The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it
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Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these
differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why
we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences
are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything
about an individual given these population level distributions.
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@blek Yeah, that's the usual way of trying to pull a fast one. Make a bold statement and then try to weasel out of it.
Let's transplant this into conversation form to make clear where the problem is:
Man: "Women tend to be prone to anxiety!"
Woman: "..."
Man: "But not you, you're cool!"
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@rhywden said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@blek Nice. He begins with "I [...] don't endorse stereotypes" and then promptly lists a complete set of the usual stereotypes of women...
Goddamn. I've been trying to be civil but you and @blakeyrat are working diligently to deny the science behind what he's saying.
I know you're too fragile to read my posts, @Rhywden, but maybe someone else will repost my links and you can learn the error of your ways.
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@blakeyrat said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Nope. Please go read the articles. It's more complicated than what you're thinking. Here's a tiny taste of what's there:
Your tiny taste has numbers, but does not refute anything I said.
Also the "least sexist countries I can think of" is hardly scientific thinking.
You're the one who said his science was 100% wrong, which actually made you 100% wrong (or pretty close, anyways). But sure, trust your intuition and confirmation bias over studies that have looked into this sort of thing.
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@rhywden Ok, so you twisted the context to paint the author as a rude asshole while projecting your need to "pull a fast one" on to him. Great job. Meanwhile in reality, he's not talking to anyone specific, it's not a conversation - he's addressing the company (or the particular forum or mailing list or wherever it was actually posted), a group of people, so your analogy doesn't work.
What he says, and provides sources for, and what is undeniably true, is that the average woman has different desires and behavioral patterns than the average man. That's not something controversial or radical, that's simply true, you can see it every day if you get out and meet people. He's also not saying that every woman is worse than every (or average) man, or anything like that - he explicitly acknowledges that this isn't the case.
What is actually stereotyping, as he also points out, is actually this whole practice"diversity" hiring, because it reduces people to one aspect of their personality (their standing in the progressive stack) and ignores everything else, like their merit or whether they're normal people or insufferable narcissists. And he's opposed to that practice, because it's terrible, and I agree.
I see only two reasons why anyone could take offense to this incredibly calm, reasoned and inoffensive letter: either batshit insanity, or a sociopathic desire to improve one's social standing by destroying another's career, hidden behind "fighting for social justice".
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@blek said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
I see only two reasons why anyone could take offense to this incredibly calm, reasoned and inoffensive letter: either batshit insanity, or a sociopathic desire to improve one's social standing by destroying another's career, hidden behind "fighting for social justice".
Sorry, dude, but you don't get to lambast me for "twisting something" and then writing this piece of shit.
Also:
ignores everything else, like their merit or whether they're normal people or insufferable narcissists.
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@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
You're the one who said his science was 100% wrong, which actually made you 100% wrong (or pretty close, anyways).
Exact quote:
"Now to be clear, the author of that memo is 100% clearly wrong on a few points. "
Wrong on a few points. Got a few points exactly wrong. The memo is ok apart of a few points which are 100% wrong.
Now go tell your shoulder aliens they need to get a reading comprehension class.
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Dammit. That guy Damore needs a username here, pronto.
Because @blakeyrat is the first person I've ever seen since the shitstorm started who tried to have a genuine discussion on the subject.
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@wft said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
You're the one who said his science was 100% wrong, which actually made you 100% wrong (or pretty close, anyways).
Exact quote:
"Now to be clear, the author of that memo is 100% clearly wrong on a few points. "
Wrong on a few points. Got a few points exactly wrong. The memo is ok apart of a few points which are 100% wrong.
Now go tell your shoulder aliens they need to get a reading comprehension class.
You're right, I remembered that incorrectly and didn't go back to the OP. Mea culpa. My main point still stands, however, and it's pretty clear who hasn't read the links I posted (or, presumably the references in the original essay).
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Remember, kids, this is General, not the Garage. Flamethrowers are available at the other thread:
https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/23538/google-is-morphing-in-to-github/159
Carry on.
We can't trust the mods to DO THEIR JOBS, after all.
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The guy is an idiot for bringing bad PR to his employee, and was fired for that, nothing to see here. Also, it doesn't matter if woman don't join CS for biological or cultural reasons, and there is no clear scientific answer to that.
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@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
The guy is an idiot for bringing bad PR to his employee, and was fired for that, nothing to see here.
Aside from Google possibly breaking the law by firing him? And all the bad PR that Google has caused by their reaction to him?
TRIGGER WARNING: autoplay video at the site
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@wharrgarbl AFAIK he posted it on an internal discussion board and it went "viral" inside Google; someone else leaked it to Vice afterwards.
