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Ellen Pao Loses Silicon Valley Gender Bias Case Against Kleiner Perkins
vivaoporto writes As reported by the New York Times, USA Today and other publications, a jury of six men and six women rejected current Reddit Inc CEO Ellen Pao's claims against her former employer, the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Ms. Pao's suit, that alleged employment discrimination based on gender, workplace retaliation and failure to take reasonable steps to prevent gender discrimination, asked $16 million in compensatory damages plus punitive damages. The jury decided, after more than two days of deliberation and more than four weeks of testimony, that her formed employer neither discriminated against the former junior partner for her gender, nor fired the complainant because of a high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit against the firm in 2012. She alleged that Kleiner Perkins had promoted male partners over equally qualified women at the firm, including herself, and then retaliated against her for raising concerns about the firm's gender dynamics by failing to promote her and finally firing her after seven years at the firm after she filed her 2012 lawsuit.
Jury: Kleiner Perkins not liable for Pao’s gender discrimination claims [Updated]
Trial highlighted Silicon Valley's male-dominated tech and investment culture. via http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
Absolutely loving the reasoning here. There are two possible outcomes.
1. Kleiner Perkins freed of all charges. This highlights just how male-dominated and sexist the tech industry is.
2. Kleiner Perkins guilty of all charges. This highlights just how male-dominated and sexist the tech industry is.
Perhaps this could be used as some sort of Turing test for feminazis?
"Ellen Pao gender-bias lawsuit is a setback for women"
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1025377...
Written by a female ex-CEO.
In a nutshell, the case is obviously frivolous, and if it had succeeded it would have been another barrier for women in the industry because companies would see a female applicant and go, "Is she worth the risk?"
Because surprisingly enough, most of the people on this site work, and of those workers, many work in technology. Furthermore, many work in America with jobs held by companies that are required to abide by laws. Once an important / relevant law causes a cascade of business changes (think the whole API copyright fight between Oracle and Google), people reading this site will care. A LOT.
I know you're a troll an all that, but sadly, many don't see how immediate any change like this can have to their own lives. I personally think discrimination bias should absolutely be investigated and addressed on a case by case basis, though considering they found no obvious discrimination then mission accomplished! Just like John Oliver's Infrastructure segment: "Congratulations guys, nothing happened!".
Bye!
Ellen Pao comes from a culture of lying for victimhood and money. She and her kind actually make it more difficult for women to get hired, due to fear of false claims actually succeeding.
Good job.
Half the juriors were WOMEN. And ALL of the Asian juriors voted against her.
When you assume every women who loses a case is because of "male domination", then nobody takes you seriously when you have an actual case of discrimination.
Ars Technica just lost my respect and readership. If they can be this biased toward their agenda even when the facts are obviously to the contrary, they can't be trusted to report on anything.
Man has an affair on the job, expects to get fired, woman has an affair on the job, expects $16M. Nothing coming out of this case makes it look like she had even the tiniest shred of evidence she didn't deserve what she got besides her gender.
It's kinda like "global warming," where any change in the weather (or any lack of change in the weather) is cited as proof. A Venn diagram of SJWs vs. warmistas would, I suspect, have a very high degree of overlap.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
They're starting to enclave up in videogames, much like what happened with the atheism movement. It took a few extra years but the "atheism+" crap is now collapsing under it's own corruption and regular atheism is going along just fine still. And of course there's now a similar thing to gamergate starting in comic books and heavy metal. Everything they touch they turn into a political issue, and when they don't get their way they claim sexism, bigotry, racism, or whatever else to try and make people back down. Funny enough, many of them actually sexist, bigots or racists and that can be easily seen in their social commentary on twitter or facebook.
Om, nomnomnom...
For reporting the jury's verdict? The phrasing is very much "legal-ese": The jury held that KP is not liable for her claims. Don't see why that bothers you so much.
The subtitle is a statement of why the case was even remotely interesting: it is an indisputable fact that the tech industry and investment banking are "dominated by" men. Men make up the overwhelming majority of people in both of those industries, and the skew is even more pronounced at the executive levels. And at question during this trial was the behavior of those men towards women: which means... the trial DID highlight the male-dominated tech and investment banking cultures in Silicon Valley. That was the FOCUS of the case.
By describing the tech and investment banking industries as "male dominated," they are, in fact, being as absolutely factual as if they were writing a story about the "female dominated" nursing field. There was nothing in the article about "male domination" being the reason for Ms. Pao's loss; nor was there any presumption that "male domination" somehow influenced the jury. I think you need a refresher course in reading comprehension, friend. Your sense of outrage is clearly cutting off your oxygen.
