Why is a lack of women in tech a problem but not a lack of women digging graves?

My daughter has an open door to the tech industry. She has no interest in it. We don't need to push woman into STEM we need to encourage woman who have interest in STEM.

I like Chloe Condon's approach. Here's why. My guy is an engineer. Not only that, he went into the nerdiest area of engineering imaginable. The field where only the most technically brilliant (and often the most socially inept) will even manage to get a degree, because anyone with social skills would choose something easier. There was one woman in his graduating class of about 50 (and unlike 90% of the men, she had several job offers 6 months before graduation. If I recall, she took the one that offered lots of people interaction in engineering sales). My guy is 6 feet tall. His shoulders are 3 feet wide. He has the squat build of a power lifter. He has out of control facial and body hair and huge hands. He's not socially awkward at all. Nearly all of his male classmates were skinny, short Sheldon clones. The only one even remotely as tall as him had the hairless face of a 14 year old kid and was not muscular at all. He had instructors tell him more than once that he looked like he should be in a trade, or working with his hands. Came right out and said, "yeah, you just don't fit in. You don't look like you belong here. You're just not the type." Whatever that means, I guess. His job search was REALLY difficult. It took him more than two years, 7 months of it working graveyards at a bakery, before he landed a permanent position in his field. The position is with a small company where all three owners began as tradesmen, and where only three of the employees (my guy included) have engineering degrees. All the other employees just have trades tickets or high school. He managed to find a niche where his skills as an engineer are needed, but where he fits in with the owners and other employees. But yeah, it took him forever. He can't blame sexism, though. Or racism. Or any other official "ism". He can certainly point to stereotypes of what an "engineer is supposed to look like". His instructors' comments obviously confirm those stereotypes exist and also confirm that people are fine acting and speaking on those stereotypes when they know they aren't on the wrong side of some violation against a "protected class". My guy says looking back on it with 20/20 hindsight, he'd have gone into petroleum engineering, or even civil. Would have been way less work to graduate, and he'd have landed a job faster. And it would probably be a job similar to the one he was eventually hired to do. Because the truth is, he DOES look and act like he'd be more at home working with a bunch of roughnecks than in an R&D lab, and the reality is, he's more comfortable in the former environment than the latter, anyway. Oh well. Lesson learned. Complaining about stereotypes only gets you so far. Sometimes you have to shrug some things off and make an effort to fit in.

Oh, come on! The only reason there is even a question of why there are few women in tech is because it's a comfortable job that's done in an air-conditioned environment, safe, secure, well paid, and trendy. Other jobs that are well paid are deep sea fishermen (or should that be fisherperson?), and long distance driving, but there's no cries of "Where are all the women?" when it comes to those jobs, which are close to 100% male dominated, why? Because they're not done in a safe, secure environment, and they're not trendy jobs you can boast about at posh dinner parties. Enough of this crap! I will never take their whimpering seriously until I hear them complain about the lack of women in other fields, like sewage, garbage disposal, street sweeping, white goods delivery, road maintenance, security, armed forces, etc. They're called manholes for a reason, because no woman would ever go down one.

I agree with Christina - except that I disagree that his memo was easily misunderstood by those who read it... It was misunderstood by most because barely anybody *actually read it* themselves! People just saw the virtue-signalling articles with shoddy or non-existent analysis and decided that James Damore was saying things that even a quick-skim of his memo showed that he wasn't. Though yes he probably should have left out the part about the neuroticism due to the predictable inflammatory response it was likely to invoke in readers. It wasn't important to his point as far as I can tell, so I don't know why he'd give critics ammunition. I especially agree with Christina on the way Google should have handled this situation. Rather than fuel rhetoric and fear instead opt to actually start resolving any problems by using empathy and smart communication effectively to communicate with and advance all parties.

I agree the focus should be on positivity. If you're a Women and want to go in to Tech then just do it. Misunderstandings always occur if you're not what's expected, it's not sexist. If more Women did Degrees in the subjects suitable for those jobs, then there would be more Women in those jobs. No complaints that there are more Women in certain fields. Only Male dominated ones get complaints. I just hate the hypocrisy of this stupid mainstream feminist crap.

