Only 20% of Google engineers are women – a statistic that is matched roughly across big tech companies. Margolis interviewed hundreds of computer science students in the 90s at Carnegie Mellon University, which had one of the top programmes in the country at the time. Other similar studies have found that gender differences in spatial rotation tasks disappeared when the researchers controlled for video game experience. Internal documents such as Damore’s are the soft end of the sort of hostile working environment female employees can face at overwhelmingly male tech firms. “The most objectionable point about that memo was the notion that there are biological differences that make women less capable,” said Burbidge.

Source: The Guardian August 08, 2017 18:33 UTC