Exec denounces employee’s views on female workers

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Silicon Valley’s efforts to promote workforce diversity haven’t yielded many results – unless you count a backlash at Google, where a male software engineer blamed biological differences for the paucity of female programmers.

His widely shared memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” also criticizes Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for “alienating conservatives.”

Google’s just-hired head of diversity, Danielle Brown, responded with her own memo, saying Google is “unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success.” She said change is hard and “often uncomfortable.”

The dueling memos come as Silicon Valley grapples with accusations of sexism and discrimination. Google is also in the midst of a Department of Labor investigation into whether it pays women less than men, while Uber’s CEO recently lost his job amid accusations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.

Leading tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Uber, have said they are trying to improve hiring and working conditions for women. But diversity numbers are barely changing .

The Google employee memo, which gained attention online over the weekend, begins by saying only honest discussion will address a lack of equity. But it also asserts women “prefer jobs in social and artistic areas” while more men “may like coding because it requires systemizing.”

The memo, shared on the tech blog Gizmodo, attributes biological differences between men and women to the reason why “we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.”

The employee’s identity hasn’t been released. But, while his views were broadly and publicly criticized online, they echo the 2005 statements by then-Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who said the reason there are fewer female scientists at top universities is in part due to “innate” gender differences.

Google, like other tech companies, has far fewer women than men in technology and leadership positions. Fifty-six percent of its workers are white, 35 percent are Asian, 4 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are Black, according to the company’s latest diversity report.

Tech companies say they are trying, by reaching out to and interviewing a broader range of job candidates, by offering coding classes, internships and mentorship programs and mandatory “unconscious bias” training sessions.