Here’s what bugs me about James Damore’s recent anti-Google screed: it’s a terrible misuse of biology.
The question he addresses is: Why are there so few women in tech and tech leadership? In his memo to Google, Damore offered an explanation (note: I added the numbers):
On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:
(1) They’re universal across human cultures
(2) They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
(3) Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males
(4) The underlying traits are highly heritable
(5) They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective
I’ll assume, for the sake of argument, that points (1)-(4) are more or less true.