‘Biological’ differences? The idea just does not compute
Scandal in Silicon Valley. This week a male software engineer at Google circulated a lengthy internal memo explaining why women were less likely than men to have senior roles. Rather than sexism, he said, it was due to simple “biological” differences. Women’s innate “neuroticism” meant they had lower “stress tolerance” than men, as well as less “drive”. Google sacked him.
Yet the engineer, James Damore, stood by his claims, and said he’d since received “a ton of messages of support”. Other men working in tech, it seemed, felt the same way he did.
Was that really true? I spoke to male employees of leading American tech firms to find out.
“Of course James is right,” said app developer Tod Wiener, 24. “Everyone knows women struggle to contain their emotions in high-stress situations. That’s why, when they’re giving birth, they always do all this screaming and hollering and crying. If a man had to give birth, he’d get it done in 10 minutes max, no fuss, no sweat. Probably catch a bit of the ball game at the same time. We just don’t have the neuroticism women have.” CEO Bub Choad, 38, agreed. “I’m sorry if this isn’t politically correct, but the fact is, men and women are biologically designed to do different kinds of work,” he said. “Men are designed to do the kind of enjoyable, well-paid, high-status jobs that I like doing, whereas women are designed to do the kind of crummy little low-paid jobs I don’t want.
“Hey, I wish it were different, but that’s just science.
“Take household chores. Biologically, women are much better than men at doing laundry. Whereas men are much better than women at sitting around with a beer watching TV. Genuinely, women just can’t do it. It’s been proven in tests. They sit the wrong way up, they spill the beer all over their handbags, they try to eat the remote. It’s genetic. And that’s why we have to leave the chores to the women, and the sitting around with a beer watching TV to the men.”
Other male tech workers said women’s demands for gender balance were hypocritical.
“What about all the industries where women dominate men?” said programmer Tad Schwanz, 26. “Look at the cleaning industry. Almost every cleaner I’ve ever seen is a woman. I’m sorry, but until the female cleaning elite are prepared to make way for young men who are desperate to get a toehold on the cleaning career ladder, I don’t see how women can demand equality in tech.”
I sympathise with the producers of England is Mine, the new biopic of Morrissey. Most critics have been unconvinced by the portrayal of the former Smiths singer.
To be fair, though, he’s not an easy character to nail down. As a fan, I was both excited and wary, a few years ago, when The Telegraph asked me to interview him. Afterwards I felt I knew him less well than I had when I went in. His mood seemed so changeable, without obvious reason. One moment he’d be warm, amusing, smiling – even laughing. The next moment, quite inexplicably, he’d stiffen, coldly, as if I’d somehow offended him. But a moment later, he was back to being warm and witty again.
I wondered whether it was a deliberate psychological ploy, to keep me on my toes and show me who was boss. I didn’t risk putting it to him, though, in case it offended him further, and he walked out.
So, if it was a deliberate psychological ploy, I suppose it worked.
Still, I did love the following line. In his autobiography, published in 2013, Morrissey revealed that he’d had two long-term romantic relationships.
My interview, however, took place two years before that, back in the days when he was still insisting that all his benighted life he’d been incurably single.
This claim had always puzzled me. After all, so many of his lyrics were about the misery of human relationships, and the impossibility of true love. If he’d never been in a relationship, I asked, how could he know what it was like?
He fixed me with that look of his, the one I doubt any actor playing him will be able to capture: coy, superior, feline, glinting with a kind of wicked playfulness. “You don’t need to have been down a pit,” he said, “to know that it’s dirty.”
Every day, rock critics receive dozens of press releases – all of them gurgling with mindless hyperbole. Everything is “majestic”, “imperious”, “soaring”, “resplendent”. This kind of excess is not only clichéd but counterproductive. The musicians in question – especially if they’re new – have little hope of living up to it.
So an ex-colleague was taken aback this week by an email from a publicist, urging him to try the debut album by a young singer-songwriter. The album, promised the publicist, was “wonderfully competent”.
Competent. I like that. On behalf of all journalists, I hope this heralds a new era in the world of PR. No more outlandish hype. From now on, humbleness and modesty. “Wonderfully competent.” “Breathtakingly adequate.” “Outstandingly passable.”
“The guitarist has just learnt how to do a barre chord and the bass player has been practising his scales all week.”
I promise a 1,000-word album review to the first publicist who advertises his or her latest band as “at least 30 per cent less dreary than they look in their photo”.
The award for unintentionally ambiguous headline of the week goes to a report in The Guardian.
“Teenage Pregnancy in the US is at an All-time Low,” it announced. “Trump Could Soon Change That.”
What a disturbing thought. Still, anything that distracts him from starting a nuclear war. follow Michael Deacon on Twitter @Michaelpdeacon; read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion