SIO71: That Whole Google Memo Thing with Felicia Entwistle

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 71 and I'm your host Thomas Smith. Alright, today I've got Felicia Entwistle from the Utah Outcast podcast. We are going to talk about that Google memo. A little late, but I'll explain why in a minute, but let's get right over to my interview with Felicia Entwistle.

0:01:02 Thomas: Joining me right now is Felicia Entwistle of Utah Outcasts, lovely show that I've been on. Check it out, everybody. How you doing, Felicia?

0:01:10 Felicia: Oh, I'm actually having a really nice day. Thank you.

0:01:13 Thomas: Well, that's good. You don't hear that so much anymore. In today's current climate...

0:01:16 Felicia: I, you know, you gotta take the good days. You gotta, yeah, I...

0:01:18 Thomas: Yeah, okay. Well, we're all good here on Sirius of Quirizontally. We're just having a good day. It's not a good day. Trump just pardoned Arpaio. Joe It's actually, it's a horrible day. Anytime I ask anyone that.

0:01:25 Felicia: Mm-hmm. That's pretty terrible, actually, yeah.

0:01:31 Thomas: Yeah, but that's okay. We'll just, we won't focus on that. You know, just this is actually the second time we're recording because I wanted to talk to you about, you know, kind of feminism-related issues in the skeptic movement, that kind of thing. We recorded something and then like the next day this whole Google memo happened and it was like, gosh, it's gonna be really weird to have done like an hour conversation on feminism and everything and not have mentioned this, the thing that was big news for weeks.

0:02:02 Thomas: And now we've waited so long that it was past it. So now we can't, it's, we're, You're screwed either way. You try, you know, but but, I still think it's worthwhile because I wanted to talk you've done a lot of research into this, and this is very important because what I've noticed with this whole Google memo issue is that both sides just keep saying things like, "No, the science is this," you know.

0:01:47 Felicia: Yeah yeah absolutely absolutely I know well Yeah.

0:02:23 Thomas: Like, and it's hard when people just say that because honestly I'm I'm not like the most scientifically literate person. I'm not, you know, I like, I don't, I'm not that great at like, oh, going to original studies and checking them out. You know, I don't, I think I'm better than the average citizen, but I'm not that great at it. Like I'm not, you know, and, and for most people, I think what they're going to do is they're going to have sides they trust, outlets you they trust, people they trust, and those people basically universally on both sides. Have been saying like, no, you know, the science says this memo, this Google memo is bullshit. Or they'll say now the science says men, women different. This guy was right. You know? And they just kind of use that to, without really saying what the science is, they just keep saying the science is this. So I want to have you on and you've looked into it and to, to give us your take on it. Uh, I hear you come with sources, which is always great.

0:02:38 Felicia: Yeah, absolutely. I have many.

0:03:15 Thomas: So help us through this.

0:03:15 Felicia: So yeah, listeners of my show will know that I'm, of Utah Outcasts will know that I'm a big science person and also a rabid feminist. And I tend to get worked up. But generally what I do in my in not on show persona is carefully consider the information. And for many, many years now, I have been trying to understand why we treat women the way we do in society. And the good news is there is a lot of science behind it. The bad news is that when this Google memo came out, there was a lot of There was a lot of, what the hits and ignoring the misses.

0:03:54 Thomas: Hmm.

0:03:55 Felicia: This doesn't change me being a feminist. The science doesn't, at all. In fact, the science makes everything far more interesting. So what we're going to end end up getting into is that the science is more nuanced and complicated than people want to make it out to be. Uh, overall though, and I don't care about spoiling the ending, this memo is shitty.

0:04:15 Thomas: Yeah. Well yeah, that and that's so interesting, because one my conclusion so far has been, or sure there are all kinds of differences of certain types between men and women. But that is a false dichotomy. Because people have set up a false dichotomy, and I'm going to bring it up right now. An article people circulated, like Christina Hoff Summers, it's titled, "No, the Google Manifesto isn't sexist or anti-diversity, it's science." As I said, everybody just says it's science. And this article, looking through it, basically all it says is it sets up the false dichotomy of either you're gonna tell me that there are zero differences between men and women, or else the Google memo is right. You know, it's like, that's not the choice we have though, right?

0:05:02 Felicia: Right. No, it's certainly not, and with everything that we learn with science, it's far more complicated. And everything we know about humans is that it's a spectrum. Everything's a spectrum. Humans don't exist in dichotomies of men behave this way and women behave this way. What we have is a spectrum and the individual is where we have to assess everything when we're dealing with people in general. Like when we're when we are dealing with another other person, we have to treat them as a person, as a whole person, and not a stereotype of man or a woman. Does that make sense?