No matter win or lose, the lawsuit itself has done much damage to the Silicon Valley
In the eyes of the investors the Silicon Valley no longer represents a place where technology means everything, where one can get the best talents to work on and create marvelous new and fancy and profitable ways to boldly forge new pathways towards the next technological frontier
No
The Silicon Valley, thanks to the feminazis like Ms. Pao, has turned into a place where one can get sued just because one bases one's hiring on the best qualified candidates - and not on the basis of creed, gender and/or racial background
The world today that we live in the Silicon Valley is no longer the only place where the investors can find talents - nowadays there are so many options for the investors - They can also go to Europe or India or Korea or Japan or China or Singapore or even Africa / South America
If America does not stop these kind of frivolous lawsuits from happening, it gonna make the Silicon Valley a very unwelcome place for those with money to invest - and investors in general do not like to invest in places where 'political minefield' are abound
No one is forgetting that. But why is the employer responsible for it either?
You want to take ten years off and then come back and earn the same as the man OR woman that didnt' leave? How is that fair?
The best way to track the effect of children on the earning power of a woman is is to compare the earning power of women that don't have children versus the ones that do.
The women that do not have children earn almost the exact same amount as men.
That was how the gender cap statistic was first debunked. They just removed all the women that have children and the gap vanished.
Now you say we need kids? No disagreement. But that is a different issue from gender discrimination or a wage gap.
All you're asking for now is maternity welfare. Which already exists. Nearly all the public subsidy money for healthcare etc goes to women. Roughly 90 percent goes to women.
So... you're being paid. And the next time you want to talk about how hard it is being a woman, lets look at the gender imbalance in homeless people. Nearly all homeless people are men.
This issue is bullshit. It needs to be cut in to little pieces, dosed with holy water, and then buried on opposing sides of a church on holy ground. Otherwise known as another fun way to deal with vampires.
The issue is bullshit. Nuke it from orbit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There's no stigma against working women with children. The stigma is against an employee not showing up for work for ANY reason. Ultimately the employer doesn't pay you to take care of your children. They pay you to do your job. You do that well and you're more valuable to the company and will be paid more. You do it worse and you're less valuable to the company and will be paid less.
That isn't discrimination.
There is a big problem with people conflating "equality of outcome" with "equality of opportunity".
Equal opportunity does not mean you're going to make the same as anyone else. It means you "COULD" have made the same.
If you make choices that reduce your earning power that isn't anyone else's fault. It isn't a civil rights issue. It isn't discrimination.
Its like blaming your employer for not hiring you to be a doctor even though you don't have a medical degree. You COULD have gotten one but you chose not to go to school for 8 years to get it. And as a result... you're not a doctor and they're not employing you as one.
This whole "equally skilled women are being paid less than equally skilled men" doesn't take into consideration years worked on the job. Which means it can't possibly evaluate if the people being hired or paid are actually equally skilled. All they're doing is looking at what people studied in college. If you studied the same thing in college and passed... those statistics consider you "equally skilled" which completely ignores so many fucking things it is beyond retarded.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Did you ever notice that only assholes and douchebags ARE SJWs?
FTFY
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
...and then retaliated against her for raising concerns about the firm's gender dynamics by failing to promote her and finally firing her after seven years at the firm after she filed her 2012 lawsuit.
Why would someone expect their employer to keep them around after they file a lawsuit against them?
"She always dressed in a way that made people respect her."
That's horrifying.
I'm a middle-aged male. I have waist length hair, a huge beard and never iron anything. I definitely don't dress so people respect me, but people respect me because I am an expert. Why should women have to dress so people respect them to be valid people?
The unkempt person in the high level meeting is either the client or a technical expert.
The client is unkempt because, hey, screw you, you want their business, you put up with them.
The technical expert is unkempt because They Can Get Away With It Because They Are The Expert. It's actually part of their robes of office.
In other professions, there are other uniforms. Finance people always have very expensive clothing because they want to exude an aura of money. Do you trust a finance person in a Grateful Dead T-Shirt? Maybe, if you are scoring weed from them at a concert, but in a business meeting, you expect Warren Buffet will be in his suit and tie.
Everyone else "dresses for success".
Based on the technical women I've worked with, I have to agree with one thing you said:
Women comprise over 50% of population and any ... that can tap that ... suddenly has a tremendous advantantage
Kidding, of course. Seriously, what you said is true not only of countries, but of COMPANIES. Companies who hire and promote people who do well have a tremendous, almost insurmountable advantage. A company who wasted half of their good people and good candidates would quickly be beat by the competition. Therefore, tremendous successful companies like Google MUST be promoting people who are both technically and with "people skills", employees who work well with others. If Google systematically ignored half the available talent, Apple or Microsoft would wipe the floor with them. They'd never had gotten this big because Yahoo would have had twice as many really good people. Therefore natural forces are such that companies that identify and nurture effective people (effective technically and as a team member) will grow and will win.