I worked in IT as a computer programmer through the 80's and 90's, although not in silicon valley. In my experience working with men and women programmers I did notice a significant difference between the way we guys approached our field vs the women. A lot of us guys loved to spend our spare off work hours tinkering with computers and different computer language compilers. I can remember getting so involved in playing with my own first PC, A TRS80 back in about 1980, that I lost all track of time and didn't realize that it was so late until I looked up and discovered that it was long after midnight, and I had to go to work early the next morning! Most women on the other hand spent little if any time playing with computers and compilers during their off work hours, preferring to spend their time instead socializing with their friends and families. In fact the women would often arrive at work late, leave work early, and take off as much time as they could to spend more time with their friends and families. While I accumulated a lot of overtime and sick leave hours because I worked so many hours and took little time off, I donated a large portion of my largess of sick leave time to a woman who needed it to take time off for an operation where she would be absent from work for a long time. There were many times that my employers needed someone to work overtime to fix problems in program systems that had just gone online and still had many bugs. We usually set up a rotation among us programmers so that we each would take a turn at it. I frequently volunteered to do overtime at work so that a woman co-worker could go home to be with her friends, family, and children on what would have been her rotation, especially during the holidays. Even as far back as the late 70's, early 80's feminists in the office frequently complained about women not getting equal treatment to men. Their complaining often led to getting preferential treatment for women instead. When it came to advancement to supervisory positions, women were often promoted preferentially to appease feminist complaints. That didn't really bother me because I wasn't interested in becoming a supervisor anyway, I liked doing the programming work and being a supervisor involved a lot of managing people, which I had absolutely no interest in. But there were other incidents that did bother me a great deal. Like when an e-mail was circulated in the office with a long list of jokes that had men as the fool in them. I took one of those e-mails one time and reversed the gender roles in the jokes, making them jokes with women as the fool in them, and sent the e-mail to all of the original recipients. I was reprimanded for sending an e-mail with a list of jokes denigrating women. When I pointed out that the original e-mail was the same jokes with the gender roles reversed, I was informed that it was OK to send out an e-mail like that with men as the fool in it, but not OK to send out an e-mail like that with women as the fool in it. How is that women getting equal treatment to men? But that is second and third wave feminism as I have come to know them.

There is a perfectly obvious solution to the gender gap in tech: PAY LESS ATTENTION TO PEOPLE'S GENDER. People can decide to do anything they want in life regardless of their gender and if we stop categorizing people this way, the prejudiced problem disappears. There are always going to be people who work in tech, and people who don't work in tech, and there is no problem with that. Those are the meaningful categories - not men vs. women. Sadly, a lot of people think paying more attention to gender is a good direction to go to...

Nerds used to be mocked for being useless around women, now they are macho misogynists?

Much has been written and broadcast about Damore's memo. I think people should read the source material. I find it ironic that he was fired for this memo, considering that he examines ways to get more women into the field.

One of my best friends daughters ( I've been part of their family's group of friends since before her birth) is an engineering student. She has an amazing mind for math, for mechanical design and computer software. Her reaction to that guy's firing at google was pure exasperation. What she said was, if you want more women in science then two things have to happen, more science needs to be taught in the K1-12 system (which applies to both men and women) and more women need to prepare academically both in high school and the first two years of college..... and then go into the science fields. Until women go into those fields in numbers close to men, then the logical outcome is more men than women in science. She told one of her female friends at school this and got a long lecture about feminism and how the system is rigged. Sigh

"Awkwardly worded and easily misunderstood" Bullshit. I read it was the easiest thing ive ever read. Most people havent even read it and just want to cry about something

Talk to Damore. I think if you discuss with him you'll see just how egregious his dismissal was.

So basically if a guy says these things, it's bad. If a woman does it, you pointed out two, then it's okay.

Just two points. He did not claim biological difference as the ONLY reason, he even acknowledged that sexism exists in tech. He also gave suggestions on how to make the industry more desirable for woman, whether they would work is of course another story.

It still seems like a clear double standard the fact that when you have a field dominated by women it's perfectly fine, but when it's dominated by men it MUST be sexism. If you truly think a large gender disparity is a problem and is indicative of sexism, you should be just as concerned and passionate about getting more men into teaching or nursing positions, especially considering I'd wager that ironically the gender disparities that may be a result of some form of sexism may actually be in the female dominated fields rather than the male ones.

Why would the Factual Feminist have left out references to women's higher neuroticism and anxiety? They are simply facts, Christina, and they do affect interactions between workers and hence, are germane.