0:05:15 Thomas: Mm-hmm.

0:05:40 Thomas: Yeah, and then I suppose what this guy or the other side would say is like, well, he did that. He said, oh, individuals, you can't make any judgments, but statistically... Okay, yeah, I was trying to set you up, but okay, go ahead.

0:05:41 Felicia: Yeah.

0:05:51 Felicia: Oh, I have. Yeah. Okay. So let's let's get into where he starts at possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech. So he talks about some implicit bias, which Google's really big about. And he says that, yes, we should be cognizant of implicit bias. But then he goes on, "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren't just socially constructed, because they're universal across human cultures." Put a pin in that, because we're going to come back to it. "They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone."

So this is where I'm going to, um, cite the it's a Scientific American, I believe. I'll, I'll give you all the links for the show notes, but, uh, there is some studies that prenatale testosterone has certain effects, uh, on development, as far as that manifests into adulthood, we don't have the data on that. It's something I'm going to say a lot, but simply said, uh, biology plays a role and culture plays a roll. We don't know the extent to which of either of those, and it's almost impossible to parse out. So just saying prenatal testosterone has an effect in somebody's work life is a very big claim that

0:06:48 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Right.

0:07:15 Felicia: There's no evidence to back up. So then he goes on, "Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males." Don't know what he's referring to here. Yeah.

0:07:27 Thomas: Yeah, what does that prove exactly?

0:07:30 Felicia: I'm obviously we don't have a lot of biological males that are castrated at birth. I

0:07:33 Thomas: Is he trying to just differentiate, like, oh, the important part is testosterone early on, and it doesn't, like, is that what he's trying to say? Like, it forms people early on, or something.

0:07:43 Felicia: Guess I guess yeah, that being born male, but I mean, we also know that males don't get their full testosterone until they reach puberty, that before puberty testosterone and estrogen in the bodies are not so different in young children. He

0:08:01 Thomas: Does he have a link? Like, I know he links some stuff, so there's no link for that.

0:08:04 Felicia: Does not, uh, not in this one, one that I have, um,

0:08:08 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, and that was a problem with the, Manifesto. I've never written a manifesto. I feel like once you write a manifesto, that's bad news. I don't know. I feel like I've never... Has there ever been a good manifesto?

0:08:20 Felicia: I feel like yeah, it's it's yeah,

0:08:23 Thomas: Somebody refer me to a good manifesto. But anyway, yeah, some of the stuff is linked and some of it isn't, you know, and that's another complaint I kind of have, which is like a little bit of data used to make broad claims. But for this, you're not seeing any link.

0:08:30 Felicia: No, I'm not seeing any link, and I find this one really difficult to, um, we just that's not a common thing, and it would be really hard just to do a good study on something like that, right? Like, right, exactly, who knows exactly what, what he's referring to there. Here's, um, another one. I don't understand what he, what point he's trying to make. And I, and I'm sorry, it's not, I don't think he follows up on it. "The underlying traits are highly heritable, uh, heritable." I'm, he's saying genetically we, uh, take on traits. Yes.

0:08:38 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, was that a study from like the 1800s or 1700s back when they used to have castrati like singers or something? Yeah.

0:09:15 Thomas: Yeah,

0:09:15 Felicia: But I don' t.

0:09:15 Thomas: What does that have to do with men and women?

0:09:17 Felicia: Yeah. That's, that's, that's my issue. I mean, I have a lot of behaviors and personality traits that are much much like my father. And my father is a cis man. Like, yeah, so I don't understand that. Yes, I have inherited traits from my father and my mother. Anyway, you

0:09:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's the introduction to his, instead of his misogynist manifesto, his racist manifesto that hasn't finished yet, probably. I'm guessing. It's like, it's working on the intro.

0:09:45 Felicia: Know what? I think you're right.

0:09:46 Thomas: Yeah, he's like, yeah, it hasn't.

0:09:47 Felicia: I actually don't think you're wrong about that. I think that he ended up cutting his race things. I mean, that's actually probably a good guess.

0:09:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, because he talks about diversity. Yeah, okay. Well,

0:09:55 Felicia: Because he Does, he talks about about diversity, but then only makes it about men and women, but that, yeah, that has nothing to do with male to female whatsoever.

0:09:56 Thomas: We'll see. All right.

0:10:03 Felicia: But I, I bet you that has something to do with race. I, I would

0:10:06 Thomas: Well, that's noted, and I guess, well, it's beyond the scope of this, uh, this podcast. We'll have to... Yeah.