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@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Also, it doesn't matter if woman don't join CS for biological or cultural reasons, and there is no clear scientific answer to that.
Why do you think it doesn't matter? Upon what do you base your opinion on the "clear scientific answer?" How unclear do you think it is?
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@rhywden said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@blek Nice. He begins with "I [...] don't endorse stereotypes" and then promptly lists a complete set of the usual stereotypes of women...
Stereotyping is not recognizing that the population distributions don't sit in exactly the same place and that they tend towards different things. Stereotyping is viewing individuals as if they're the median of their population group when they're actually not. To use the same graphs that he used...
This is how stereotypes present groups of people... he's not viewing them like this:
This is how groups of people really are... and this is how he's viewing them:
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@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
The guy is an idiot for bringing bad PR to his employee, and was fired for that, nothing to see here.
Then it would be more fair to fire the person who leaked the memo, no?
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Google: "You see how you fucked up our PR?! You see that??!!!! Now we have no choice but fuck it up even worse!!!! You insensitive clod!"
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@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Also, it doesn't matter if woman don't join CS for biological or cultural reasons, and there is no clear scientific answer to that.
Why do you think it doesn't matter? Upon what do you base your opinion on the "clear scientific answer?" How unclear do you think it is?
Because you have to judge people on their own merit, and treat them fairly, and it doesn't change if there are differences caused by cultural or biological reasons.
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@cartman82 said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
The guy is an idiot for bringing bad PR to his employee, and was fired for that, nothing to see here.
Then it would be more fair to fire the person who leaked the memo, no?
You're right.
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@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Also, it doesn't matter if woman don't join CS for biological or cultural reasons, and there is no clear scientific answer to that.
Why do you think it doesn't matter? Upon what do you base your opinion on the "clear scientific answer?" How unclear do you think it is?
Because you have to judge people on their own merit, and treat them fairly, and it doesn't change if there are differences caused by cultural or biological reasons.
You're right and you're wrong. It's possible that there are cultural components to people's decisions. I would say that it's impossible that there aren't, actually. And we might want to work to change the culture for some of them, but if we end up fighting against people's natures then we're wasting our time and resources.
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@rhywden said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
I'm not sure that this is the most important factor, though.
I don't think it is either. I said I thought it was part of the reason.
Biological differences aside, I think that fairly similar percentages of men and women could learn enough about tech to have a decently successful career in it, if they were suitably motivated to do so. Men, on the average, tend to be more naturally inclined toward it, though; they need less external motivation to push them into those sorts of jobs.
That's not necessarily a bad thing; it's just a thing that happens to be true. Trying to help motivate more girls and women to pursue those careers is fine, if you actually help them gain a sufficient mastery of the necessary skills to hold their own in them; affirmative action-type recruitment -- hiring people who are under-qualified just because they happen to be from a particular group that you want to include purely for the sake of diversity -- is not necessarily good or productive.
In general, if you hire an under-qualified person (for whatever reason -- race, gender, sexual orientation, boss's nephew, or whatever), but then fail to train them up to par with their peers in the job duties that they're supposed to be performing, then they're going to be the one who apparently can't do anything by themselves and that everyone else has to carry along and secretly resents. That is not how you get women into tech. That is how you get token women to make your demographics look good while reinforcing the bad stereotypes about them.
@yamikuronue said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Nurses routinely work 10-12 hour days, and there's tons of female nurses. They also have on-call hours, so it's not that dissimilar to IT.
Yes, but again, I think it's a motivation thing, and there, the roles are reversed; there aren't very many men in those positions. I think it's probably equally correct to say that the fact that engineering/technology jobs involve working long hours doesn't help motivate women to enter those careers, and the fact that medical jobs involve working long hours doesn't help motivate men to enter those.
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@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
if we end up fighting against people's natures then we're wasting our time and resources.
That depends on what you call "fighting against people's natures". We can't argue about something that subjective.
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@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
if we end up fighting against people's natures then we're wasting our time and resources
One could argue that gender stereotypes also force a significant number of people to act against their natures, and that removing them by creating artificial equality is therefore the right thing to do.
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@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
if we end up fighting against people's natures then we're wasting our time and resources.
That depends on what you call "fighting against people's natures". We can't argue about something that subjective.
We aren't. RTFAs. We're beyond subjective on this subject.
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@asdf said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
if we end up fighting against people's natures then we're wasting our time and resources
One could argue that gender stereotypes also force a significant number of people to act against their natures, and that removing them by creating artificial equality is therefore the right thing to do.
