Why in news?
A 10-page internal memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber”was recently leaked by an employee at Google.
What was the memo about?
- It attempts to justify gender imbalance and systemic discrimination in the workplace.
- It states that “men and women biologically differ in many ways” and that “Women, on average, have more Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)”.
- Now Google has distanced itself from the memo.
What is the situation of women in Silicon Valley?
- Google, like other companies often do during the time of accusations, is trying to dismiss the pseudo-science and bigotry of the memo as the outburst of a single individual.
- But the reality is, these underlying assumptions are common among many in the Silicon Valley.
- They also more often than not blame the victim.
- Earlier this year, Google was accused of gender pay discrimination by the US labour department.
- Uber’s CEO also resigned after stories of harassment and discrimination in the company came to light.
- In 2016, a survey found that 60% of the women working in Silicon Valley received unwanted sexual advances and 87% witnessed demeaning comments from colleagues.
- Ideas like those in the Google document are a poor attempt to turn the clock back to when patriarchal privilege could display itself with impunity.
Source: The Indian Express