0:10:06 Felicia: Yeah, and He doesn't bring it up again, so we're not going to Get into it, uh, goes on. Women, on average, have more openness, 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 versus systemizing, thing. Okay, so the openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideals, um, we have done some studies on baby monkeys and infants, where male babies, both monkey and human, play more often with mechanical toys, such as trucks, and Females play more with soft plush toys or dolls, but they

0:10:14 Thomas: Hmm. Right. Right. Yeah, I've heard of those.

0:11:04 Felicia: Do both, play with both.

0:11:06 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah. What's the... Do you have any idea how to measure that difference? Like, what is that? Because oftentimes a study will say that, or it's reported as like, oh, more this than this. It's like, well, how much more, you know? What's the effect?

0:11:07 Felicia: Yeah, It was something like 60 of the time, girl, 60 to 80 of the times girls played with soft things, and boys, 60 to 80 percent of the same time, played with mechanical things, um, And then we also know things about estrogen in the brain, and that estrogen, uh, does create more of a sense of empathy. And we know that men can actually have more empathetic responses if their testosterone comes down in a specific moment. I'm not saying like if you remove their testosterone, but hormones can actually fluctuate situationally, right? So if either a man or a woman have just been out exercising vigorously, their testosterone is going to be much higher than if they have just been relaxing. Conversely, if you watch an emotional movie that creates a strong response in you, you actually both will have higher estrogen.

0:11:30 Thomas: Okay.

0:12:16 Felicia: The woman is going to have more estrogen than the man, and the man is going have more testosterone than the woman in the exercise. But we know that there are fluctuations in both. Oh, we also know that women tend to have more emotional connection to memory. Of. The studies aren't conclusive and we don't understand the entirety of this. We don't know if this is cultural or if this is, and

0:12:38 Thomas: What impact would that have, and what does that mean? Like, more emotional...

0:12:43 Felicia: We don't know. We don't know what that would mean. What does that mean in a real world sense? We don'T know. We don''t know what that implies in behavior. We don't know what that implies in interest. Everything in the science I've found has said that they can't extrapolate what this means to behavior or interest or skill level at all. Just that we know that women tend to have more emotional connection to memory.

0:12:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and this is where, I mean, maybe we should make sure to talk about why he's saying this, because... This is his way of explaining the gender difference in tech, right? This is his way of saying, you know, stop, essentially stop trying to balance out the genders in tech jobs in Google, I suppose, because here's why men and women are just interested in different things and you're not going to be able to change it. Is that what he's saying?

0:13:23 Felicia: Right. Yeah. Yeah, so that's what he's basically saying is that women are just not biologically prone to tech jobs or high-powered leadership jobs.

0:13:50 Thomas: Oh, does he say that too?

0:13:51 Felicia: He does go into that too. So that's a really broad spectrum there, though, to say that women aren't just not going to be be prone to these things and he's saying yeah

0:13:52 Thomas: Oh, wow. Yeah, exactly. Some monkeys played with some trucks, so therefore... But that's, yeah, that's what frustrates me about this. It's like, there's such minor little studies of minor little things that then people are just taking, and this guy, James whatever, is taking to mean all this stuff, you know? And it's like, you can't, it's unscientific.

0:14:03 Felicia: So therefore women can't be CEOs exactly they're yeah they're projecting all this, yeah, they'll project all this bias of their own on these ideas where, when that, what the science has come back to us with is, um, we don't really know. We know that there are differences, but how those manifest are different in every individual, um, no woman. One woman inhabits all the things that we think of as feminine, as if we are going like dilute what femininity is. There is no one woman that is that, um, and besides, those that concept is pretty nebulous. If we come to a man, we're not going to have a man who is diluted into a perfect thing of manliness. What we have is a spectrum. Tend to be more like this, but in this particular behavior area, this man may be more empathetic.

0:14:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:10 Felicia: Like, one man may be far more empathic than this woman over here. And so when it comes to individual to individual, it's not useful to say, oh, well, they just like trucks, no.

0:15:23 Thomas: Yeah. And especially because trucks aren't programming, too. Like, I don't know what, yeah.

0:15:26 Felicia: Well I'm gonna, I want to get into that a little bit uh yeah, so that's when he starts to get into

0:15:29 Thomas: Oh, okay, sure. But, but here's what it's all I want to say, because I did you look much into the the history? Because this is something a lot of people point out, that women were doing just fine in computer science and were accelerating, like, and there's this graph I'm looking at right now where it's like, all these medical school, law school, physical sciences, computer science, they're all trending up until 1984.

0:15:57 Thomas: And then all of those keep trending up except computer science goes down. And so, I wouldn't have been true if what he's saying is correct, right? There's no reason that women would have been heavily involved and increasingly involved in computer science until a certain year and then they went down. That doesn't make sense.