No, my view is of someone that understands the employer employee relationship.
As to society needing children, yes... but it is not the corporation's responsibility to do that. That is up to the family and the community. Not the company.
What is more, the community does help women. Again, about 90 percent of government medical subsidies go to women. Why is that?
What percentage of homeless people are men versus women? Why is that?
Women are taken care of far better by our society than are men. We recognize that women must be protected. But no one owes you a job. And if you show up with this entitlement that you should be paid more than you are worth, then you are in for disappointment.
You will be paid what you are worth. What you get beyond that will be charity.
Furthermore, if the point is for women to have children, then why are we putting women into the labor force and encouraging them to have careers? This does not help women have children.
What is more, why do we not encourage women more strongly to be bound into some sort of sexual relationship with the opposite sex? It would help the birth rate.
You can't have it both ways. You can't say society should give you a career because society needs babies. That is not an argument for giving women jobs. That is an argument for denying them jobs, compelling them into the kitchen, and giving their male partners the jobs instead.
The argument for giving women careers is EQUALITY. Not babies. Equality. And equality means you get paid what you are worth.
You cite babies and I have to ask how giving you a career helps society get babies? Limiting the opportunities of women has a proven track record of improving birth rates. Actually, the more opportunities women have, the lower the birth rate becomes.
Think about it.
You can't use babies in this argument. If society really needed the babies then the last thing it should do is give women anything to do besides have babies.
Again.
Think.
Be.
Rational.
As to your various welfare recommendations, that is fine. The government can raise taxes and give more women welfare and subsidies. That is however not the company's responsibility. You can tax the company and use those taxes for various things. But as an employee you're going to get paid what you are worth.
Crying discrimination when you're not being discriminated against is dishonest and foolish.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Okay, so her first issue is that there are a lot of men in tech.
That isn't a valid complaint or evidence of discrimination. Do men in the fashion industry or any female dominated business have the right to whine about discrimination because they're surrounded by women? Obviously not.
next issue.
Her next point about computer science degrees and women 30 years ago is a half truth. Yes, women were getting those degrees but it was because at that time the job was seen as clerical and like typists, women tended to dominate such professions at that time. When the personal computer came around and programming stopped being about managing the giant business computer in the basement... it stopped being seen as a clerical position and so not part of the traditional female jobs. The lack of women in programming these days is not due to companies not wanting to hire women. It is due to women not thinking that they need to CS because they don't think it is part of that traditionally female career path.
There is no discrimination there.
Next issue.
She then busts out with an out of context quote from a 1980s silicon valley programer saying that he didn't have time for women... He was mostly talking about girlfriends and relationships... not female peers in his industry.
Next issue.
She then blames it on lack of role models. Which begs the question of who are the male role models? The thing about technology is that you get into it because you love it. You don't do it because of role models.
How is lack of female role models the fault of MEN? That's on you ladies. Women have to take some responsibility for themselves. Providing their own fucking role models is a pretty low standard to meet. I mean, if they really can't then we men can of course provide such role models for them. However, they will be abdicating that choice to us. Comes with the territory.
I don't see how this issue is the fault of men or even society.
She talks also about games marketed to men forgetting that the game companies have tried to market to women all along. THey've just not been very successful at it. It isn't that games for women aren't made. It is that women don't buy them. That is until Candy Crush came along and now women love all those facebook games. But that won't stop people from complaining that there are games made that men like. Why is that a problem? There are books and movies made for men. And there are books and movies made for women. there are also games made for men and games made for women. These various markets meet different levels of success.
So yet again, no discrimination.
And that got me past 10 minutes.
I want the last ten minutes of my life back. X-(
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I've been here a while too. Long enough to remember when /. was so reflexively liberal and dogmatic that only one voice on any topic was ever heard. That wasn't such a great place for those of us whose views are more nuanced, who don't just parrot the party line. Here are some harsh truths that never got a voice in those days:
Not every allegation of sexism/racism/rape/etc. is true.
White, heterosexual, American males are not responsible for all evil in the world.
Sometimes conservatives are wrong, but sometimes they're right too.
It's not okay to support censorship when it comes to Islam unless you're also okay with supporting censorship when it comes to Christianity. Judaism, Hinduism, etc. too.
Bill Gates isn't a Borg and sometimes does some good in the world. Conversely, Steve Jobs isn't a flawless god, and did some bad things in his life.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.