Words matter.
I cannot believe that Google will not fire him for this manifesto. Or at the very least get him into an employee assistance program. This guy needs help. Especially because we are now in the midst of the greatest discussion about gender in the history of Silicon Valley, and the women have decided it’s okay to speak out.
I haven’t seen anything on social media from another woman speaking out, so I will. I’m untouchable because I own my own company, and because I have forty years of business experience.
Women have made some great strides in the past forty years, since I wasn’t allowed to get a credit card or open a bank account in my own name. In the 70s, the first women’s movement had to start a Women’s Bank to make that happen, but all the big banks suddenly jumped on.
Fast forward to the era of big data.
Now we know for a fact that women make most of the buying decisions, live longer than men, and therefore end up by inheritance or their own work with most of the money. They therefore also make most philanthropic decisions. When I was coming up, we suspected this, but we didn’t have the data. You male engineers who are all about data and metrics, there it is for you.
Thus, you cannot circumnavigate around us, because we can break you. Even though we are still discriminated against and not paid equally, we still control 51% of the wealth. 70% of us are in the work force. We have more college degrees, and more advanced degrees than men, and that’s increasing every year.
I would urge my fellow women (what an incredibly mixed metaphor) to continue speaking up and speaking out until we get where we want to be. I love men, and I know that inside most of them feel insecure and that’s why they write screeds like this, but I would urge them to get some counseling, as they’ve forced us to do over the years.