0:16:18 Felicia: I absolutely So this is, and that ties in perfectly with his next bullet point, which is, 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, uh, and even within SWEs, I'm sorry, I don't know what that means. Comparatively, more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics. And that exactly counteracts that point where he's saying, but women just like to deal with people. And, and when you're working in coding and programming, uh, you're working with people, you have to collaborate with people, in, in the higher up you go, the better you have to be with people.

0:17:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:06 Felicia: That, that doesn't make any sense. You're, you know, I, I was recently in a relationship with someone who did computer programming, and he had to talk about how as further up as he went, he had to understand where people were coming from on one end, and the leadership and what they needed, but people on the ground level, what they needed from certain systems.

0:17:24 Thomas: Yeah. Actually, it just occurred to me that that was true for my career, too, because I started... I was in programming it because for the... the division I was in, and I realized, like, as I went up in my position, I'm just realizing now, like, I didn't really get to do programming anymore. I kind of had to do, like, project management and talking to everybody, you know, and I did have to utilize skills that were more... Balancing everyone's needs and stuff that that according to this guy would be more stereotypically female anyway.

0:17:47 Felicia: Right, Right, exactly. And so even if it were true that women were only interested in working in artistic fields or aesthetic fields or people-oriented fields, still applies to the tech industry in a lot of ways. And even, yeah, when, even when you're doing coding, you're still doing a lot of work on your own, but you still have to know how to communicate and work with people. Coding and computer and technology work isn't as isolated as this guy is making it out to be. That doesn't seem like a good explanation to me as to why women wouldn't be involved. And it also is a good explaination as to 왜 women were involved. I mean, consider that we, if we're talking analytical and systems, women exclusively were the computers for NASA for a long time. That's what they were called, was computers, they did the math.

0:18:47 Thomas: Right. They computed. Yeah.

0:18:52 Felicia: They computed, yeah, because they computed. Women were doing those jobs, and how is that job so much more isolating than tech? That doesn't, it doesn't make sense. And then we, I can jump back to is these things are universal in what way. Show me other countries where women aren't doing systemizing work. Where we aren't, we consider the systemizing work of telephone operators, back when, you know, there was switchboards, it was all system, they had to connect, literally connect phone calls, and that was all women doing that work. It was very systematic. So it doesn't, that that is not scientific in the slightest. And as far as working with things, again, all the studies with the trucks and the dolls said that both play with both. And we don't know how this manifests in adult, in adulthood. Hood We right

0:19:44 Thomas: Yeah, and I'm looking at this, where I had that graph, you know, the theory of this NPR piece where they tried to figure out this question. This actually predates this Google thing, this is from 2014, but this Article says they were trying to find the answer of what happened, and the best thing that they can find, the best explanation that they can find, is when the personal computer was developed is right about when this graph changed, you know, for women. The personal computers, as sort of like as toys, were almost entirely marketed toward men and boys, and The biggest thing about humans in general is that our, our brains are so plastic, like, we just kind of adapt to whatever, you know. It seems like Yeah.

0:19:59 Felicia: Right.

0:20:30 Felicia: Well, Yeah. And

0:20:32 Thomas: And just to Finish up on this NPR piece real quick, the reference is a study where a researcher interviewed hundreds of computer science students, it says, and she found that families were much more likely to buy computers for boys than for girls, even when their girls were really interested in computers. So that seems like a pretty reasonable explanation for why there was all of a sudden this dip.

0:20:33 Felicia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:02 Thomas: Yeah,

0:21:04 Felicia: No, that, that actually sounds really plausible, um, yeah, and also it started, started to become very male in its, you know, you had your Steve Jobs and, um, Bill Gates, uh, you know, becoming kind of pseudo celebrities, right? Oh, look at these boys in their garages and they did this thing. And again, going to the culture of the 1980s where it became very general, that immediately got gendered.

0:21:27 Thomas: And that's another frustrating thing, too, because we never learn about... Oftentimes, we never learn about women who did amazing things. It took until, you know, just the other year to have that movie and that book about the women who programmed for NASA. And because they were black women, they weren't... It's not like they were superstars, and they kind of should have been.

0:21:28 Felicia: Yeah.

0:21:43 Felicia: Well, The First, the first computer programmer was actually in 18... the 1890s, and I'm sorry, I'm forgetting her name now, but she, and it wasn't really a computer, but she basically, she programmed the first counting machine, uh, it was invented by a man, but she came up with the program for it. She's considered the, the godmother Of computer Programming.

0:22:06 Thomas: And you don't even know

0:22:08 Felicia: I Know. I'm The Worst.

