NPR spreads the Brooks around
NPR gave David Brooks a chance to repeat his very inept reading of James Damore’s memo yesterday.
[AUDIE] CORNISH: One last idea that came out of Silicon Valley, and this is a debate over a viral memo from a Google engineer who argued, among other things, that Google had a left bias that created a politically correct mono culture that shamed dissenters into silence. Also made some comments about men and women and biological differences. David, you argue that the person who should have been fired is Google’s CEO. How come?
BROOKS: Well, you know, all of this starts with a long debate we’ve been having for decades about evolutionary psychology and the differences between men and women. And there’s this vast body of research out there on this subject. And it shows, first, mostly, there are no real significant differences between men and women on abilities, on the ability to do math, on IQ – pretty much the same. There are some minor differences between populations, mostly in levels of interest, not in levels of ability. And – but these are all about populations. You can’t tell anything about a person, about an individual from any of these studies. Who should work at Google? Who should not work at Google? Who’s good at tech? And James Damore…
CORNISH: But just to stop you there, like, if you say something bad about your…
DIONNE: That sounds like a critique of James Damore.
BROOKS: No, that’s exactly what James Damore…
CORNISH: This is the name of the engineer.
BROOKS: And this is exactly what James Damore wrote in his memo. And now a whole series of evolutionary psychologists have come out – I quoted a couple in my column today – saying that he was a pretty accurate summary of the body of research. And so someone at a scientific company should not be fired for sort of accurately summarizing the science. Now, I understand why – go ahead, E.J.
No, that is not what Damore wrote in his memo. Jesus. If you can’t even get that right then shut up about it.
DIONNE: Oh, go ahead, David.
BROOKS: I understand why some of the people who are there, who are – especially some of the women who are in a hostile work environment being silenced in meetings are upset because they’re living in one reality, which is the reality that we live out every day as individuals. And they’re absolutely right. But James Damore, his – the research he summarized is talking about populations. And he, too, is right. And Pichai should have done a much better job of, A, not firing him and, B, explaining the differences.
CORNISH: E.J., last word to you.
DIONNE: Where I disagree is I don’t think the research is anywhere near as good as David is suggesting it is. And some of what he said were pure stereotypes. Women generally have a stronger interest in people, rather than things relative to men. And I thought Anna Wiener in The New Yorker really had it right that this memo was a kind of smack in the face for plenty of tech workers and executives – for plenty of women who are used to tech workers and executives considering hiring women as lowering the bar. I mean, there was something just terribly wrong with this memo. I’m a pro-labor guy. I don’t like people getting fired, but I think this memo had a lot of problems in it.
I’m pro-labor too, so that includes being in favor of women’s ability to work in an environment where their presence is just taken for granted. Women shouldn’t have to feel they’re only provisionally there, subject to the daily judgement of men who swap stories about how much more neurotic women are.
I wonder…if Damore’s memo had been about Other Races as opposed to the Other Sex, and had been otherwise identical, would David Brooks be defending it and saying the CEO should be fired?
I don’t know, of course, but I doubt it. I doubted it when Michael Shermer said it’s more of a guy thing – I thought if it had been “it’s more of a white thing” it wouldn’t have made it out of his mouth. I still think that. The same applies to Sam Harris’s “estrogen vibe” – I don’t think he would have said “melatonin vibe.” I think guys like Shermer and Harris and Brooks can hear it when it’s about race, and stop themselves, but they can’t damn well hear it when it’s about women.
If Google and other tech companies are promoting a subtle, but abrasive environment for working women then why would a woman want to work for them? Personally, I find most every thing I read about tech companies repulsive. It’s a toxic environment… just don’t get into it.
There are lots of opportunities in science and engineering that demonstrate significantly more egalitarian opportunities for women. A lot of physicists I know work on Wall Street…. a hideous environment in my opinion, but that’s their choice. Many of them (all men) are unhappy with it but they make hell-money … like a savcrifice that I want nothing to do with. I doubt Wall Street is going to change any time soon., no matter how many memos are written.
Well quite, but that’s part of the picture. That’s one explanation for why there are fewer women in STEM generally – but that of course is not a solution, it’s just more of the same problem. Women should not be driven out of entire fields by persistent smug hostile sexism.
