Google was hit by a new controversy this weekend following the publication by a male company employee of an Internal Memo in which he argues that biological differences between genders explain the scarcity of women in technical and management positions in the Silicon Valley.
In the 3.000-word paper, the author defends that “men and women biologically differ in many ways” and these differences may explain “why women relatively prefer jobs in social and artistic areas” while “more men like coding”. He also says that the cause for women to be less represented in high-stress jobs at Google is their “neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)”.
Even before being published in full by Tech website Gizmodo, the memo became viral, having drawn several angry responses on social media by female as well as male Googlers, as the tech company employees are known.
That garbage fire of a document is trash and you are wonderful coworkers who I am extremely lucky to work with.
— Andrew Bonventre (@andybons) August 4, 2017
I'm really grateful to get to work with some of the most badass women engineers who don't take shit & stand up for what's right at Google
— jessie frazelle (@jessfraz) August 5, 2017
Despite the manifestations of repudiation, the author, who didn’t have his name disclosed, said to have received “many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues which they agree with but would never have the courage to say or defend because of our shaming culture and the possibility of being fired”, according to Gizmodo.
And that might be true, judging by the opinion of some female Google employees on Twitter.
The article is publicly supported by many people internally.
— Sarah Adams (@sadams007) August 5, 2017
Begs the question, how many privately support/agreee/subscribe.
Google didn’t give a public response regarding the controversy, but its Vice-President of Diversity, Integrity, and Governance issued an internal statement addressing the issue, obtained by tech website Motherboard.
According to the leaked document, the VP says that diversity is a strong value in the company’s culture and fundamental for its success. However, she recognizes there is still a bias against women and minorities within the company. “Changing a culture is hard, and it’s often uncomfortable. But I firmly believe Google is doing the right thing, and that’s why I took this job”, says the statement.
Gender equality is a constant issue in the Silicon Valley
It is not the first time the Silicon Valley is involved in Gender Equality controversies. Sex harassment accusations led to the resignation of Uber’s founder and then CEO Travis Kallanick. Considered the most valuable start-up, the company is still without a new boss. Also recently actor Ashton Kutcher, who played the role of Steve Jobs in a film, drew a lot of negative comments when he attempted to address the gender equality issue. Making questions such as "What are the rules for dating in the workplace", he was criticized by being touching the problem the wrong way.
At Google, a company that has been making efforts to hire female engineers, women respond today for only 20% of technical positions, up from 17% when the internal survey was made the first time. The last report on diversity, released in June, also showed that women fill 25% of leadership positions, according to BBC.