0:22:08 Thomas: Her name! No, I don't either, I'm just... Well,

0:22:11 Felicia: I'm in the worst. First, okay, this one's pretty easy. Extroversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness, also higher agreeableness. I don't know how he's defining that or what, but actually women have been studied and have found that although in general in America, the way women assert, assert themselves as different than men, assertiveness is equal. Women tend to go for more passive aggressive, or social aggressiveness rather than, um, outright aggressiveness, but it is still aggression and assertiveness and it's, and that one's pretty easy.

0:22:38 Thomas: Hmm.

0:22:53 Thomas: And again, what is he claiming with that? Like, what is that gonna do?

0:22:54 Felicia: Right. What does that matter?

0:22:57 Thomas: Is he saying, is that for, like, the high-powered part of it?

0:23:00 Felicia: Yeah. That's where he's starting to lead into the women don't like stressful jobs, hold on, uh, okay, so he did this as a bullet point, but it's actually him trying to make a larger point, his writing is driving me insane, um, this leads women to generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up and leading, note that these are just average differences, so there's overlap between men and women, but this is seen as as solely a women's issue, this leads to exclusionary programs like stretch and swaths of men without support, okay, this is Where? Yeah.

0:23:05 Thomas: Sure.

0:23:36 Thomas: That was you reading from the, the manifesto, right?

0:23:40 Felicia: That that was me reading from the manifest, and uh, this is where I'm starting to go, oh boohoo, okay, so now you're crying because men, who have largely been favored, and we have a lot of studies to back that up, such as the Stanford resume studies, and um, although there are some men who have a harder time asking for raises, most of the time men just get raises where women are denied raises or promotions regularly.

0:23:40 Thomas: Okay yeah

0:24:07 Felicia: So there are, you're right, he's right, there are more uh services out there coaching women on how to be more assertive in speaking up, but there's also a lot of information out there, they're about women feeling like every time they speak up, somebody shouts them down. Personally, and it's just an anecdote, but this happened to me recently. Yeah, Josh Bernsteen has been trolling the Utah outcasts, out of his way to find a place where he could leave a comment because he got blocked, but he went out of his way to say that, uh, need to fire that skank, it's like nails on a chalkboard, very shrill. So it wasn't anything I was saying. It was just my personhood. And this is something that women have talked about a lot, about feeling like every time they voice their issues or where they're at, they are disregarded.

0:24:57 Felicia: They are shouted down. Um, and it, it makes it a a lot harder to keep speaking up. You know, a part of you wants to go, well, then I'm just not going to say anything at all because this is awful. Why would somebody treat me this way? If I don't say anything at all, then no one will do this to me. And that happens over and over. And there is good information out there about women being shouted down. There's wonderful studies about how much women speak in a group, for instance, and people consider women to, they always assume women are speaking more, but actually, in a mixed group, men actually take more of the speaking time by and large, yeah.

0:25:36 Thomas: Gosh. Remember that, I just remembered that, well, I don't know if you called a study, but the, the thing about how many times justices interrupted on the Supreme Court, and it's like, you Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg just get interrupted all the time and they never interrupted. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's, that's one, that's a small sample size, but it certainly was at the highest level too, where it's like, they're all qualified. They're all, you know, they're all the most qualified, except for Clarence Thomas. He's the only, he's the one who should be interrupted more, but I guess he just stopped talking cause he's the least qualified, but anyway.

0:25:37 Felicia: Yeah. Right.

0:26:06 Felicia: Women. Just kind of, yeah, he just drifts off and he doesn't contribute much, anyway, the all right last uh bullet point from this manifesto memo thing, well in this section, because there's a little bit more, but I know that we're kind of running out of time, but I feel like we've already addressed a bit, so then this one is, this is the, the one that made me want to go, ah, I'm gonna smash my computer, neuroticism, higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance, this may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Google Geist, and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs, uh, so this is basically the argument that women are bad at stress, I can't find that anywhere, I can't find that women, women, um, handle stress worse, what I've found is that men and women handle stress differently.

0:26:17 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:05 Thomas: Differently, yeah. So, and, and I take it he didn't have a link for this?

0:27:08 Felicia: We, so Thomas, you and I just took a quick break to try and figure out what he meant by this neuroticism. Follow his source, which was Wikipedia, which then we went to the source of the study itself, pubmed.gov. It seems like a perfectly good study from what I can tell. I haven't gone over the sample size or anything, thing. Yet even in the abstract, that study claims that we can't say there's a biological base to neuroticism for women. It says that because there's inconsistencies and the studies can't be replicated, we don't know exactly what's going on here. They haven't even been able to replicate the studies.