Kevin, one thing I’ve discovered is that the choice of working places is often irrelevant. My husband noticed pervasive sexism as a librarian – a librarian, FFS, which is a field dominated by women! It isn’t that women should go off to some other place (often for even lower pay). It is that places like Google and other toxic work environments should clean their own house. And firing people like Damore is a good start.
Jesus, can Brooks even read? He just effectively rebuted the stupid memo, while claiming he’s upholding the need for debate. And isn’t it nice how easy it is for straight white men to debate the future of women, people of color, and LGBTQ? Then, the moment someone says “men hate women”, it’s the rage machine about how men are being stereotyped, and NotAllMen.
(Melanin vibe.)
The hypocrisy of conservatives on this issue is amazing.
Conservatives not only supported the “right” of employers to dictate whether their employees can get a prescription for birth control from their physician, they claimed that denying employers that “right” was a vicious assault on fundamental religious freedoms.
Now, when an employer says, “yeah, we’re not going to put up with an employee using company resources to declare to the entire workforce that he holds contempt for an important company policy,” conservatives think this is a vile assault on the freedom of employees.
So in a nutshell: you want to express opinions that violate company policy? Oh, well, you should get to do that anytime, anywhere, with no consequence. You want to use birth control? Get another job, you fucking slut.
Screechy, I think the hypocrisy is simpler and worse still than that – it’s that they’ll defend loudly anyone’s right to do whatever the conservatives approve of (cutting off contraception/abortion coverage, trashing women’s abilities), and protest violently anyone exercising a right to do something of which they don’t approve (get that abortion, use company resources to publish a manifesto decrying workplace sexism/racism).
Consider the silence about Nazi parades in Charlottesville, and picture them just as riotous and disruptive but for Black Lives Matter. We’d not be hearing anything about Southern heritage or freedom of assembly or expression then; they’d be crying for blood and rolling police armored vehicles.
If there is any conservative of consistent principle, they’re silent in American political life. Occasionally they suffer some small attack of it – it goes over poorly for them the next primary election.
Jeff,
Well, yeah. It’s all about whose ox is being gored. I could have also mentioned the fact that Republicans in Congress still won’t agree to amend the Civil Rights Act to cover LGBTQ discrimination. The result is that in many states right now (those that don’t have their own anti-discrimination laws that cover LGBTQ), an employer can fire you because you are — or even just because the employer thinks you are — LGBTQ. Because hey, the rights of CEO Biblethumper to dictate what employees do with their own lives trump everything. But the CEO of Google has no right to control what happens in the workplace if it limits what a white conservative man wants to say or do.
This makes me think about another disparity: elementary teachers. Why are they almost all women especially K-2? I have two sons, one still in elementary school and they respond much better to men than women. I don’t think they are sexist but the one first grade teacher who was a male was a much better fit my kids.
I taught high school and never saw any gender related restrictions on hiring practices for teachers, but I do think many elementary teachers and some parents, both male and female, are prejudicially against male elementary teachers. This leaves fewer male role models particularly for some kids (girls and boys) who do not have great fathers at all.
When I was in 5th grade, I had a male teacher for reading (I was in the other 5th grade class, but in advanced reading, so different teacher). My mother liked him, but was horrified to think he was working with children, because if he was teaching K-6, he had to be gay. And of course, if you are gay, the only reason to be working with children is to turn them gay and then have sex with them.
I wonder why she was so worried, then. If he was gay, he wasn’t going to be interested in her daughter, right?
I often found that the teacher fit had little to do with gender, though, and more to do with personality. I often related as well as, or better, to my male teachers if they had the sort of personality that worked for me. It didn’t have to do with a role model, it had to do with treating me like a human being, and also being interesting as a teacher, and being someone I didn’t feel afraid of.
Gay teachers icky! It’s insane how paranoid people can be. I taught at an all boys high school, but when I did have opportunities to interact with girls they responded overwhelmingly enthusiastic to my teaching style…for science and math. I think if the teacher knows what he or she is doing they can figure out how to motivate anyone regardless of gender (in most cases).
The gay teacher example reminds me of the ‘four year old rule’ for most swimming pool bathrooms. Can’t have little girls or boys in the wrong place kind of thing. I always like to point out the sexual predator mcouls be a man in the boys bathroom checking my sons asses out, while their father wears his ‘You can pee next to me’ shirt. Society is complex.