Introduction
The article discussed in this paper observes the 2017 firing of James Damore, a software engineer at Google. He wrote and posted a memo that discussed the differences between women and men, citing scientific evidence suggesting that men as a whole were inherently better suited for software engineering than women. Damore explicitly stated that his intent was not to call into question any of his female coworkers’ abilities, as the research was not useful for predicting individual traits. However, he also made the case that seeking to achieve perfect equality in the numbers of men and women among software engineers was counterproductive and dangerous. For writing the memo, Damore was fired, with Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, stating that it advanced “harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace” (Singer 2017, par. 2). The article’s author, David Singer, challenges the decision, claiming that it was against Google’s own policies and based on a false premise. While I agree with the fundamental logic of the argument and do not believe that James Damore should have been fired, I have also identified an issue in his argument related to the interpretation of Damore’s premise.
Main body
Singer begins his argument by questioning the stated reasoning Sundar Pichai used to justify the firing of James Damore. While the software engineer discussed gender stereotypes, the point of the memo was to show that they have scientific support. Damore provided studies that served as evidence for his conclusions, and Pichai did not discuss their validity. Singer’s (2017) claim is that, should the stereotypes prove accurate to reality, it would be harmful to ignore them and discriminate against men for equity’s sake rather than to acknowledge them. The other point of Singer’s argument is that, despite Sundar Pichai’s claims, James Damore tried to avoid targeting the women currently working for Google. He explicitly stated that the findings could not be applied to specific individuals, and Singer (2017) adds that the women chosen under Google’s exacting standards were likely atypical for their gender in any case. As such, Damore’s findings would not apply to them, especially because he had only discussed new hirings and the policies that they should follow. Singer concludes that the only people who were harassed and intimidated at Google were Damore and those who shared his views.
While Singer is fundamentally correct in his facts, he ignores the broader implications of the argument Damore was making. Software engineering is similar to many other professions in two regards: it is extremely well-paid, with even junior Google workers paid several times the national average, and it is dominated by males. The findings of Damore’s literature review, especially those about stress tolerance, focus on systems and not people, and work-life balance can also be applied to many of these jobs. Hence, should the view be adopted, it effectively leads to the logical conclusion that men are biologically suited to occupying a majority of all high-paying positions. In contemporary society, where one’s wealth and material positions are among the most important determinants of status, this idea effectively promotes the return of patriarchy. High-earning men would work and support women, who would put in less effort, not earn as much, and engage in housework extensively. Under such a system, all women would suffer due to the lower expectations applied to them from childhood onward and the need to prove their worth if they wanted more.
Singer’s objection would probably be that the current earnings imbalance does not have any inherent component to it that makes it self-sustaining. While male-dominated professions tend to be paid large amounts of money compared to female-oriented ones, this situation can change with time. Even if women are not as good as men at engineering as a whole, they still have ways of creating value in which they are superior. This idea of value creation needs to be emphasized and promoted socially, and the free market will likely provide the innovation necessary for the creation of highly valuable people-oriented jobs. Currently, the solution to the problem is unclear, but the decentralized free market is well-suited to the processing of such complex issues. Ideas will be tested, and their positive points will be integrated into the next round of iteration, while the negatives will be discarded. With that said, the speed at which the process will happen is challenging to predict, and it cannot be forced due to the potential of disastrous side effects. Still, relying on it is the best available option as opposed to unilateral action and the pitfalls it may incur.
The simplest rebuttal to this objection is in the social outcomes that it would imply. The concept of “Separate but equal” professions, dominated by women or by men, sounds reminiscent of early 20th century racial segregation, which was a harmful practice that took a dedicated and powerful social outcry to overcome. While it is possible to argue that the civil rights movement was also an expression of the free market and that in the long term, the position of African Americans improved over time, this improvement took place extremely slowly. Moreover, even if there is no overt economic inequality, as there was in Martin Luther King Jr’s time, the approach still separates men and women by grouping them into distinct professions. As a result, social cohesion may be harmed as the two groups struggle to understand each other’s issues and communicate effectively. In more intermingled settings, communication regarding problems is easier because of the many shared experiences all participants have. The loss of this cohesion can have dramatic consequences that are challenging to estimate from a theoretical standpoint.
Conclusion
Overall, I agree with Singer’s fundamental conclusion that James Damore’s Google memo was not valid grounds for his firing. However, I believe that, in his analysis of what the software engineer said, he missed the subtext, whether intentional or otherwise, that the company’s leadership read in the words. While Damore was citing facts that are likely true, his conclusions had broader implications that would reinforce the harmful perception of male economic superiority to women. Admittedly, the continued existence of this view is not guaranteed, and its elimination on a societal level is a goal that should be pursued. If successful, such an initiative will render Damore’s conclusions non-problematic, though it cannot be pushed due to the associated risks. However, society is currently considerably far away from equality between male- and female-dominated professions, enough that the shape of an eventually improved situation is unclear. There are too many social risks to Damore’s conception of biologically determined gender-dominated professions. Hence, while I disagree with Google’s decision and believe that its solution was no better than the problem it tried to address, I understand its rationale.
Reference
Singer, Peter. 2017. “Why Google Was Wrong: Did James Damore Really Deserve to Be Fired for What He Wrote?” New York Daily News, Web.