0:27:48 Thomas: Yeah, and there's another one, too, that's talking about the people-things dimension and the agreeableness, and it's saying... What's interesting is it says, oh, the gender differences in personality tend to be larger in gender egalitarian societies than in gender inegalitarian societies, a finding that contradicts social role theory, the I the assumption is in a gender egalitarian society, women are going to be more similar to men, but the fact that it's different to me suggests that an explanation could be... In these gender egalitarian societies, they're also very corporate and very like marketing oriented, like there's a lot of capitalism in these societies and there's a lot of marketing things toward women and men.

0:28:34 Felicia: Mean by gender, are egalitarian societies have we found this society, I your control is, I don't understand their basis for saying women are egalitarian, because uh, in every western society, as far as I've been able to determine, women are not egalitarian, there are some countries that are are far better and there are some countries that are far worse, but then in just western, Utah being one of the worst in in America, um, I, I don't know what they mean by egalitarian, because there are also matriarchal societies where we could say, that is that egalitarian, what does that look like?

0:28:37 Thomas: Yeah, I know.

0:29:09 Thomas: Yeah, not only that, with these effect sizes, I'm looking at this one in particular, a moderate effect size, which this is, which is quite large actually, it seems like with these studies, from what I'm seeing, a moderate effect size is one half of a standard deviation, so like that leaves so many people in common, like that leaves a lot of commonality yeah

0:29:25 Felicia: So that then that's, and that's really where the science comes down, right, is that these generalizations between the sexes, oh, women tend to have more emotional memories, is not really relevant in a useful measure for day-to-day interaction we're in, looking at where women work and why they work there, it's, we have it, we don't have any physiological evidence to say, or biological evidence to saying, women don't want to to work in tech. There's, that doesn't make any sense. And so then if there's a one and a half deviation, then why don't we have 48%, 48.5% of tech being filled by women?

0:30:08 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing too, a point I think I might have mentioned on Opening Arguments that I heard that was a really good one was, these are, Google is pulling from like, such a small percentage of the population, that like it's not as though there aren't women available, because if we're talking even at the highest measure, which again this is all built on a house, this is all a house of cards, like there's so many different places where I think you've outlined, and a lot of people also have outlined, that like you're starting with science that's about friggin' trucks, anyway, like monkeys and trucks, so you're starting with studies that are, are, they probably mean something, but we don't, you know, you can't be sure what exactly they mean in how they manifest themselves through adulthood.

0:30:55 Thomas: You're starting with that already, and then you're starting with that, some again, as you've laid out, Doesn't necessarily mean you can't do computing, and the history shows that computing was done by women until 1984 when it started decreasing. So there's no reason to believe already these studies mean women can't do something. And then, on top of all that, we're talking about at the highest, you know, peak of these studies that this guy is referencing, a half of a standard definition. And that's like the highest. It's actually less.

0:31:02 Felicia: Right. Right. Which Which is very useful in our academic understanding and our ability to make nuanced decisions for medication or for treatment of psychological disorders, or to have just a broader understanding of the human condition and being able to apply it to more places, but it's not useful when we're talking about a specific industry, it

0:31:49 Thomas: Yeah, and to finish what I was saying, that all of this is a house of cards, and finally all it gets to is half a standard deviation, which means there's still plenty of women, like you said, okay, maybe, maybe it'll be off slightly, you know, but it doesn't mean all, the disparity that we're seeing in tech, it, there's no way it's, yeah.

0:32:07 Felicia: Certainly, Doesn't Account for The disparity, it just doesn't, and all of these things added up don't account för the disparity. And well, and then he goes into women don't want higher stress jobs, um, let's say that's true, uh, here's the thing is that women are reporting higher stress levels. There are studies that show, that just women and men deal with stress differently. This one is from the, uh, NCBI website.

Uh, it basically says that women are at a higher risk for anxiety and depression, and men are at a greater risk for alcohol disorders. It doesn't come to any conclusion about who experiences stress more, but how we process stress. Now, there are studies that are saying women are reporting higher levels of stress, but we also have reports and studies, here there's one from the Huffington Post, that women, as they have been taking on more work and higher stress jobs, they are still still expected to do the household things like buying groceries, cooking and preparing meals, household cleaning, planning social activities, or caring for loved ones such as the elderly or children. And you hear this a lot. Women are the ones who take time off work when they have a sick child. Women aren't the ones to take care of themselves. They're the ones that are the most the ones are who have to cook. Women are the once who do more cleaning. And those are added stressors.

That's a lot to put on a person. So now where women are taking on the responsibilities they've traditionally held in the United States and taking on the stresses that men have. So it's not really surprising that women are saying they're stressed more. But and yet we still have women doing this and still climbing these ladders and still breaking these glass ceilings.

0:33:48 Felicia: So when we say that women are more neurotic, that's not helpful. That's not a helpful introduction into the conversation at all.