We also have a too few women in mining industry problem. Not enough women miners! But funny that nobody talk about THAT problem

One of the best responses to the memo I could find. Thank you!

im glad you took this approach to this whole debacle. it was honestly very midline and well representative of facts and of thoughts and clashes of both sides. its good to know im not the only one utterly over/underwhelmed by the new culture wars. thank you for taking this in a very reasonable direction, it allowed me to look a little beyond where i had been.

You are the top 10 reasons to subscribe to AEIs channel.

I'm not sure we should be discussing the non50/50 representation of men and women as a "problem." Let people choose what they want to do. I would also point out that any demand for 50/50 in a full time job is waaay off, in the UK women only make up 37% of full time workers so it would be insane to assume 50% of all 'top of the pyramid' places would be occupied by women.

well said. I always enjoy your segments, and you often reference people I did not know existed previously. Keep up the good work Miss Sommers.

Lady, I love your videos.. In a time when people are way too fast to throw someone under a bus for a word of phrase, you step in with facts.. This is why your videos bring a light to a bleak world of discussion. Keep up the good work..

The bottom line in our opinion over here in the gender-critical scene in Germany is: people should be allowed to make free choices based on their natural or any other inclination. As Jordan Peterson has pointed out, decades of socio-political promotion of gender levelling have led to a MAXIMISATION in gender-specific preferences: there are not less women in nursing, THERE ARE MORE or just as many as before. Same for engineers (just as many men). So, if you don't indoctrinate children and let them (as adults) make their own free choice, things work out like this. What's so bad about it? Here's a question: who is it that wants to deconstruct sex differences anyway? You have 3 guesses, but it certainly is not the majorty of the population

I can't say with any certainty an answer to the question of why there are more men than women in tech. But I can say this: The answer is not "SHUT UP!!"

I must say, it is great to hear someone from the feminist group that takes a calm cool response to these topics at such a volatile time as this.

always love your videos

Awww... greatly disappointing. Damore points out that biology is only one part of the explanation. His greater point is that they cant even TALK ABOUT IT! Even you say you'd have left out the negative sounding parts. Your suggestion to bring in "sane scholars" would do the same as his memo. *sigh*

Referencing guys like Nietzsche is part of the problem. People today do not differentiate between something said by an 18th century man with strained relationships with women and the attitude of men today. Ya Nietzsche's views on women were awful by today's standards but they echoed sentiments of the time, specifically those that Pride and Prejudice poked fun at. Today's discussions about biological differences are to explain observed trends not to prescribe actions and the very fact that we fail to recognize that is what led to the outrage over this memo. Those who got angry didn't read it for what it was they read it as though it were a prescriptive statement about how women SHOULD be

A quality AEI video to tackle a sensitive subject, good job ma'am.

I never watched you before so wasn't sure what to expect, but you articulated your points very well and I happen to agree with those points. The knee-jerk reaction of firing Mr Damore just did more damage than good, and completely proved his point.

I wish you were my mother / teacher ms Christina Hoff Sammers. 🤗

Love you 👑👑

I'm in strong agreement on this. As a philosopher who's taught elementary logic for generations, I too was tempted to dissect the various wrong-headed readings of Damore's reasonable-even-if-wrong memo. But it's too dispiriting to wade into this culture war space. CS has made the point neatly without embarrassing the objectors.

Wonderful work as always. I too am tired. You give me strength.

Let's not listen to 2 geniuses of the past, because they said something, which is incompatible with our current Women are wonderful Narrative.

2:40 Why would you have left that out? Do facts offend the Factual Feminist?

Best summary with feedback on this subject. Thanks FF!!!

Thank you for presenting fair and honest information. It takes an emotionally intelligent person to listen and sanely discuss issues and information that may go against their information and bias.

Damn: I actually thought that you were going to give me some faith in feminists. Yet, you completely blow by the fact you yourself stated: “men earn 82 percent of computer science degrees.” STOP right there. That’s all you have to say. No sexism; nothing but facts-yet you go on…, mentioning Nietzsche and how you get the skepticism (meanwhile Nietzsche died over a hundred years ago). Overall, the skepticism comes from folks who don’t bother with the facts.., so why should anyone bother with them?

Cristina HOT Sommers imright?

Good video! Not particularly my viewpoint of the ordeal, but it's such an unbelievably refreshing statement that doesn't polarize and escalate. TBH I clicked in to see how many "feels" and misrepresented facts I'd find and instead my only complaint is Nietzsche got shafted over a dated statement, he was a very brilliant man, just at a time when women socially were viewed as home baby makers. Please keep making videos! We need this instead of the current bigots vs. screechers flooding the internet

My favourite piece on this topic so far. Perfectly put.

