One of Google's highest-ranking women has answered that controversial memo with a very personal essay

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: August 10, 2017 at 3:22:45 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] One of Google's highest-ranking women has answered that controversial memo with a very 
> personal essay
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> One of Google’s highest-ranking women has answered that controversial memo with a very personal essay
> By Jena McGregor
> Aug 9 2017
> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2017/08/09/one-of-googles-highest-ranking-women-has-answered-that-controversial-memo-with-a-very-personal-essay/>
>
> Like many Google leaders, Susan Wojcicki probably faced some difficult questions from employees this week about the 
> controversial employee memo that exploded on social media. But the most personal question may have come from her 
> daughter.
>
> In an essay published by Fortune on Wednesday, the chief executive of YouTube, which is owned by Google, wrote that 
> her daughter asked her about the memo, which raised questions about Google's diversity efforts and included 
> statements about gender differences. It was written by a company engineer who was fired earlier this week in its 
> aftermath. “Mom,” her daughter asked her, “is it true that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women in 
> tech and leadership?”
>
> Before revealing how she answered her daughter, Wojcicki said the question has been “pervasive,” based on her 
> experience. “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.”
>
> She wrote that she's had her abilities and job commitment questioned, been left out of industry events and social 
> gatherings, watched as outside leaders addressed her more junior colleagues in meetings and been interrupted and 
> ignored. “No matter how often this all happened, it still hurt,” she wrote.
>
> As a result, “I thought about the women at Google who are now facing a very public discussion about their abilities, 
> sparked by one of their own co-workers,” she wrote. “And as my child asked me the question I’d long sought to 
> overcome in my own life, I thought about how tragic it was that this unfounded bias was now being exposed to a new 
> generation.”
>
> Wojcicki also directly addressed the engineer's dismissal. “As a company that has long supported free expression, 
> Google obviously stands by the right that employees have to voice, publish or tweet their opinions,” she wrote. “But 
> while people may have a right to express their beliefs in public, that does not mean companies cannot take action 
> when women are subjected to comments that perpetuate negative stereotypes about them based on their gender.”
>
> She also raised the question of “what if we replaced the word 'women' in the memo with another group?” — such as 
> black, Hispanic or LGBTQ employees. “Would some people still be discussing the merit of the memo's arguments or would 
> there be a universal call for swift action against its author?”
>
> In writing the essay, Wojcicki becomes the highest-ranking women at Google to address the matter publicly, adding a 
> key female executive's voice to the company leadership's response. While Danielle Brown, Google's vice president of 
> diversity, integrity and governance released a statement earlier this week, saying that “like many of you, I found 
> that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender,” Wojcicki's was much more personal.
>
> After thinking about all these issues, she wrote, “I looked at my daughter and answered simply. 'No, it’s not true.' ”
>
> The author of the memo, which was first circulated on an internal network and then went viral online, wrote that 
> “differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50 percent 
> representation of women in tech and leadership.” He wrote that “I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that 
> sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes” and said that “I'm not saying that all men differ from women in 
> the following ways or that these differences are 'just.' ”
>
> But he also said that women, on average, have more extroversion “expressed as gregariousness rather than 
> assertiveness” and “higher agreeableness,” which “leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, 
> asking for raises, speaking up and leading.” He wrote that women on average have “higher anxiety, lower stress 
> tolerance,” and “look for more work-life balance.” In a memo late Monday to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote 
> that “portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in 
> our workplace.”
>
> [snip]
>
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