I abandoned my "mhjas" account, but I'll write a final comment.
My main critic of the article is that it doesn't address the arguments the book is making, but instead dismisses them.
If one person says "chocolate ice cream is the best because it has so much flavor" a merited response isn't "chocolate sucks, vanilla is pure flavor". That is just an opinion. A response containing argument would be "the chocolate flavor overpowers the taste of the cream, vanilla is better since it has a more subtle flavor making it more balanced". Now we as readers can decide among those argument, or make our own.
That is what we should get from the article. He should address the specific points made in the book. If sexism is the main point of the book, he should address that. He can't just dismiss those things by saying "toxic work environment" and "sexism" in quotes.
The entire part of the article addressing the book can be summarized as with this sentence:
"The point is simply that the complaints data does not suggest that Silicon Valley is “rife” with sexual discrimination and harassment or worse than California more generally. On the contrary, Silicon Valley seems better than average."
Not only isn't that very interesting, but as others have pointed out actually misguided. He doesn't perform any sort actual analysis of even the numbers presented, nor does he compare them against other sources. He doesn't explore the demographics, the consequences or the meaning of the data. These number could be explained in many other ways including but not limited to that more men in the workforce leads to less complaints, more white-collar jobs leads to less complaints, more unbalanced gender leads to less complaints, tech companies handle more complaints internally or that there isn't actually less complaints when properly analysed.
My main critic of the article is that it doesn't address the arguments the book is making, but instead dismisses them.
If one person says "chocolate ice cream is the best because it has so much flavor" a merited response isn't "chocolate sucks, vanilla is pure flavor". That is just an opinion. A response containing argument would be "the chocolate flavor overpowers the taste of the cream, vanilla is better since it has a more subtle flavor making it more balanced". Now we as readers can decide among those argument, or make our own.
That is what we should get from the article. He should address the specific points made in the book. If sexism is the main point of the book, he should address that. He can't just dismiss those things by saying "toxic work environment" and "sexism" in quotes.
The entire part of the article addressing the book can be summarized as with this sentence:
"The point is simply that the complaints data does not suggest that Silicon Valley is “rife” with sexual discrimination and harassment or worse than California more generally. On the contrary, Silicon Valley seems better than average."
Not only isn't that very interesting, but as others have pointed out actually misguided. He doesn't perform any sort actual analysis of even the numbers presented, nor does he compare them against other sources. He doesn't explore the demographics, the consequences or the meaning of the data. These number could be explained in many other ways including but not limited to that more men in the workforce leads to less complaints, more white-collar jobs leads to less complaints, more unbalanced gender leads to less complaints, tech companies handle more complaints internally or that there isn't actually less complaints when properly analysed.
There just isn't a strong basis for his claims.
Here is a study finding that sexual harassment is a problem in workplaces and professions similar to those in SV. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24994/sexual-harassment-of-women...