Setting Some Shit Straight About James Damore’s Anti-Diversity Memo At Google

by Sunsara Taylor

August 10, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Recently, software engineer James Damore was fired by Google after he circulated a ten-page memo assailing attempts to promote greater gender and racial diversity within the company. Damore argues in his memo that women are biologically more likely to be “neurotic” and less capable of handling stress, that Google’s diversity programs discriminate against men, and that “conservatives” are subject to a “psychologically unsafe environment” because they can’t openly express these bogus and harmful ideas about women. Outrage at Damore’s firing immediately spread across the many platforms of fascist “alt-right” and “men’s rights” groups. They are screeching that Damore is being discriminated against by a “politically correct tyranny.” This is not only wrong, it is dangerous. It dovetails with a larger fascist assault that is being spearheaded from the very top, by the Trump/Pence regime, to Make America White Again and put women “back in their place.” For this reason, it is necessary to set the record straight on a number of things.

1. Oppression—NOT Biology—Accounts for the Lack of Women in Tech and Other Male-Dominated Spheres.

Google—like most of the tech industry—is overwhelmingly dominated by men. As of 2016, only 19 percent of Google’s technical roles were held by women, only two percent of its employees as a whole were Black, and only three percent were Hispanic. Damore argues that “biological causes ... may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership” and insists that, “on average, men and women biologically differ in many ways.”

This is WRONG. There is no meaningful biological difference between the brains of women and men. In her book, The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism, Knowing What’s Real and Why It Matters, Ardea Skybreak details how one of the most defining things about human beings is the profound elasticity of our brains. Human infants are born in a much more undeveloped, dependent, and immature state than other hominids¹ and our brains develop much more slowly over a more extended period of our lives. This means that we are even more shaped by our environment and learning than by “hardwiring,” including any alleged differences stemming from our sex. Many other scientists, including Cordelia Fine, author of Delusions of Gender, have exposed the biases and faulty methods of those who claim to have “proven” that men and women “think differently.”

There are, however, very real and very pervasive social factors which explain the lack of women in tech and other male-dominated industries. Report after report has revealed the tremendous discrimination against women and the widespread culture of sexual harassment of women within Silicon Valley. This comes on top of a whole society and culture that burdens women disproportionately with caring for children, shames women if they do not devote themselves to their children before all else, reduces women to sex objects, promotes a culture of rape and unpunished sexual assault, and systematically discourages women and girls from pursuing education and careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

2. Conservatives Are NOT “Victims” and They Do NOT Need to Be “Empowered.”

Damore argues that “conservatives are a minority that feel like they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility,” and argues that, “We should empower those with different ideologies to be able to express themselves.” In other words, Damore is whining because it has become socially unacceptable in some circles to openly argue for anti-scientific and highly oppressive views towards women, Black people, and other minority nationalities.

First, to the degree that there is any truth to this, it is a very good thing. There is NOTHING defensible about promoting junk “science” that justifies brutal oppression. This toxic garbage is provably untrue, profoundly harmful, and absolutely should be shut up and shut down!

Second, it is hardly the case that “conservatives” are being silenced and marginalized. In fact, the opposite is true. An openly misogynistic, white nationalist, bellicose America-First FASCIST is now in the White House and white supremacists, woman-haters, Christian fascists, and bigots of every stripe have been let out of the basement. At every point, the Trump/Pence fascist regime portrays itself as the “victim” and whips up and unleashes the pent-up resentment among white people and men at ever having had to tolerate any advances of women and people of color. All while unleashing the violence of the state and of the mob against these very groups. This is the context in which fascists—including major outlets with close links to the president, like Breitbart—have latched onto and taken up the cause of Damore and his memo.

3. Damore Bashes Communism, You Should Look into It Anew.

Throughout his memo, Damore plays on the classic anti-communist trope of tyrannical leftists whose utopian vision of equality denies human nature and so can only be imposed by bludgeoning innocents. He makes the connection explicit in a footnote: “Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their ‘capitalist oppressors,’ the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the ‘white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.’”

First, communism has “promised” to be “morally and economically superior to capitalism” for very good reason! The world dominated by capitalism-imperialism is a world in which MILLIONS of children around the world die each year from preventable disease! Capitalism-imperialism has produced Donald Trump and the Christian fascist Mike Pence with their threats of nuclear annihilation and toxic cocktail of bigotry of every kind. In contrast, communism, where it has been genuinely applied—in the Soviet Union from 1917 to the mid-1950s and then in China under Mao from 1949 until 1976 when capitalism was restored—made unprecedented strides in overcoming hunger and exploitation, in liberating women and oppressed nationalities, in freeing the spirit from its cell. Today, the “core oppressor-oppressed dynamics” remain NOT because Marxists intellectuals got frustrated but because capitalism remains in power and is ravaging the people worldwide.

All this underscores the need for an actual revolution, for genuine communism. And it is a very good thing that today there is a new communism—a further synthesis and development of the science, the strategy, and the leadership for an actual revolution and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation. The architect of this new communism is Bob Avakian (BA), the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party. His new communism builds on the strengths of—and ruptures with unscientific aspects of—communism as it previously existed, and draws from broader human experience. Everyone who doesn’t want to live in a world that, decades after people fought and died for the liberation of women, Black people, Latinos, LGBTQ, and others is still marked by deep oppression, and now by a fascist regime violently slamming people even further back, needs to look into this new communism with an open mind. Two great places to start are BA’s latest book, THE NEW COMMUNISM, and SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION: On the Importance of Science and the Application of Science to Society, the New Synthesis of Communism and the Leadership of Bob Avakian, an Interview with Ardea Skybreak.

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As you get into that, take very seriously the revengist fascist movement being given voice in Damore’s memo and in the fascists who see in him a champion and see in Trump/Pence the future they want. They are on the march and there is no one but us, the people, who can stop them. RefuseFascism.org has outlined a plan to bring forward the millions who do not want to live in the Trump/Pence fascist future to take to the streets and drive them from power. It begins November 4^th. Start organizing now

1. Hominids refers to the line of species which diverged from our ape ancestors roughly five million years ago and which includes all the species that are more closely related to humans than to chimpanzees. [back]

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