the james damore memo and silicon valley

Diversity in Silicon Valley

James Damore was an engineer in Google's search infrastructure unit, and wrote an internal memo critical of the company's diversity efforts. Damore was fired for the memo, and this firing was upheld by the National Labor Relations Board (Wakabayashi, 2018). Google claimed that the firing was done, not because of Damore's criticism of the company, but for making comments in the memo that advanced stereotypes (Wakabayashi, 2018). The memo kicked off a firestorm of commentary about diversity in Silicon Valley, however. The region is home to some of the largest and most successful technology companies, Google included, but science and technology fields are dominated by men. A CNN survey found that only in administration is there anything close to a 50/50 gender split the women only make up a quarter of the workforce in some fields (Yellin & Hanley, 2018). The discourse around diversity in Silicon Valley includes discussion about women in STEM (sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics) in general, but also is a discussion about the organizational cultures of the firms in the region. Many other Silicon Valley companies, notably Uber, are considered to have hostile work environments for women (Ohnsman, 2017).

This paper will analyze the Damore memo, using the lens of a longtime Silicon Valley employee, and will then zoom out to discuss the gender discourse in Silicon Valley before making recommendations on how to build more effective gender inclusion or advancement programs.

The Damore Memo

The infamous James Damore memo has been published in its entirety, allowing for comprehensive analysis of the text (Conger, 2017). The context is that Google had been fighting a wage discrimination suit at the time, and was attempting to implement diversity policies that Damore apparently disagreed with. The document begins with a discussion not about gender but about political bias, meaning the bias against people who have conservative political views. Damore seems to be aggrieved as this was the first point of his letter. He cites Google's left-leaning political bias for creating a "politically correct monoculture" that ultimately does not reflect his particular values.

The gender component of his memo presents the argument that implicit and explicit biases may hold women back, but that "it's far from the whole story", that story forming the core of his argument. He argues that biological differences between men and women account for much of the differences in both female participation in Google and in female compensation as well. He makes several claims with respect to women, for example, that they have more openness towards feelings, which drives them towards specific fields of employment, presumably accounting for some of the low percentages of females in Silicon Valley companies.

The next argument is that extraversion is more likely expressed as gregariousness by women, which makes them less likely to excel at negotiating for salary, asking for raises, speaking up and leading (Damore, 2017). He then adds that women have higher neuroticism. He then makes an argument as to why males tend towards higher-paying jobs, being the pursuit of status.

He makes some arguments against what he terms to be social engineering, such as Google's program to teach girls coding and different programs to prioritize what he terms diversity candidates. He then argues that part of the issue is political bias to be found at Google, and that this political bias creates blind spots. He then makes several recommendations for addressing the problem as he's defined it. The entire memo is quite lengthy, and there is a lot to unpack.

From the perspective of someone working in technology, the memo is actually quite interesting. Damore's perspective is one that can be found among individuals who focus intensely on reason and science as the sole sources of truth (i.e. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, et al). These viewpoints tend to be at odds with much of social science discourse. Damore is relying on what he perceives as a rational argument – that science has shown men and women to be different. The manner in which he extrapolates a scientific finding is where he finds himself in trouble. For one, he draws conclusions that are not necessarily supported by any studies – if such studies exist he did not cite them. So any claim he makes that sounds spurious is difficult to verify.

He misuses statistics to arrive at some of his conclusions. For one, if we take at face value the claim that women have higher anxiety, that does not mean all women have higher anxiety. Moreover, how many women would be required in Google's leadership to arrive at equal gender representation? Are there not that many women who have what Damore would deem an acceptable level of anxiety. So while he believes he is making rational arguments, they are by no means airtight arguments, and that opens his entire memo up to critique.

The Damore memo is an example of the sort of thinking that fails to take into account the role that empathy and the human condition play in our daily lives. Even if Damore would prefer that all decisions are made with pure, unwavering rationality – and there are many in Silicon Valley that feel this way – the reality is that not everybody wishes this to be the means of evaluating things, making decisions. Amazingly, there are people who do not wish to be told what they can and cannot do because of some perceived innate gender difference.

Damore calls for evaluation of the programs he criticizes, but ultimately does not really provide that evaluation himself. He could have. For example, is he able to accurately judge whether the program to teach girls to code is truly encouraging girls to get into coding when they do not really want to). Some of the more absurd claims such as that reflect shortcuts in Damore's thinking. He loses the opportunity to allow his more salient points to resonate because he lacks the ability to self-edit out things that are simply absurd.