0:33:57 Thomas: To another thing I saw that was really interesting was talking about what statistics like these mean, like, what do averages like these mean, and there's a big difference in, the way to think of this isn't, okay, then every woman I meet is less interested in tech. It's just that, no, if you meet a shitload of women, like, you know, one of them, fewer, will be not interested in tech, you know? So it's not, you can't look at every woman you see in tech, which is what happens, and which is what's so frustrating, to a lot of women in these tech companies. Like, I saw, uh, something written by a woman at Google, says, "Great, now I have to be questioning, like, have people questioning why I'm here, like, whether I deserve to be here," and every day of my job now, and That's not, the it's

0:34:12 Felicia: Right. Exactly. Well,

0:34:43 Thomas: It's because people look at studies like that, they look at statistics in that way, but really it just means it doesn't mean that every woman is less interested in tech than every man. That's not what it means. It just means there might be one fewer out of a, out of a bunch.

0:34:59 Felicia: It's not a zero sum game. It's not. Oh, women are less interested. Therefore, they are incapable of adapting their lives to these things. We like you said earlier, women, human beings are incredibly adaptable. Human beings can adapt their their preferences or their goals based based on the situation they're in. So it doesn't make any sense to say that biologically women can't do this. If the opportunity is available, then women can do it, even if it wasn't their first interest. We're not flatworms just going away to and from the light because we think there's food that's not how humans work yeah

0:35:09 Thomas: Yeah. Right. And in terms of, so I'm looking, this is actually really helpful for me. I'm looking at these effect sizes. Cause again, this is not something I do every day, but, um, for like height, for example, like something that there is, you would consider a big difference between men and women. That's a, an effect size of like 1.72. And that's, you know, you could still find a lot of women, if you were only hiring 0.05%, you know, of like the graduating class or whatever it is, you could still find a lot of tall women. And that's a huge effect size versus some of the effect sizes, again, of traits that aren't, it's not as though the trait is computer programming. The trait is something that people are saying would lead to differences in computer programming. And the D is like 0.3 versus, you know, height, which is Point one point seven two. So that's to put that in perspective.

0:36:09 Felicia: Absolutely so So, this is where it comes down to, I'm not finding any science Science that says no women are prone to these things, or the Sciences that women are exactly like men. But what we are finding is that, It just like in all other things that we learn, that humanity exists on a spectrum, like the conversation we have about homosexuality now, right? Where we say, okay, well, gay and straight isn't really a great descriptor of human sexuality. It exists on a spectrum, and people tend to have preferences. But honestly, should we have a more egalitarian society, we would see less of a divide between those things. And we have evidence for that. And what we're finding now in gender and sex studies, and these jobs that apparently women don't want to do, is that these things exist on the spectrum. And to say that, and if, and if we were approaching it as a spectrum, we would still see more women in tech. It doesn't matter.

0:37:27 Thomas: Right. And I think what kills me about this is that a lot with these things and with the talk of affirmative action in college and stuff, it's so easy. What I find that white men tend to do and a lot of people, too, as well. But, but white men who are the beneficiary of of these things is they tend to assume where we are right now is a meritocracy, like where we are right now is... Nope. Everybody who gets a job, it's because they earned it. It's not because they knew somebody. It's not because there's like a male culture where men, you know, hire each other and, you know, they assume that we're already at a meritocracy and any deviation from that is going to like fire a perfectly, you qualified man who worked hard. And it's like, I don't know that that's established at all. You know, like there's no, we don't know that what's happening in tech right now is this perfect meritocracy. We don't know that at all.

0:37:27 Felicia: Absolutely.

0:38:13 Felicia: And I Agree. I, I think that is exactly the, the heart of the issue is that especially these white men have not seen or experienced these disparity, disparities, they have not lived it. It's the same thing, you know, Black Lives Matter talks about where they talk about, you don't see these things, you don't see what's happening to us. And these white men have never had to be exposed to these ideas. And so they assume because we have said racism and sexism are bad, we fixed it because they don't See it.

0:38:37 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:38:49 Felicia: And so every time somebody brings it up, what they're hearing is, "Oh, you're trying to take me out of the equation," which is not what anyone is saying at all. Not personal, um. Remember that humans are nuanced and difficult animals, and there's a lot we don't know about us. So just making broad generalizations is generally going to be incorrect, it's not going to work, doesn't make any sense.

0:39:00 Thomas: Yep. Yeah.

0:39:18 Thomas: There you have it. All right. Well, look through those links if you haven't already in the show notes. We'll have lots of stuff for you. The idea that women at Google would have to deal with a culture that would, you know, do this kind of thing is what is the most frustrating to me.