Thank you for being a voice of reason

she is still pretty attractive

Phenomenal. You are always so clear, concise, and even-handed. Thanks Based Mom!

This was very good. I like your new style and the fact that you're not buying into the rhetoric of the culture wars. God knows, we've heard enough of that. It's time to make constructive suggestions about how we might get past some of these issues. You make a good start here. Please keep going in that direction.

Everybody loves Based Mom! :D

This video is absolutely spot on. I would add more, and have elsewhere, but Christina Summers has really encapsulated it all in one short video.

Christina I came looking for your opinion on the Google memo matter. For some reason your explanation caught me off guard. I do not know why as you are always brilliant!

I like your conciliatory approach with this video.

If feeling offended alone is justification for outrage and ruining someone's life than our society is rotting in hell.

Right now I am at grad school in Germany to become a teacher and this field is crowded with women. Especially on an elementary level. Just because I am the exception does not mean that biology plays probably a huge role there. Why should anyone be offended if that is pointed out?

If 20% get tech degrees and 20% are working in the tech industry they are perfectly represented. If you want a tech job get a tech degree.

this is the same reasons why we see more women in salons, it is a field built on working directly with people and creating things that are cosmetic in nature

This is a very good video and great poit of view, well done!

I'm so excited to see you talk at Cal State LA!

As an engineer in silicone valley, I have noticed that while there are relatively few women engineers, from my anecdotal experience there seem to be roughly the same number of men and women working as professional recruiters (not counting the very amateurish ones from call centers which tend to be all men--and tend not to know what they are talking about). A good technical recruiter is knowledgeable about tech jobs and requirements, can communicate well, and is friendly and upbeat leaving people with positive vibes. Moreover, I have noticed that more than half of these professional recruiters who are women are significantly more attractive than average. Funny thing is, when I try a web search to see if there are any studies on this, I am buried under an avalanche of results on efforts to recruit more women. So I really am not sure what the percentage of professional recruiters are women, nor if there has been a study confirming that they tend to have more very attractive women than one would expect.

I'm a simple guy. I see Mrs. Hoff Sommers, I click. Now that I've watched it, I partially agree with the content. If being "seen" as someone's daughter is such a problem for women that they can't fight to _deserve_ recognition, like most guys have to, then yes, Silicon Valley is not a place where women will thrive. There's also this difference between men and women: guys are, in general, tougher (we have been told to walk it off since infancy, and it works, because walking it off is our nature). Someone looking down on you is very seldom reason enough for any boy to quit any endeavour he undertakes. It sucks when it happens, both for boys and girls, it sucks the same. The difference is we keep quiet and try to prove them wrong instead of going crying to the principal or whatever. I agree there are biological factors that affect inclination towards the subjects and I also agree there are biological factors that affect the individual capacity to deal with the environment they are put in. We should not turn the whole world into safe spaces. We should not fix what is clearly not broken. If a woman make it into tech, nice, awesome. If she doesn't, we shouldn't make a big deal about why and try to change so she can make it next time. Because then we end up firing people for writing about the subject, and hiring people to meet diversity quotas. Lets move forward fast, leave this petty nonsense behind, and transcend human nature already. And the first step is to stop victimizing one another. Lets take on challenges we can actually win. Lets cure diseases, fix the energy crisis, increase food production, unravel the quantum world. Let us end scarcity, suffering, and death once and for all. Lets travel to the stars and beyond. I want to see all this happen in my lifetime and I want to be a part of it. Stop pointless shit and bickering, let us all aim at the same target, united.

The most horrible thing is that Google won the wrongful termination lawsuit that Damore brought against them.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I firmly believe that the way to address sexism (and the rest of the isms) is be being gracious and merciful with each other, fostering gentle discussions so that we can all understand each other. I'm convinced that few "sexist" statements are meant to be offensive, but are inartfully uttered in ignorance.