The "gender stereotypes" might be the sorts of cultural things I was talking about that we might want to change. But we also might not. In any case, they're things that we probably could change, as opposed to natural differences that we probably can't change.
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@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
But we also might not. In any case, they're things that we probably could change, as opposed to natural differences that we probably can't change.
You kinda missed my point, which was that this particular argument doesn't lead anywhere, since it works both ways. Whether you think gender stereotypes or artificial equality is more harmful is a highly subjective personal opinion; both potentially force people to act against their natures.
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@asdf said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
But we also might not. In any case, they're things that we probably could change, as opposed to natural differences that we probably can't change.
You kinda missed my point, which was that this particular argument doesn't lead anywhere, since it works both ways. Whether you think gender stereotypes or artificial equality is more harmful is a highly subjective personal opinion; both potentially force people to act against their natures.
Gender stereotypes may be based on accurate observations of population differences. Fighting against those leads to the sort of cognitive dissonance that we have with the Google response and its defenders, which is why I say that fighting against the stereotypes may or may not be a good idea, depending.
IOW, the stereotype that "women can't be engineers" is very different from "women prefer to be things other than engineers" and should be treated very differently.
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@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Gender stereotypes may be based on accurate observations of population differences.
Yes.
Fighting against those leads to the sort of cognitive dissonance that we have with the Google response and its defenders, which is why I say that fighting against the stereotypes may or may not be a good idea, depending.
No, stereotypes are always wrong, since they generalize. (Joke intended.)
Seriously though, conclusions about a whole group due to observed tendencies are definitely harmful.
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@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Fighting against those leads to the sort of cognitive dissonance that we have with the Google response and its defenders
There's a subtle difference between fighting against a stereotype and trying to avoid perpetuating it.
I plan on raising my daughter in a gender neutral way in as much as I'm not going to tell her "no, you can't play with the toy digger because that's a boy's toy", but I still realise that the people who don't tell their children if they are a boy or a girl are fucking nutjobs who are likely to be doing a lot of harm
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@jaloopa said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
There's a subtle difference between fighting against a stereotype and trying to avoid perpetuating it.
I plan on raising my daughter in a gender neutral way in as much as I'm not going to tell her "no, you can't play with the toy digger because that's a boy's toy", but I still realise that the people who don't tell their children if they are a boy or a girl are fucking nutjobs who are likely to be doing a lot of harmThe only time I ever hear about experiments like this is in the context of disappointment that little Sally somehow still ended up preferring dolls to toy diggers.
I'd be curious to hear of examples where this worked.
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@cartman82 said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
The only time I ever hear about experiments like this is in the context of disappointment that little Sally somehow still ended up preferring dolls to toy diggers.
Maybe because most people who do it aren't about being disappointed if it "doesn't work"? If my daughter ends up preferring dolls instead, that's completely fine too.
My brother in law preferred dolls to cars, which his dad tried to stop. It didn't work, and probably just caused unnecessary strife and angst for both of them
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@cartman82 said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@jaloopa said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
There's a subtle difference between fighting against a stereotype and trying to avoid perpetuating it.
I plan on raising my daughter in a gender neutral way in as much as I'm not going to tell her "no, you can't play with the toy digger because that's a boy's toy", but I still realise that the people who don't tell their children if they are a boy or a girl are fucking nutjobs who are likely to be doing a lot of harmThe only time I ever hear about experiments like this is in the context of disappointment that little Sally somehow still ended up preferring dolls to toy diggers.
I'd be curious to hear of examples where this worked.
My daughter has a medical kit she likes to play with and give us and the animals check ups.
I asked her last night if she wanted to be a doctor and she said:
I'll be whatever I want to be.
Yes.
She later insisted on X-rays and other procedures that I had to refuse additional medical treatment and leave AMA.
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@yamikuronue said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
We have eyes. We can see the boy's club, where there's only a few females. Not talking about it doesn't make us not notice it.
What "boys' club" ??? You do realize that there's nothing most of us would like more than to see more women in tech?
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@masonwheeler said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
What "boys' club" You do realize that there's nothing most of us would like more than to see more women in tech?
But most people who are in the field are male.
So regardless of whether there is some discrimination or everyone is super accepting, you will be one female among many men.
Which is actually pretty often the case, in many fields, across the spectrum. Doesn't mean that a person of gender X trying to enter field dominated by gender Y won't feel some resistance.
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@masonwheeler said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@yamikuronue said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
We have eyes. We can see the boy's club, where there's only a few females. Not talking about it doesn't make us not notice it.
What "boys' club" ??? You do realize that there's nothing most of us would like more than to see more women in tech?