The memo is written from a point of frustration, that people in positions of power are not doing things according to the author's worldview. There's certainly no shortage of people in technology who believe that men prefer coding specifically, and that women do not wish to code. What this view fails to recognize – and what Google is seeking to counteract, is the creation of a culture that discourages women from seeking careers in tech. An overwhelmingly male environment is not necessarily a welcoming one for women. This is the case even when the men in that environment are individually decent people, and have no ill will at all towards women. But it is a fairly large blind spot that a group of men – especially young, competitive men – have with respect to how they are perceived. The lack of self-awareness creates a problem for Silicon Valley's organizational cultures where gender diversity in concerned, because women look at the composition of such teams and feel that the environment is not going to be one that is conducive to them being their best. It is not that the environment has to be actively hostile; the perception that it could be, and that there is not going to be any support if it is, will alone keep women from pursuing careers in Silicon Valley.

As someone who works in tech, but at a small company with nearly equal gender representation in software engineering, the environment is dramatically different from many of the other companies where the male dominant culture was on the verge of being out of control. A true commitment to gender equality just feels different, for both the men and the women on the team. Many men prefer an more equal team, and find it refreshing to work in such an environment.

The other interesting element to the memo is that Damore can find work in any of a number of companies that might suit his preferences more. It is easy to understand the frustration of not quite fitting in with the organizational culture, but Damore should use his logic and reason here – if the cultural fit is not right, then it is time to move on. Damore's memo was certainly framed as being trying to improve Google, but he allowed himself to fall into the typical traps of assuming specific traits in an entire population, and thinking that such traits are a) true and b) matter in the ways that he thinks they do. The memo isn't an example of toxic culture per se, but it is an example of how even a commitment to science and reason can leave one with particular biases, and apparently without sufficient self-reflection to understand how those biases influence his views and veer them away from the perfect rationality he advocates.

But even in Damore was exactly right in everything he said, he left out a fairly important part of the argument, which is the human side. The reality that programs to encourage more gender equity in Silicon Valley exist because of the human side – to provide opportunity to people who face bias in employment, including unconscious bias. Damore's inability to empathize – with women in particular – means that he says basically nothing about the human side, the lost opportunities, the frustration and torment that women go through in Silicon Valley, even when they otherwise love their jobs. Damore, in essence, misses the entire point of promoting diversity, and he does so simply because he has noticed certain things about diversity discourse and practice that he feels are misaligned with scientific truth. That there is something that maybe isn't quite right about diversity practice or discourse does not invalid diversity programs as a whole; Damore should know that such thinking is logical fallacy.

Ultimately the Damore memo was not a strong argument. As an example of his fallacious reasoning, he takes a trait that in theory is more common in women, extrapolates that out to the entire population of women, then magically argues that this trait means something in the workplace. Not only is that claim not proven, but even if it was proven, Damore's response of "that's how it is" is not the correct answer.

If there is a deficiency that somebody has – a needed skill for promotion, say – then there is a need for programs to help that person acquire that skill. So if a woman who has all the functional skills to earn a promotion lacks assertiveness to ask for one, then that is an area where her managers, or mentors, would either coach her for assertiveness or would be trained to recognize that assertiveness is not really a trait to hire for. When you hire someone because of their assertiveness, that is a fault in the hiring process, and the process needs to be improved so that all quality candidates – assertive or otherwise – are given equal and due consideration. Damore never goes near this level of depth in his thinking.

Further, he does not seem to grasp that when he repeats claims about women, and frames them in what is probably the most negative light possible, he is only contributing to the framework of gender discrimination. He claims at some point near the end of his memo that he wants to use science and reason to solve the problem of gender discrimination, but there is clear science explaining how gender bias is formed and reproduced in a society. His memo is an example of how gender bias is reproduced – his public championing of his message spreads these ideas, which are often taken at face value and not subject to any sort of in-depth scrutiny. At best, most people simply don't or can't apply critical reasoning to what they read, and at worst that memo feeds into people's pre-existing ideas, a confirmation bias. The reality is that Damore's memo, by its very existence, does not contribute positively to the advancement of women, and would not even if everything he said was true. Google was forced to fire Damore because of the fact that they are seeking to change their culture with respect to gender equity, and Damore's memo was running counter to those efforts.

Damore frames the entire memo through the lens of having his conservative views discriminated against – that is the opening screed contained in the memo. This is a fairly bizarre framing, because it makes the memo more about him, and how the company isn't doing what he thinks is right. In the end, it's more about getting his ideas out into the public discussion, rather than about helping to better the cause of women at Google. This framing does the memo's arguments no service, especially in light of the anti-intellectualism of most conservative doctrine in this day and age.