Absolutely love your "as objective as possible" approach. Another great video

I got into tech in 1978 as a college student looking for a major that would pay well. I found out I liked it and am good at it. At that time my IT classes were split about 50/50. Then I got a tech job in support and found about 1/2 women. Some of the women were the best. As time moved up on and I moved up I realized it was mostly guys. Now most of the heavy techers are guys while the people in charge, i.e. Scrum masters, project managers, department manager etc are women. The working with people part of tech. I asked my MIL who worked in personnel at DEC in the 70s/80s. She said when women first got into tech jobs they wanted to "carry a bag" and do what the guy s do. Then it morphed into they want to manage the guys. 95% of truck drivers are men. I walk my dog through where they are building houses. 100% guys. Where is the call for equity in truck drivers and construction workers. Sure is loud for CEOs and astronauts.

Google deserves a much harsher condemnation for their rigid mostly feelings-based dogma.

My experience as an ex teacher of Computing in High School and someone who has worked in software development is that Ms Sommers is right ; *overall* women prefer people, men prefer things (apologies if misquoted). What I found teaching was no basic difference in skills up to about 16 or so in most cases, the point where you seriously start to specialise in subjects, where you decide "this is your thing" rather than taking a wider spread of subjects. That's the point where if you want to be a programmer, or similar, that you have to commit to spending a lot of time being, well, fairly anti-social, programming a computer, figuring out how things work etc etc. Girls are definitely *capable* of this intellectually, but they usually don't want to do it. This showed up as enthusiasm amongst girls for GCSE (14-16 study) Computing but not for AS/A2 (16-18 study) - this is in the UK. This is why developers are often anti-social or mildly Asperger Syndrome (fits me !) because some aren't particularly sociable ; to some extent we prefer talking to machines than people. It becomes self reinforcing. (Off the top of my head, I think male ASD outnumber female ASD about 4 or 5 to 1). We feel more comfortable with machines so we spend more time with them, which increases the skill level. That causes the one difference up to 16 ; you get male programming 'whizzkids' who have been spending a lot of their lives keyboard bashing (programming, not playing games). I never came across a female version - though they will exist - they seem to be far less common.

Ramifications 1- Google governance and political corporate agenda = Google dismissed Damour as a valid corporate stakeholder. 2 - courts will see the case = governance will have to answer (or not). 3 - Whatever, information disseminate, people (men) can/will relate to the Damour's case. 4 - As a trend, men in general are not not claiming victim hood, they are receding out / out as meaningful social stakeholders.

Engineering graduates entering my industry are 80% to 95% men. My company declared that our goal is to hire 50% women for technical roles, and it solicited ideas for how to accomplish it. The ideas that came back were often flagrantly illegal, such as going to people recently laid off and only offering the women their jobs back. Given the talent pool, it is impossible to hire 50% women and not harm the company. Instead, we would be better off simply dismissing every single person in the 'equity' department.

Nuanced and reasonable as always, thanks for your regular videos!

I worked as an electrical engineer at IBM and TI in the 80s. 90s, and 2000s. There were several female engineers that I worked with. NO ONE treated them badly. We treated them the same as anyone else. In regards to Damore's mention of hysteria, I work in software now and I work in a group that is mainly women, I know of at least 4 different women that are prone to crying. Crying out of the blue, unpredictably, for no good reason. It has an effect on the work.

I work in IT industry (but in Asia). If a company gets 50% male cvs and 50% female cvs, probably man to female ratio would be 50 - 50.

I agree. Trying to learn and evaluate the cultural and political landscape we find ourselves in. As a father of a beautiful daughter and son and a husband of many years I have been required to step into this milieu to stay relevant to the interests of young adults. There appears to be ever increasing lack of tolerance, compassion and empathy towards our fellow humans. I find it strange that Google would terminate an employee that was requested by HR diversity management to engage in the very thing for which he was terminated. I wish people would take a step back, take a deep breath and understand people’s lives are at stake and the very thing those who cry foul are committing that same foul. I understand that many people have been subjected to treatment less than dignified and respectful. I also understand my love, compassion, and empathy for others is the only way to peace.

Every time I hear her talk I think to myself: what a graceful, intelligent, informed lady. Thank you, Mrs. Sommers, for your contributions to civilization.

I love this video. It's rare to find anyone emphasizing that there are probably many reasons for different distributions of men and women in different fields, including nature, nurture and sexism. (The same applies for men who want to go into traditionally female fields as well.) Mostly, people like me who think it's some of each feel caught between the crowd that thinks Damore should be tarred and feathered and the crowd that thinks "There's no such thing as sexism! Genetic differences explain everything!" I wholeheartedly agree that Damore should not have been fired for that thoughtful, reasonable memo; it should have just been the beginning of conversations on the topic -- conversations that would include more observations about population-level differences between men and women *and* observations about the effects of bias. We may never arrive at one ultimate "answer" to such a complex issue, but it should be safe for people to talk about it without fearing for their jobs.

