Dr. Debra Soh on gender: what the evidence says · JRE #1147
SUBJECT: GENDER
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
cited the studies that showed why people choose different professions, why people gravitate towards different activities and different professions based on gender. And these are actual studies. So in citing those studies, he cited something that's contrary to this promoted narrative.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
James Damore's July 2017 internal Google memo, which led to his firing, cited published psychology research on population-level average differences between men and women in personality traits, interests, and occupational preferences; research of that kind does exist in the literature. However, Scientific American published two pieces disputing how the memo used that research: a September 2018 article by Maryam Zaringhalam and Jess Wade says the memo relied on 'misappropriating scientific studies' and 'continued a tradition of cherry picking' from science used historically to justify excluding women from technical roles, and a separate piece by John Horgan argues the memo's evolutionary-psychology reasoning about sex differences amounts to advancing gender stereotypes rather than settled science. Neither piece disputes that the underlying studies exist; both argue Damore's application of that research to explain workplace gender gaps was scientifically unsound and selective. No consensus retraction of the specific cited studies occurred, so the dispute centers on interpretation and application rather than whether the research existed. This makes the claim that the memo 'cited actual studies' accurate but incomplete, since prominent science commentary judged Damore's framing and conclusions to be cherry-picked and overstated.