The only real value that the Damore memo has is to spark a larger discussion on the issue of gender bias in Silicon Valley. The media coverage, and the leading role that this firms play in America's economy, means that the memo can be a springboard to stronger leadership on the matter. Google can take lessons from the memo as far as what the pushback and resistance are to its organizational change efforts. All organizational change efforts run into resistance, and it is important for the company to understand what that resistance looks like in order to effectively address it. If Google can do that, and be successful, then it can be a model for other companies to follow, as it is on most matters. It may be putting a rather positive spin on the memo, but sometimes being able to shine a light on something is the best way to identify how to overcome it; you can't solve problems that you don't know exist. The fact that the memo contained too many weak arguments, and poorly conceived logic, just makes it easier to use as a springboard for change.

Gender Discourse in Silicon Valley

Both the Damore memo and the issues with Uber have brought the issue of gender diversity in Silicon Valley to light. The Valley has faced a diversity challenge for many years, but these events have brought to light the challenges faced by women in terms of the organizational culture in Silicon Valley companies, and challenges associated with STEM training pathways and other issues. The topic of gender equity in Silicon Valley is primarily being discussed in mainstream media, rather than in journals, but that might be the best place for these discussions to take place, because of the visibility. Silicon Valley has largely received a pass for its gender inequity because its companies are high performing, and because there is something of a tech bubble, and many people outside of the industry simply did not realize the extent of the issue – that is not say not just that gender inequity exists in Silicon Valley but the consequent impact that this inequity has on the organizational cultures of the companies there.

One of the issues is that the gender imbalance exists not just in Silicon Valley but in the tech sector as a whole. Austin's tech sector was found to have gender imbalance similar to Silicon Valley's, though "Silicon Valley" as a term can sometimes reflect all tech, or all American tech. The reality is that the gender imbalance exists throughout the industry, but the concentration of technology firms and jobs in Silicon Valley means that the negative impacts on organizational cultures are perhaps most strongly felt there. There is the theory in fact that the gender biases may begin in Silicon Valley, a consequence of its leadership position in the industry, and then that aspect of tech culture is disseminated throughout the sector, to other cities (Echeverri-Carroll, 2017).

Another point that has been raised in the discourse is that the gender issues in Silicon Valley are overstated in popular media. Perhaps this is because of things like the Damore memo, which got substantial play in the mainstream media. One study found that Silicon Valley outperforms many other industries in terms of female representation in senior management (Kenney & Patton, 2015). These companies will lack equity, but they were better than other companies in the economy as a whole. What this means is that while Silicon Valley is a popular target for its size and the famous names that are headquartered there, the gender equity issue in tech is little more than just another industry that has a gender issue. All industries struggled with finding an appropriate level of representation for women.

There are two main themes to the discourse. The first is the gender/social sciences theme and the other is the human resources / business theme. The gender discourse seeks to understand the gender inequity in Silicon Valley through the lens of traditional gender studies. In this view, males dominate Silicon Valley, and through both conscious and unconscious bias perpetuate their power in the industry. Many men, including many in powerful Silicon Valley positions, carry these biases, and they not only impact on the opportunities available to women to enter the business, but on their career progression once they do.

In that respect, Silicon Valley is not much different than many other industries. What makes Silicon Valley an interesting case study is precisely the dynamic as occurs at Google, where attempts by the company to provide more opportunities for women are met with scorn and challenge, and arguments such as those expressed in the Damore memo. So while Silicon Valley is generally in a progressive part of the country, and many of its companies are among the more progressive large enterprises, the expectation would naturally be that Silicon Valley would see less gender discrimination, yet evidence both hard and anecdotal continues to proliferate that gender bias is alive and well.

The patriarchal structure of Silicon Valley mirrors other industries, and leads to a situation where hiring managers come to see men as more capable for certain roles, especially in software development, leading to at the very least unconscious gender bias. This bias reinforces many aspects of gender discrimination – it creates organizational cultures that are hostile environments for women, it perpetuates the idea that men are better suited for those types of roles because all you see in those roles are men, and it also provides more pathways for men to get into positions of power.

These gender biases manifest early on. One of the things in the Damore memo mirrored an element of the discourse (albeit badly) – that women enter STEM fields at a lower rate than men, and that this is why gender equity in Silicon Valley is a non-starter. There is some truth to the idea that women enter STEM fields less frequently, and so a segment of the discourse has taken to studying the pathways to get into engineering and software as fields in the first place. Baker et al (2015) looked at the issue of gender parity as degree parity rather than population parity, which would control for choices at the education level. This concept makes sense from a human resources perspective – it is literally impossible to achieve population parity in engineering positions if there are not enough female engineers to get to that number on an industry-wide basis; some firms must fall short.