I'm a male that works in IT as an application developer. I've worked with many women over the years. I've had many female bosses. Never has gender in the work place been an issue that I've put much thought into. Not only that. I've never ever ever heard any male coworker say anything derogatory about working with, or working for a person because she was female. I'm happy to work with anyone who's good at their job and professional. And I've met some incredibly talented female developers. But I think men simply gravitate towards STEM fields in higher percentages than women. I've never heard anyone say "There are not enough male nurses or elementary school teachers.". Most of us know that a higher percentage of women are way better at those jobs than men could ever be. Anyways, there are always exceptions. All kids regardless of gender should be exposed to STEM fields. If they can do it let them. But what we don't need it more government policy that forces companies to diversify and hire more women or whatever to fill quotas.

The reason less women are interested in tech is not only biological, but also social. But not necessarily by men discouraging women to go into tech. There is also a factor of women discouraging other women implicitly, without realizing it. Both sexes get most social interaction among their same gender. Men interact with men, Women with women. A man interested in tech, in a social group of men is far more likely to be able to find other men to discuss his interest in tech. AS woman interested in tech will find it extremely difficult to finds a group of women in which she will be able to discuss the technical topics that interest her. This discourages women and they end up not bringing it up. It takes a strong personality for anyone to pursue a career in a field that is completely foreign to the social group the person belongs to. A group of young women in the process of finding jobs will more likely discuss, have inside information on and cheer on jobs in typical female occupations (teacher, admin, health care) than about tech jobs. Usually the sole female tech oriented person will receive no peer support to secure the jobs she wants and when acquiring such a job will get a lukewarm 'good-for-you' from her peers. Not because they disprove of her choice, but simply because that world is very foreign to most of these women. This also translates into later stages of life, e.g. a group of moms. Most discussions are dominated by the domestic issues. When asked about the profession of their husbands, very few women have a good idea what their husband do, especially when it is something 'techie'. If they talk about their husbands job, it will never be about the technical aspects of the job. AS female interested in tech will never get the exposure to the tech world in the same way men do, simply because their social world (other women) does not offer them that. If a tech woman wants her interested in tech nurtured, she has to hang out with the 'dudes'.

Even if some of Damore's comments in the memo are perceived as "awkward", that should not give Google the justification to fire him.

Excellent as always!!

Very few people point out that the intent of his memo was to help contribute to ways of getting more women into tech.

I am a software engineer. On 90% of the job interviews I've asked "Why you as a woman want to work as a software engineer?" I really don't like that question. I don't think that I should be judged for my gender but for my skills. I really love programming and being challenged and learning new skills. I now have had a software engineer job for a year and my boss says that he actually prefers hiring women, because women often have better work ethics.

Just like to say: I'm a Sysadmin - I once got told by the GM of a company that if I cut my hair and shaved my beard, He'd promote me on the spot. I told him to get fucked. 6 months later, he was forced to promote me on the basis of the Quality of work I was doing. This whole 'Women-in-tech' thing - It annoys me - there are and have been women in Tech who kicked ass and took names - (Grace Hopper springs to mind) - they did it before Women's Lib, by being Ballsy, not taking shit and playing 'in a mans game' and by playing by 'mans rules'. If that means that you don't feel comfortable or validated - then find another industry. I couldn't give a fuck about your feelings - I care about what is right, what works and what isn't going to require me spending 10 hours overnight recovering data from a backup. And FWIW - the best Manager I've ever had was a lady - she was all of 5 ft nothing and probably weighed about 50 Kg - and should would happily (and at great length) call me a fucking idiot when I was being a fucking idiot. TL;DR - the Women who work in Tech and get on with their Job, like the rest of the guys do are worth their weight in Gold and I'll defend them to the hilt. Those that bitch about 'inclusiveness' and 'making it a happy place' can fuck off.

I worked with women in science (physics, electronics). Despite having advanced degrees in science, ALL OF THEM were null and void in actual scientific experiments.

And even if people disagreed with his memo, he wasn’t someone in charge of hiring or company policy. He was fired for challenging assumptions

Here's an idea, breakdown some of the memo's assertions into a survey. That might give people a better understanding of what the debate is really about.