0:39:35 Thomas: I'm gonna link that, that piece that, that a woman at Google wrote, which is, which is really summed it up for me, which is just like, "Great, now I have to have this, this, my existence being questioned constantly at this company," and that's why, that's why they fired him, which way they were within their rights, you know, to do so, that's why they had to fire, yeah. Felicia, thanks so much for taking us through a bit of the science behind this and giving us your perspective on it.

0:40:01 Felicia: I I hope that was more succinct then. And I sent you all the links and that I used, and I had a lot of fun. This was, this was a good exercise in, um, no, science is nuanced. Which Is right.

0:40:16 Thomas: Right, right. And once again, it's not, the biggest thing that I want to get across personally is it's not a false, it's not a dichotomy between men and women are exactly equal or else this guy's right. You know, like those aren't your two choices. Men and women aren't exactly equal. There are different, there are little differences. Go ahead.

0:40:32 Felicia: No, But How That Manifests Is so

0:40:36 Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

0:40:37 Felicia: Complicated. Yeah.

0:40:39 Thomas: There's no, exactly, it's, that's, that's what I find these to be, and even that article I referenced early in the show, where it's, it makes a strong statement, no, it's, uh, it's science, you know, and then the references, uh, and this was the one by Debra So, so, by a woman, so that's why, you know, it got, a lot of traction, people thought that was a good, like, "Oh, check out this counter to it." It just talks about the tiny differences in toy preference, like that doesn't mean

0:40:56 Felicia: Yeah, Just it And if You look at that actual study, if you look at that study, they're like, "Okay, both play with both," and we don't really know what this means as children develop, and as, as individuals, this could really not manifest later. But what we know is like, that that's the thing about science.

0:41:06 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, That's where the leap in logic is coming from. Like, that's not science to say because of this small difference, you know, that we observe in monkeys or children, sometimes, therefore everything I'm saying about Google is right, you know, that, that's where it breaks down.

0:41:22 Felicia: Exactly. Yeah, it's such a bizarre leap to take. And that was when you first sent that to me, and I just woke up and I was still like, that doesn't, that doesn't track, like, I was like, no, let me give you sources because this doesn't track. It's a freaking truck. Fuck.

0:41:36 Thomas: Yeah, Excellent. Well, thanks for helping us debunk this thing, and, uh, well. Well, you can always find Felicia over on the Utah Outcasts, right? All right. Anything else you want to toss out there?

0:41:59 Felicia: Utah Outcasts uh, utahoutcasts.com, uh, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, honestly, if you Google Utah Outcasts, we're easy to find. And yeah, it's a pretty easy one, to treat people with kindness and as an individual. That's what I got.

0:42:11 Thomas: That's always the easiest way now. There you go. All right. Thanks, Felicia. Talk to you again soon.

0:42:22 Felicia: Thanks, Thomas. Bye.

0:42:48 Thomas: Alright, well there you have it. There's been so much written on this lately. A lot of good pieces, a lot of not so good pieces. I do really believe the main fallacy is presenting it as a false dichotomy between men and women are exactly alike or this guy with his manifesto is right. I think that's the main flaw I see in reasoning. The science is not out, you know, there's still a lot science to be done, as Felicia identified. There are differences between men and women. It's not a big deal. And there may be some that lead to different preferences, and that's okay. But what we do know for sure, and I didn't quite emphasize this enough in the recording and I want to emphasize it now, what we do know for sure is that there was a dip in computer programming interest in 1984.

0:43:33 Thomas: A very, very harsh dip. It was on the uptrend, it was on the uptick, it was heading toward 50-50, and then there was a sharp decline. And we also know that there's a lot of documented sexism in tech and in Silicon Valley. I've shared an article in the show notes about it. So we know those two things. You know, the science is controversial. Those two things are not controversial. They're very, very plain facts. There's documented sexism, and there's also a stiff decline in 1984. And I say that because, while, sure, there may be some difference in preferences between men and women, there's absolutely no reason to believe that the current level of women in tech is like the right level or is like an accurate representation based on interest.

0:44:21 Thomas: There's no reason to assume that where it is now is fine. So that's the biggest thing here. Now, if we were somewhere, maybe if we were at 47% women or, you know, there weren't all these documented instances of horrible sexism in Silicon Valley, maybe it'd be a different story. But now is certainly not the time to be saying that, no, no, diversity has gone too far and we need to roll back some of these programs. Now is certainly not the time for that based on the evidence that I'm seeing. So definitely check out the show notes, lots of links there. There's so much to sift through in this, but thanks so much to Felicia again. Thanks so much to you guys for listening. I appreciate feedback, and I appreciate voicemails. Let's restock on those voicemails. Find the number in the show notes as well.

0:45:06 Thomas: I'd love to hear from you guys, maybe get a few good ones for Thursday, and I will have to see you guys then.