YouTube CEO RIPS Google Memo Guy, Tells Daughter Women Aren’t Different From Men, by Ben Shapiro.
The latest tech titan to launch into a full-scale assault on a straw-man version of Damore’s argument is YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. She wrote a piece at Forbes about the horrors of Damore’s memo, and how they had obviously emotionally crippled her young daughter … Wojcicki says that her daughter approached her after reading the news, asking one simple question: “Mom, is it true that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women in tech and leadership?” …
The question itself is a straw man: Damore didn’t claim that biological reasons are the rationale behind discrepancies in STEM hiring. He claimed that biological reasons could be a part of that discrepancy — that women might prefer certain jobs over STEM, that the STEM lifestyle might not be preferred by women, that the bell curve for female performance in STEM is not the same as that of men (in fact, women tend to average similarly to men, but the tail ends of the bell curve are thicker for men than for women).
But according to Wojcicki — the head of YouTube! — “That question, whether it’s been asked outright, whispered quietly, or simply lingered in the back of someone’s mind, has weighed heavily on me throughout my career in technology.”
Resentful at alleged slights due to being a woman, Susan Wojcicki has had a spectacularly lucrative career. Her sister was married to Google’s founder.
Then, without citing any scientific evidence whatsoever, Wojcicki determines that even asking the question is Wrongthink:
“Time and again, I’ve faced the slights that come with that question. I’ve had my abilities and commitment to my job questioned. I’ve been left out of key industry events and social gatherings. I’ve had meetings with external leaders where they primarily addressed the more junior male colleagues. I’ve had my comments frequently interrupted and my ideas ignored until they were rephrased by men. No matter how often this all happened, it still hurt.”
Now, perhaps people use that question as an excuse to discriminate. But it’s still a question — at least in its non-strawman version — that deserves an answer. Wojcicki doesn’t bother answering it. She simply says that she “felt that pain” when she saw the memo …
So Wojcicki didn’t bother to give her daughter a straight answer. Instead, she simply said, “No, it’s not true.”
How convenient. And how intellectually dishonest.
Susan Wojcicki rented the garage to Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who incubated their new search engine there. Her sister Anne Wojcicki (who later founded 23andMe) married Sergey Brin in 2007, though they separated in 2013. Google owns YouTube.
UPDATE: YouTube CEO Responds to GoogleMemo Question from Her Unborn Son, by Steve Sailer.
Yesterday, after hearing about my popular op-ed, my unborn son asked me a question. “Mom, is it true that you really don’t understand basic concepts about statistical distributions, or were you just looking for cheap applause from resentful, emotional dolts?”
So I aborted him.