Truly fantastic summary of the issue. Bottom line, good spirited debate on these issues has to be addressed, not least of which will help us interact and integrate each other into areas of human endeavors with which, for reasons either social or biological, we may not be most comfortable with. This applies to race, culture as much as it applies to gender. As long as there is no true malice in the debate, and as long as the debate is lead in a constructive spirit, it is a debate worth having.

I love your videos!

Google punishes its employees for the company's failings in hiring.

I'm no feminist and it appears that you may be straining the definition of this word but you are right about social media trials without evidence or a right of reply. Keep it up.

I don't really get it. They complain women don't get hired in tech jobs, but there's no complaint about too many female nurses?

THANK YOU CHRISTINA! As a female scholar focused on breaking down stereotypes, the approach google took to double down to further cement this mainstream "safe space" rhetoric I felt did more damage to women's equality than good. Damore may have had good intentions with the memo, but he is just one of many men who use biological gender differences to justify keeping women out of this type of workforce. It's important that both sides of the argument spare their arguments from drawing conclusions. I want to empower women to blaze their own trails, regardless of what the prevailing logic of our biology is.

Thanks for the calm good-sense

People just want to be upset, Damore wrote a very thoughtful paper that he presented for discussion. He had the courage to speak to a situation, he is not anti-women. If women want to be in tech, they should go for it, do the training! I know guys who code all day, it's a different thing and they are often exhausted from it.

I think, despite the culture war, that people are generally welcoming of women in tech. My bias may be that I'm a computer science major at a liberal arts college, but every time I see the one woman in the sea of 25 other dudes, she usually has the edge nerve and drive that others don't to get through the course on top of things. Honestly I think it'll benefit them in the long run having a unique skillset and pallet of options in the process of debugging and structural writing of code.

Once in college I received an email "You have been identified as a potential participant of an autism study..." and I started wondering what is the data that led someone to believe I am autistic. Well, the email was sent to all members of Electrical and Computer Engineering department. There is a lot more than just gender that is assumed about engineers. At the same time, if you are looking for a male with autism, there is no better place to find one.

This video is spot on. Men and women differ not just physically but in certain intellectual interests, not withstanding there will always be a minority not so intellectually bound.

Christina, well done, you are a clear communicator, focusing on facts. History has shown when people Don't deal with facts, it is usually they who are most adversely effected. People, allow themselves to be influenced by "political correctness" when they personally don't have a good value system of their own, so they are easily led by others. Its so ironic in an age where information and the truth is so readily available. But, the fear of social rejection is strong in most.

100% correct. "Friendly atmosphere," as she suggests, is impossible in PC Silicon Valley. There are differences between men and women, but you can never utter it.

The inherent differences between men and women are what make the union of a man and a woman so powerful that it took over the world. Today's feminism is trying to break that link, to make us all weak, men and women. Working together, each with his/her strenght, is what made my family pass from extreme poverty in 1920 (my grand parents) to enough wealth to study long university career (my sons and daughter) in 100 years.

Christina...thanks so much for your approach to this subject.

I am happy to see you take this new approach, where it's not just slamming 3rd wave feminism (duely deserved, but, as a feminist yourself, it's nice to see which feminist stances you do actually stand for). I agree that nurture is also important (as I have been witnessing with my own eyes, my 3 year old niece is really into dinosaurs and pirates, yet she is only ever gifted "girly" toys, which she also enjoys, but you can see right there how adults impose their prejudices on children from early on). I think James Damore would have been wiser to leave out his open criticism of identity politics, to avoid the backlash he's gotten (not that Google was justified, I just mean for his own sake). I have often seen women argue that women need not aspire to imitate men, but rather challenge why the need to act like men in order to succeed in the first place. How is that different from James Damore's own conclusions? Far from stating that women don't belong in tech, he gave suggestions on how to make the field more attractive to them, taking their wants and needs into account. I understand why people lost it over the "neuroticism" reference, when you consider the rich history of downplaying women as hysterical or overly emotional. However, my understanding is that he was saying the reserach points to women being more prone to anxiety and that in itself really shouldn't be an issue any more than acknowleding men are more prone to depression. Perhaps he could have mentioned this to even the playfield or not mention it at all and avoid the controversy altogether, as I don't think anxiety is what keeps women away from STEM (I myself have anxiety and love reading up on science and skepticism). Still, it should not be taboo to talk about these things.