I wonder if what some women interpret as a boys club is actually a bit of hazing...which they do to other men as well.
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@masonwheeler said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
What "boys' club" You do realize that there's nothing most of us would like more than to see more women in tech?
I don't feel that's true in Silicon Valley, home of the Ubers.
Certainly true in Seattle, where we're not all greedy assholes. Thing is: Seattle's already relatively balanced, gender-wise. Not perfect by a long shot of course.
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@cartman82 said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
But most people who are in the field are male.
But that's not what "boys' club" means. When people use that phrase, it evokes imagery like:
The idea is that the boys are actively keeping girls out. Whereas virtually all guys in tech would love to have more women as colleagues: the exact opposite.
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@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
I was actually going to see if I could find this image.
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@jaloopa said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@boomzilla said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Fighting against those leads to the sort of cognitive dissonance that we have with the Google response and its defenders
There's a subtle difference between fighting against a stereotype and trying to avoid perpetuating it.
I plan on raising my daughter in a gender neutral way in as much as I'm not going to tell her "no, you can't play with the toy digger because that's a boy's toy", but I still realise that the people who don't tell their children if they are a boy or a girl are fucking nutjobs who are likely to be doing a lot of harm
Yes, this is a good example of exactly what I'm talking about. Allowing girls to pick their toys is very different than forcing them to play with a certain kind.
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@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Because you have to judge people on their own merit
What are you some kind of sexist woman-hating misogynist? That's exactly what the guy said in his essay:
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@masonwheeler said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@cartman82 said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
But most people who are in the field are male.
But that's not what "boys' club" means. When people use that phrase, it evokes imagery like:
The idea is that the boys are actively keeping girls out. Whereas virtually all guys in tech would love to have more women as colleagues: the exact opposite.
FTFY.
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@anotherusername said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@masonwheeler said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@cartman82 said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
But most people who are in the field are male.
But that's not what "boys' club" means. When people use that phrase, it evokes imagery like:
The idea is that the boys are actively keeping girls out. Whereas virtually all guys in tech would love to have more women as colleagues: the exact opposite.
FTFY.
My daughter is taking soccer. The are a little more than half a dozen in the class of 3 - 5 yo. It's like herding cats for the coach.
Since they've had a few class, all the boys are hugging on my daughter (it was mutual). I thought boys at that age thought all girls have cooties and also didn't like hugging.
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@karla the cooties generally start when they're a bit older, I think.
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@anotherusername said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@karla the cooties generally start when they're a bit older, I think.
Pretty much. I had a "girlfriend" in preschool. It wasn't until I was in first grade or so that the whole cooties thing started. And even then, I didn't really feel the cooties until they were helpfully pointed out to me by my peers. Those boys saved my life!
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@the_quiet_one Yeah, when I was growing up, girls didn't get cooties until second grade.
They lost them again somewhere around 4th or 5th...
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@masonwheeler said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@the_quiet_one Yeah, when I was growing up, girls didn't get cooties until second grade.
They lost them again somewhere around 4th or 5th...
I see. I don't know that should would understand girlfriend/boyfriend yet. Though when she goes to preschool that may change.
I joked that she had a boyfriend when we went to the playground the last time. She and a similarly aged boy played mostly together in the sand. His dad, gave him a disposable cup to play with and my daughter ended up with it most of the time.
She was climbing up the slide, said she couldn't make it and reached her arm out and he helped her up. This happened a couple other times even with him helping without her asking.
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@hungrier said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@wharrgarbl said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
Because you have to judge people on their own merit
What are you some kind of sexist woman-hating misogynist? That's exactly what the guy said in his essay:
Ironically, the idea of treating people as equal individuals is one of the main points of Classical Liberalism.
All I can say is:
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@jaloopa said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@cartman82 said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
The only time I ever hear about experiments like this is in the context of disappointment that little Sally somehow still ended up preferring dolls to toy diggers.
Maybe because most people who do it aren't about being disappointed if it "doesn't work"? If my daughter ends up preferring dolls instead, that's completely fine too.
My brother in law preferred dolls to cars, which his dad tried to stop. It didn't work, and probably just caused unnecessary strife and angst for both of them
I didn't like toy dolls or toy diggers. I played with both with no preference other than that was what was being done in the social setting.
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@masonwheeler said in The Google Memo and the terrible reporting of it:
@the_quiet_one Yeah, when I was growing up, girls didn't get cooties until second grade.
They lost them again somewhere around 4th or 5th...
From my perspective, nobody ever had cooties, or at least any form that could be transmitted to me, so I never worried about it.
This, surprisingly, didn't improve my sociality in any way whatsoever....