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Win Or Lose, Discrimination Suit Is Having an Effect On Silicon Valley
SpzToid sends word that the Ellen Pao vs. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers discrimination case wrapped up yesterday. No matter what the outcome turns out to be, it has already affected how business is being done in Silicon Valley. "'Even before there's a verdict in this case, and regardless of what the verdict is, people in Silicon Valley are now talking,' said Kelly Dermody, managing partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, who chairs the San Francisco law firm's employment practice group. 'People are second-guessing and questioning whether there are exclusionary practices [and] everyday subtle acts of exclusion that collectively limit women's ability to succeed or even to compete for the best opportunities. And that's an incredibly positive impact.' Women in tech have long complained about an uneven playing field — lower pay for equal work, being passed over for promotions and a hostile 'brogrammer' culture — and have waited for a catalyst to finally overhaul the status quo. This trial — pitting a disgruntled, multimillionaire former junior partner against a powerful Menlo Park, Calif., venture capital firm — was far from the open-and-shut case that many women had hoped for. More gender discrimination suits against big tech firms are expected to follow; some already have, including lawsuits against Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc."
Jeez.
If you're a dickhead (pun not-intended), you'll be treated like a shithead.
Sexual poetry book? Talk to the dude who gave it to you, tell him it's inappropriate. or go to HR (which is usually women-biased) and tell them you felt offended, they will talk tot he dude.
Colleagues discussing pornography on a plane? Tell them to keep it quiet (add "please!" because it's polite) and they will stop. if they don't, do as above.
Men tend to slip back to pseudo-savagery if women aren't around in a workplace for a while, and when a woman comes in, they tend do remain savage unless their eyes are opened. Don't pry their eyes open with a crowbar and acid, do it nicely and all's gonna be okay.
As for the other "reasons", they're dumb and weak.
A male partner touched your leg under a table? C'mon, really now. gender bias right there: imagine a male complaining about the same thing performed by a female: I bet everyone would laugh at him. but noo, when a woman experiences it, it's baaad, it's almost rape! Unacceptable!
It looks like currently the appropriate action is "shut up and sue" rather than "talk to the offender, then HRm then escalate, then sue if issue isn't resolved and he continues".
Here's something that happened at my workplace (which fields men and women almost in equal percentages). There was this new dude who had a rather unpolished character, swearing a lot, etc. One female colleague felt offended and went to HR. Another talked to him directly, in private and explained that he's crossing some lines. Dude got it, stopped, then a week later he's called to HR (follow-up from the first woman's complaint) and slammed with 10% pay cut for 3 months.
After that, everyone (men and women alike) isolated themselves from that woman (socially) because they felt uneasy around her. One could never be sure that they might slip and say something that "offended" her somehow and end up being punished for some little thing they might not have realized.
Being an arsehole swings both ways and can backfire.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I've been a reader of /. for many years now. While this site has never been known for having the highest quality content, I'm seeing more and more and more social justice submissions making it onto the front page here.
So there's this submission. Just a few hours ago there was one about "booth babes" being banned at some conference. A few hours before that there was one about some British TV host who was dismissed from his show over some incident.
While this stuff may be indirectly related to technology, it's all so irrelevant here. If I cared to read about whatever minor social injustice is trending these days, I'd go read Twitter comments or even the mainstream media.
Yeah, I know I could just ignore this submission, and the many others, but there are just so many of them these days! They also end up taking up front page space that could be used by more interesting and relevant submissions.
I say this as a woman, as well. Just because I was born with a vagina it doesn't mean that I want to read about all of this social nonsense junk. And just because I wasn't born with a penis it doesn't mean that I'm not interested in reading about scientific discoveries or technological breakthroughs or new mathematical proofs! /. editors, please tone down the social justice poop. Give us good articles about relevant topics! Social justice is not a relevant topic here!
This reminds me of my dad's 5 rules for life (slightly asciified, and probably from someone before him):
^ That way is up
v That was is down
All men are assholes
All women are crazy
Beer is good.
