Christina Hoff Sommers: Reflections on the Google controversy and James Damore's infamous memo

When the Google story first broke, I started to write an incendiary piece about how Silicon Valley is becoming a safe-space, trigger-warning culture. The terms “thought police” and “gender warrior” may have figured in the first sentence. But then I lost heart. Not because I think Google did the right thing — I’ve just grown weary of culture war rhetoric. So I’m trying a new approach.

First, a few facts: At Google, men hold 80 percent of tech jobs and 75 percent of leadership positions. But the disparity isn’t unique to Google. At U.S. colleges last year, men earned 82 percent of computer science degrees and 80 percent of engineering degrees. Why are there so few women?