Read YouTube CEO Susan Wojcickis Response to the Controversial Google Anti-Diversity Memo

[Eugene]

Source: Fortune

Read YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki’s Response to the Controversial Google Anti-Diversity Memo

Susan Wojcicki
5:30 AM ET

Yesterday, after reading the news, my daughter asked me a question. “Mom, is it true that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women in tech and leadership?”

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. Though I’ve been lucky to work at a company where I’ve received a lot of support—from leaders like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and Jonathan Rosenberg to mentors like Bill Campbell—my experience in the tech industry has shown me just how pervasive that question is.

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.

So when I saw the memo that circulated last week, I once again felt that pain, and empathized with the pain it must have caused others. 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. I thought about the women throughout the tech field who are already dealing with the implicit biases that haunt our industry (which I’ve written about before), now confronting them explicitly. I thought about how the gender gap persists in tech despite declining in other STEM fields, how hard we’ve been working as an industry to reverse that trend, and how this was yet another discouraging signal to young women who aspire to study computer science. 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.

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Read more: http://fortune.com/2017/08/09/google-diversity-memo-wojcicki/

[LisaM]

1. I wonder why people are only relating this to STEM.

Look at our government - we're up to what, 20% women? Look at any 100 "Best" book or film lists - again, how many of them are written or directed by women, how many have main women characters? What about sports? Women's tennis, basketball, and softball are as compelling as any other sport, but does ESPN or do the college networks show much of it? Is women's art considered as collectible? How many symphony musicians are women?

I agree with Ms. Wojicki's point, but I don't see why the response has to be boxed into STEM fields.

[PoliticAverse]

2. "How many symphony musicians are women?" - in some symphonys, women outnumber men...

Many symphonies hold true blind auditions where the judges have no idea whether the auditionee is male
or female, see:
http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/in-orchestras-a-sea-change-in-gender-proportions/article_25cd8c54-5ca4-529f-bb98-8c5b08c64434.html

[LisaM]

3. Well, that's great, but my point remains.

This shouldn't only apply to STEM.