuff, have a coffee, then get to work.
I'm just trying to understand how "Pair Programming" changes meaning so much just because some dude wrote a manifesto. We can't even have a discussion if our understanding of the same document is so wildly different.
We might argue James says women are asking for good mentorship opportunities herr. So why do women benefit from this specifically (and that's okay) but other mentorship program are considered unfair in this rubric?
You say "we need pair programming" when reliability is difficult to gaurantee. Not because you're feeling lonely. It seems an awful lot like he's suggesting that women are especially in need of experienced minders.