Humans are slow, innaccurate, and brilliant; computers are fast, acurrate, and dumb; together they are unbeatable
My wife and I have this discussion all the time (she's pretty rational).
The thing is that in a lot of industries, and in tech in particular, salaries are negotiated. Sharks and more aggressive personalities always come up ahead with that.
We saw it pretty straight when at one point, she applied for a job in the same department as me, for the same company (we wouldn't work together, but we shared the same department director).
I have more experience than she does, but she has better credentials...roughly a wash. She interviewed a bit better than me. We got a similar initial offer (she got a HIGHER initial offer, and rightly so).
Here's the catch: I refused mine initially. They came back with counter offers, we negotiated for a few days, and I came up way ahead (20%~ higher or so). Even KNOWING this, when my wife got her offer, she just took it as is, no negotiation whatsoever.
Net result: she made about 10-15% less money than me even though she was more qualified.
At the end of the day, hiring managers have budgets and they will try to pay as low as possible without hurting employee moral/retention, and they do expect some level of negotiation. If you take the first offer, you'll be paid less. And less "pushy" individuals are more likely to not negotiate.
That's not the only reason for gender salary gaps, for sure. But its a FUCKING BIG ONE.
In the mid 2000's, I worked as a first level manager in a well-known tech firm everyone here would recognize by name. (Hint: it's one of the parties to the anti-poaching lawsuit who hasn't settled yet) I had a handful of subordinates, up to six at a time, perhaps a dozen total over three years, including two minority females. Mind you, all of my team were competent, technically proficient, and generally not problem employees. But each year at Ranking and Rating, there was a pointed questioning, only about the minority female technical employees, that was HR-driven. "What is your justification for not ranking this employee higher?" "What are you doing to make sure that this employee is promotion-ready next year?" On the basis of those directed questioning, one of the minority women was given a specific high-profile task by my manager, which she completed competently. On the basis of that task that was steered to her based on her gender and skin color, she was promoted. To the best of my knowledge, she has no idea that she was treated favorably; I know I never told her.
The other was when a minority female candidate was identified late in the process for a very weirdly specific job opening I had. I had identified three decent candidates, all of whom happened to be white males, interviewed them all, and made an offer to the top candidate before HR found this new resume for me. My department was given an extra FTE from magical goodness-knows-where to interview and extend an offer to this lady. You NEVER get free headcount--but I did. So, we interviewed her, but found she had already accepted another offer from another (non-competitor) firm. I was then authorized to beat their offer to get her on our team, and did. So, we ended up with an extra person to do the job, and life was very good for a while, since she turned out to be an even better fit for the job than the white guy we were already in the process of hiring.
Again, over the course of the several years I knew them, both of these women were middle- to top performers among a bunch of other technical specialists, but NEVER have I seen any white male bent-over-for like these two were.
IMHO everyone should have that amount of time off.
Why? You may value time off. That doesn't mean everyone does. When I was younger, I routinely worked 60-80 hour weeks, and loved it. My work was much more interesting than anything I could sit at home and watch on TV. I got a lot of bonuses for getting stuff done, and at that age the extra money was far more important than time off. Now that I am older, with a family, and stable finances, I prefer the opposite tradeoff. But I am not going to force my choices onto anyone else.
The problem is, the workaholics and institution types effectively have forced their ways on everyone else. Worker productivity has steadily risen since at least the 1950s, meanwhile wages (indexed against inflation) have remained relatively stagnant. That would be equitable if the number of hours worked per week had been reduced, but it hasn't (that, by the way, is what steadily improving technology could have brought us, but it's never enough, the owners want more, more more).
That means someone's getting screwed, and unless most of your revenue comes from investments or other unearned income, that includes you. If you don't work the overtime and place your corporation above your family, you're "not a team player". Because these are conflicting goals, they cannot all be simultaneously satisifed. One must be chosen at the expense of all others, meaning some group who want it one way are going to force this upon everyone else. Currently, in so many work environments, this favors those who want more work and less free time.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein