Google Fires Engineer Who Wrote Memo Questioning Women in Tech
Google on Monday fired a software engineer who wrote an
internal memo that questioned the company’s diversity efforts and argued that
the low number of women in technical positions was a result of biological
differences instead of discrimination.
The memo, called “Google’s
Ideological Echo Chamber,” angered many in Silicon Valley because it
relied on certain gender stereotypes — like the notion that women are less
interested in high-stress jobs because they are more anxious — to rationalize
the gender gap in the tech industry. The memo quickly spread outside the
company, as other Google employees railed against many of its assumptions.
In a companywide email, Google’s chief executive, Sundar
Pichai, said portions of the memo had violated the company’s code of conduct
and crossed the line “by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our
workplace.”
The memo put the company in a bind. On one hand, Google has
long promoted a culture of openness, with employees allowed to question senior
executives and even mock its strategy in internal forums. However, Google, like
many other technology firms, is dealing with criticism that it has not done
enough to hire and promote women and minorities.
One female Google engineer posted on Twitter upon reading the
memo that she would consider leaving the company unless the human resources
department took action.
In an email titled “Our Words Matter,” Mr. Pichai said that
he supported the right of employees to express themselves but that the memo had
gone too far.
“The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom
are hurting and feel judged based on their gender,” Mr. Pichai wrote. “Our
co-workers shouldn’t have to worry that each time they open their mouths to
speak in a meeting, they have to prove that they are not like the memo states,
being ‘agreeable’ rather than ‘assertive,’ showing a ‘lower stress tolerance,’
or being ‘neurotic.’”
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