However, from a social sciences perspective the degree parity concept makes less sense. The reason is that STEM educational pathways are part of the same ecosystem as the tech companies that do the hiring. If Silicon Valley is perceived by women as a hostile place in which to work, and that this spills over into tech companies of all sorts, then the reality is that women will eschew that type of education simply because they know that education will in all likelihood put them in the position of working in said hostile environment. The choices one makes in their education are not made in a vacuum, but are directly related to the career pathways where those choices will lead. So the gender equity issue in Silicon Valley very much influences the educational pathways that women take. Concerted efforts from schools to target women and encourage them to pursue STEM education have shown to be successful, and there is quite a bit that Silicon Valley companies can do in order to work with their major feeder schools, such as providing financing for programs to providing training to their recruiters to ensure that interested female students are given time and not presented with a hostile environment.

The human resources discourse is concerned with many aspects of gender equity, and is really taking more of a pragmatic approach. The major issue is encouraging women to pursue software engineering careers, but then also to ensure that there are pathways for women to build careers in these companies. Correll (2017) advocates for an incremental approach to culture change in Silicon Valley. Taking a "small wins" approach. One of the core ideas that she bases this on is that there is more or less consensus on how gender inequality is reproduced, which allows for the development of models, and testing changes to different variables. It is less a matter of aiming for minor, incremental changes as it is aiming for a more scientific approach, where problems can be solved more through application of data and scientific principles.

Correll's approach marks an interesting point for discussing the Damore memo. Damore fails to realize that one of the main reasons why his memo was so offensive to so many people is specifically because of the manner in which he propagated stereotypes of women, and used negative framing as his argument. The memo is a classic example of the type of repetition that reproduces gender inequity. Moreover, gender inequity has been studied so extensively that it literally can be tackled using the principles of scientific inquiry. Damore characterized Google's gender politics as just that – a purely political thing without scientific basis. Yet this is simple not the case. Even with something like the gender wage gap, there has been extensive scientific study to break down the wage gap into its constituent parts – to suggest that the wage gap does not exist is false (as Damore claimed) but the studies also show a certain percentage of the wage gap is attributable to bias and discrimination.

The discourse on gender in Silicon Valley has not paid as much attention to the scientific study of gender inequity, simply because this topic is too complex or controversial for the mainstream media, and the mainstream media have driven the discourse on Silicon Valley in particular. All told, the discourse should be more oriented towards the root causes of gender inequity – stuff like the Damore memo and brogrammer culture is really a symptom of these root causes of gender bias. Eliminate the root causes and the symptoms will disappear. It will simply not be acceptable practice anywhere to create an unhealthy environment for women.

Recommendations

Silicon Valley companies have a cultural issue to deal with regarding gender equity. The best place to deal with gender equity is at the startup stage, where the company culture can be defined from an early stage. If a negative, discriminatory or hostile culture is allowed to begin, then it will grow with the company and be that much harder to address later. Culture matters, so entrepreneurs need to take into account the culture that they want to have, from an early stage. This could also mean hiring female developers early on, and providing female entrepreneurs with more opportunities to raise capital and build female-friendly companies.

For startups, having set policies in place to define behavior is a starting point, but the reality is that many companies have such policies and then do not enforce them. It is therefore also critical that enforcement mechanisms are built into the policy, in order that the policy becomes a clear part of the organizational culture.

The bigger challenge lies with the larger, established Silicon Valley firms. There are several approaches that can be taken. The first is to start with the educational level, and ensure that academic partners, in particular the leading feeder schools, to encourage female enrollment in STEM programs. The best way to tone down a male-dominant culture is to bring in more females, as the presence of a few females will not change the culture but the closer the company gets to 50%, the more the behavioral norms will simply change to match that. Thus, the talent pipeline for female engineers needs to be nurtured.

Recruiting policies need to change. This is often interpreted by the Damores of the world as being something that is not egalitarian, but the reality is that many women find it challenging to be taken seriously for those types of positions. Recruiting sessions can emphasize competitiveness, which tends to favor men, especially when men are already the dominant gender in the setting.

Silicon Valley companies can implement mentorship programs for women, to help provide them with pathways that might not otherwise be available. Where Damore cites differences between males and females, what he fails to recognize is that if there is some area where an otherwise talented female is deficient, then the best response is to find ways through training or mentorship programs to overcome those deficiencies.