Google software engineer James Damore sparks new uproar

The Google engineer who was fired after penning a controversial memo claiming women were ‘biologically’ less likely to succeed in technology has sparked a new row after arguing the KKK has ‘cool’ names

James Damore issued a poll on his Twitter account yesterday saying: ‘The KKK is horrible and I don’t support them in any way, but can we admit that their internal title names are cool, e.g. “Grand Wizard”?’

The since-deleted Tweet was accompanied by the possible responses: ‘Yes,’ ‘No, the names aren’t cool,’ ‘No, that’s racist,’ and ‘No, other’.

Twitter users were quick to voice their outrage at the social media message.

Taltos Girl‏ said: ‘There is literally nothing on this earth that could push me into the KKK. They disgust me even more than I disgust them.’

Joe Alamo‏ added: ‘Seems like you’re trying to do is normalize the KKK in the same way that the “alt-right” tries to normalize white supremacy.’

But not everyone was outraged by the Tweet.

One commenter said: ‘People are deliberately misreading @JamesADamore. He didn’t articulate himself well, but he wasn’t saying he thought the Klan is cool.’

In a later series of Tweets, Damore attempted to defend himself saying: ‘My attempt to raise the issue of why some people are attracted to pure evil like the KKK, gave many the wrong impression.

‘Understanding what attracts some people to these vile organizations can help us better prevent that from happening.

‘In retrospect though, a Twitter poll was likely not the best way to spark the conversation on this rightfully sensitive issue.’

In a later series of Tweets, Damore attempted to defend himself saying: ‘My attempt to raise the issue of why some people are attracted to pure evil like the KKK, gave many the wrong impression’

Software engineer James Damore was terminated by Google last month for violating the company’s code of conduct.

In a statement, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said at the time: ‘portions of the memo violate our code of conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.’

Damore’s controversial 3,300-word manifesto – which was first published by technology news site Motherboard – divided opinion since it went viral on social media.

Damore, who graduated from Harvard in 2013 with a doctoral degree in systems biology, had noted that women could not get ahead at Google because of ‘biological differences’.

It prompted backlash from Google’s new head of diversity, Danielle Brown, who denounced the memo in her own note to staff.

Twitter users were quick to voice their outrage at the social media message

She said the memo ‘advanced incorrect assumptions about gender’ and did not display a viewpoint ‘that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages’.

Many have argued that the engineer’s memo was proof of the sexist, male-driven structures that Silicon Valley has become known for in recent months.

Others said Damore’s concern that the company was too left-leaning was legitimate. Some also claim he is the voice of many conservative employees who are too scared to speak out against Google’s politically correct policies because they fear they will lose their jobs.

MailOnline has contacted James Damore for comment.

‘DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN’ ACCORDING TO JAMES DAMORE’S MEMO

The following is an extract from engineer James Damore’s lengthy memo

Women, on average, have more:

Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).
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.
Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness.
This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a women’s issue. This leads to exclusory programs like Stretch and swaths of men without support.
Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

Note that contrary to what a social constructionist would argue, research suggests that ‘greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men’s and women’s personality traits.’ Because as ‘society becomes more prosperous and more egalitarian, innate dispositional differences between men and women have more space to develop and the gap that exists between men and women in their personality becomes wider.’ We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism.

Men’s higher drive for status

We always ask why we don’t see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we see so many men in these jobs. These positions often require long, stressful hours that may not be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life.

Status is the primary metric that men are judged on[4], pushing many men into these higher paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail.

Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths.

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