Google’s “Man-ifesto” Against Women in Tech
Mountain View, CA – Silicon Valley is in the news for gender discrimination once more. A male engineer at Google wrote a 3,300-word manifesto arguing that women aren’t suited for tech jobs for “biological” reasons and that the gender pay gap is a myth. Yes, this is 2017.
The document titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” has been circulating internally for some time, but it was only recently made public. The manifesto’s author is a reportedly a senior software engineer at Google, who strongly believes that the company shouldn’t offer programs that help under-represented groups. Instead he calls for Google to replace its diversity initiatives with initiatives that promote “ideological diversity.”
He argued that the company doesn’t have more female engineers because men have a “higher drive for status” and that higher rates of anxiety disorders among women may explain why there are “lower numbers of women in high stress jobs.”
Moreover, he claimed that the company’s diversity programs, like teaching young girls coding skills, are “highly politicized” but such programs “alienates non-progressives” and hiring more women will eventually make the company less competitive. These are the attitudes that promote sexism in the workplace and are pervasive throughout the tech industry.
Former Google engineer Erica Baker, stated in reference to the manifesto’s sexists agenda, “This is not entirely new behavior. …What is new is that this employee felt safe enough to write and share an 8 page sexist creed, internally.” This type of comfort leads to a hostile work environment for many women at google.
In response to the damaging document, Google’s VP of Diversity, Danielle Brown, sent a memo to Google employees, saying that she “found that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender,” and that it’s not a “viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages.” She went on to write “Diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our values and the culture we continue to cultivate. We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we’ll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul.”
Google made headlines a few months ago for its lacking of diversity. In a June 2017, the tech giant released its annual diversity report where it is blatantly obvious that Google remains overwhelmingly dominated by white men. Of its total workforce, about 69% are men and 56% are white. Additionally, only 25% of women fill leadership roles, and only 20% of women are in technical jobs like engineering and programming. The good news is these numbers are up from last year. The number of women increased by 1%, the number of Hispanic employees increased by 1% (only grew to 4%, up from 3%). Black employees now make up 5% of its workforce but still only represent 1% of tech-focused jobs.
Also this past January, the US Department of Labor claimed that the company was withholding documentation related to a compliance audit, and that it has been systematically underpaying its female employees. The agency claims that it has found “systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce” in addition to “compelling evidence of very significant discrimination against women in the most common positions at Google headquarters.”
Google is not alone. Many large Silicon Valley tech companies have struggled with low rates of non-white and non-male workers. Moreover, tech industry has been scandalized in recent months with many woman coming forward about inadequate gender equality and sexism in the workplace. The Google manifesto is simply icing on the cake after the storm of sexual harassment and discrimination woman are facing in Silicon Valley. Will there be more to come? Most likely. The Google manifesto is the epitome of a deep ideology that promotes gender discrimination within the tech industry as a whole. This is a problem that that cannot be solved overnight and will likely play out in the years to come. Discrimination based on a sex and gender is prohibited under both state and federal laws and hopefully provide relief to the thousands of women who face discrimination in the tech industry.
Gender discrimination is prohibited under Federal laws, but specifically New York State and New York City human rights laws have stricter regulations on what rises to the level of discriminatory conduct. The experienced New York City sexual harassment attorneys at the Derek Smith Law Group, PLLC have years of experience litigating claims of gender discrimination. Working together with our Philadelphia sexual harassment attorneys, we have recovered millions on behalf of our clients who were discriminated against because of their gender. If you feel you have been discriminated against because of your gender, please give our attorneys a call at (800) 807-2209 for your free consultation.
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