"I'm a woman in computer science. Let me ladysplain the Google memo to you."

[Blue_Adept]

I’m a lecturer in computer science at Stanford. I’ve taught at least four different programming languages, including assembly. I’ve had a single-digit employee number in a startup. Yes, I’m a woman in tech.

I have known, worked for, and taught countless men who could have written the now-infamous Google “manifesto” — or who are on some level persuaded by it. Given these facts, I’d like to treat it — and them — with some degree of charity and try to explain why it generated so much outrage.

At the outset, it must be conceded that, despite what some of the commentary has implied, the manifesto is not an unhinged rant. Its quasi-professional tone is a big part of what makes it so beguiling (to some) and also so dangerous. Many defenders seem genuinely baffled that a document that works so hard to appear dispassionate and reasonable could provoke such an emotional response. (Of course, some see that apparent disconnect not as baffling, but as a reason to have contempt for women, who in their eyes are confirming the charge that they are more emotional and less quantitative in their thinking.)

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/11/16130452/google-memo-women-tech-biology-sexism

[ismnotwasm]

1. A well worded thing of beauty

Thank you

[Blue_Adept]

2. Sadly, it makes little impact on far too many

I'm usually immersed in geek culture for work and seeing the responses to the original memo with "well, he has a point..." and then the verbal crap that follows just makes me weep for humanity.

[ismnotwasm]

5. Yeah

I'm in healthcare, so I'm surrounded by well-educated women--AND men, but Tech is a very different ballgame from what I understand. Although, In nursing, we tend to get put in a single category, when it's a very diverse field. There was a women with multiple degrees including a doctorate, who was referred to as a "retired nurse" in one residents note. He meant no harm, of course.

The "He has a point" crowd can come from women as well. One of my daughter just got a job in animal insurance. One of her bosses referred to the workplace environment as a "taco box" because of the number of women. I'm sure she thinks it's edgy and truthful. I thought she sounded like an idiot with issues.

[iluvtennis]

17. I've worked in high tech for over 30 years. I first started in a 300 something engineering...

group where I was one of 3 women. As such, I've seen a lot of sh*t. Anyhoo, I want to agree with your point about women being our worst enemy. I've seen women disrespect women because those women believed the men were better engineers than us women engineers. In reflection those women thought that way because that's the way they had been conditioned by society. Things have changed over the 30+ years I've been out here, but no where to the level where they should have changed as we women still "have to prove" ourselves when most men are just accepted. And as a minority, I also had that "lane of stuff" to deal with.

[whathehell]

21. I wonder if her boss has any cute nicknames for offices dominated by minorities..

Bigots are bigots.

[elehhhhna]

24. I hope your daughter is documenting all these remarks

Because calling that area the tacobox could cost his company shit ton of $$$$

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Well spoken

Did she mean assembler (vs. assembly)? Just curious...

[csziggy]

6. Both assmbly and assembler are in the same area

An assembly (or assembler) language,[1] often abbreviated asm, is a low-level programming language for a computer, or other programmable device, in which there is a very strong (but often not one-to-one) correspondence between the language and the architecture's machine code instructions. Each assembly language is specific to a particular computer architecture. In contrast, most high-level programming languages are generally portable across multiple architectures but require interpreting or compiling. Assembly language may also be called symbolic machine code.[2]

Assembly language is converted into executable machine code by a utility program referred to as an assembler. The conversion process is referred to as assembly, or assembling the source code. Assembly time is the computational step where an assembler is run.

Assembly language uses a mnemonic to represent each low-level machine instruction or opcode, typically also each architectural register, flag, etc. Many operations require one or more operands in order to form a complete instruction and most assemblers can take expressions of numbers and named constants as well as registers and labels as operands, freeing the programmer from tedious repetitive calculations. Depending on the architecture, these elements may also be combined for specific instructions or addressing modes using offsets or other data as well as fixed addresses. Many assemblers offer additional mechanisms to facilitate program development, to control the assembly process, and to aid debugging.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_languag

[SWBTATTReg]

7. thanks so much for info

Hated using it, tedious, and used to teach it in early 1980s, never heard it called this (Assembly) but it makes sense, which is why I asked if they meant assembler (which is how I knew it then by). Learn something new everyday, I love it!

Thanks for clarifying (smiles)

[hunter]

12. I once saved the world with assembly language... or so I was told...

... but only because my girlfriend at the time was a bad ass engineer who recognized the military applications of my work.

As a pacifist I couldn't go along with that, refusing the blood money, but that's not why our breakup was so ugly. In slightly different circumstance I honestly don't know if I could have sold my soul to the Military Industrial Complex. Maybe I got lucky.

My first two years in college I was going to be an engineer, just like my grandpa who made bits of metal that carried men to the moon and back.

'Seventies engineering classes would have one or two women in them. The guys would talk about cars and "babes" in the hallways, "babes" in a very rude fashion.

It was a hostile environment for women.

I switched my major to biology which was pretty much 50/50 men and women by then.

One of my engineering professors had been writing software for military tanks, for radiation hardened computers, the same sort of computers used in space craft. He was curious so he looked up what those radiation levels would do to human beings... and he realized he was writing software for people in tanks who had zero chance of survival but they'd still be able to accurately fire their guns for a few hours or days longer.

He couldn't live with the nightmares of living dead tank crews so he took a lower paying job with the phone company, teaching assembly language on the side.

[continentalop2]

10. No

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language

[NewJeffCT]

4. very good article

I'm sure the guy that wrote the original article can find a home at Fox News as a "technical" consultant on air, or maybe in the Trump White House.

[wryter2000]

9. Larry Summers would give him a job for sure. nt

Nt

[wryter2000]

8. She's in agreement with Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the subject

Erase cultural barriers to women and PoC in tech. Only then can you evaluate any biological factors.

[Raster]

20. !!!

[Warren DeMontague]

11. That's the best response to the thing I've read.

Thanks.

[Mosby]

13. this essay is far too polite.

And most of his opinions about male/female personality differences is pop psychology bullshit.

[Skittles]

14. she has to be polite

to avoid being called hysterical

[flibbitygiblets]

18. DingDingDing.

[Raster]

19. This essay was wonderful... I read Damore's and thought...

...there's an obvious reason you've never been in a loving, nurturing relationship with a member of the opposite sex: you're a misogynistic, bigoted little douchebag who's too big for your britches... and NO, I DON'T MEAN DOWN THERE.

[nini]

15. I'm a woman in Tech/Computer Science

And if I didn't have a rough edge to me I never would have lasted either. Of course that depends on individual companies but I have never backed down with the boys.

One of my favorite examples was a programmer meeting. I was the only female out of about 12 or so at the time. A new guy comes in and was his first meeting with us. We get to the topics and at hand and looks across the table at me and says 'Would you take notes on this?'

I asked him if he fucking fingers were broken and said he could take his own notes.

The guys that knew me loved it my response and knew something like that was coming as soon as that guy opened his mouth.. That guy got the welcome to the group he deserved

[whathehell]

22. Good for you!

[samnsara]

16. i hope my grand daughters follow your example.....

[Initech]

23. These alt right neanderthals need to crawl back to the troll cave they came from.