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Former Engineer Says Uber Is a Nightmare of Sexism; CEO Orders Urgent Investigation (susanjfowler.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Verge: A former Uber engineer has published an explosive account of sexism and power struggles in the workplace, with allegations beginning from her very first official day with the company. The engineer, Susan Fowler (who left Uber in December and now works for Stripe), posted the account to her blog on Sunday, calling it a "strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story." It is indeed horrifying. Sexism is a well-documented problem in Silicon Valley, but the particulars of Fowler's account are astounding. She says problems began on day one, when her manager accosted her with details of his sex life: "In my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of messages over company chat. He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn't. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn't help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with. It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR. When I reported the situation, I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man's first offense, and that they wouldn't feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to. Upper management told me that he "was a high performer" (i.e. had stellar performance reviews from his superiors) and they wouldn't feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake on his part. The things only get worse for Fowler. Read the full account of her story here. In the meanwhile, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said the company would "conduct an urgent investigation" into the allegations, and promised to fire anyone who "behaves this way or thinks this is OK."
Journalist Paul Carr summing up the situation, says, "Uber's ability to be on the wrong side of every moral and ethical issue is bordering on magical."
Journalist Paul Carr summing up the situation, says, "Uber's ability to be on the wrong side of every moral and ethical issue is bordering on magical."
From her piece, Fowler indicates that the percentage of women working in her unit dropped from 25% to 3% within a year. That's a fairly simple thing to check and lends a fair amount of weight to her criticisms.
The real problem is those that think sexism is acceptable. And I mean that from both sexes - the things I've heard women say about men... Bah.
I've not read the linked article (standard operating procedure, right?) however IMHO asking someone if they want to have sex isn't sexism nor harassment. It is sexism if it is assumed they will have sex to get promoted etc. and harassment if they can't take a no. But just asking?
Maybe you don't see it since you are not the target of it.
It is pretty clear that the majority view at this point on Slashdot is that sexism is either imaginary, overrated, or just something women should put up with because essentially any measure to correct it is anti-men, or anti-equality, or affirmative action, or quota management, or whatever.
At the extreme of this majority view are loads and loads of MRAs.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the auto industry (which I don't think Uber can really say it is in, yet) is much better with respect to sexism, simply because that battle has been fought.
The general tech industry in the USA would seem to be an actually worsening environment for women with the brogrammer culture.
Here in the UK I have seen one objectively worse incidence of sexism -- a truly tragic event that cost a great firm a great employee (and may even have cost the industry a developer, I don't know) because she (rightly) considered the incident to immediately break her employment contract, including what was left of her probationary period. She walked, there and then, and the implied challenge to the fairly strict employment contract was never met; the firm immediately conceded.
Generally I think the UK is much better on this basis simply because the ideological argument that men-will-be-men has not cut it for decades as an explanation (outside justifying the behaviour of football players.)
Seriously. I couldn't possibly care any less about sexism accusations at Uber.
Uber sucks for so many other bigger reasons.
If hitting on a coworker were illegal sexism, a good part of the slashdot audience wouldn't be here, because their parents never would have hooked up.
It's not appropriate for someone to send messages like this to a subordinate, period, the end. It creates a hostile work environment because they have to worry about whether they'll be penalized for saying no.
The appropriate response to someone walking in with a fistful of evidence that someone is engaging in sexual harassment is to fire the harasser, immediately. This is especially true anywhere that has had sexual harassment training. And basically all tech companies are doing that now, and this sort of thing is evidence that it is necessary; both the event, and all the jerkoffs scrambling to defend what is clearly unacceptable behavior.
Uber has a rule against sex between drivers and riders, no matter what. I guarantee you that their employee code of conduct bans sexual harassment, and clear sexual advances like these without invitation are a clear case of sexual harassment.
Finally, it wasn't actually his first offense, that was just a lie told by HR. Because HR is not your friend. Get that part straight right now. They work for the company and their job is to smooth the rough, pacify the angry, and meet legal requirements. It is not to help you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There are a lot of words getting misappropriated and used wrongly - words like "racism." If one were to look up the definition of sexual harassment in the dictionary, one would find that there is a distinction between sexual ADVANCE and sexual HARASSMENT.
IE: Sexual Harassment: unwelcome sexual advances made by an employer or superior, especially when compliance is made a condition of continued employment or advancement.
1. Apparently the boss did not make sex a condition of continued employment.
2. Her first response should have been to say, "This discussion makes me uncomfortable, and I would prefer not to talk about your private life." That would have signaled sexual harassment - at which point, if he continued, he would be sexually harassing her.
The rest of her "explosive blog" goes on to talk about bog standard industry stuff. People trying to get their boss' job. Bosses "holding her back" so that she couldn't get promoted and would be stuck in their department - which is a pretty standard thing to do to exceptional workers. I'm not assuming that she's exceptional, but that it isn't irregular.
The only "nightmare of sexism" is in the title. The article fails to deliver the gritty, horrifying sexism that I was expecting. Much like my ongoing Star Wars marathon - which has inevitably led to Episodes 1-3 - have made me question my childhood and my love of Star Wars for failing to deliver on the IP.
I think the main problem here is that the superior propositioned the subordinate. This is problematic, as when she refuses, which she did, she was still dependent on him, and it was easy for him to punish her for her refusal. Of course, he still could put care on treating her the same, but obviously this is something very hard to prove, and therefore the best approach would be to ban this behavior.
Generally though, assuming or expecting that every employee lives in a happy relationship and doesn't want any new ones is just not realistic. Employees will seek relationships and generally this doesn't cause any harm to anybody, just when the power relations are so direct like with direct superior and subordinate its a problem.
He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn't. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn't help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with. It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR.
No fucking way. This has got to be some kind of alt-right/4chan/cuck joke parody, right? Woman convinces beta male to have "open relationship" so she can fuck alphas on the side, SHOCKING beta with no game can't score, harasses actually capable women and helps ruin otherwise successful company.
"Sluts and cucks ruin everything for everyone." This has to be a joke, right?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Note that sexism was a *small* part of the situation described. What amazes me was the continued desire to work for a company because of the 'great engineers'.
The reality is you can find a *good* company that also has great engineers. Other companies also face interesting challenges that are worthy of your time. I've seen people fall into this trap of toiling under crappy management because 'their team is so great'. The problem is that crappy management gets all the benefits of your awesome teams work (in fact, in crappy management, the management gets nearly *all* the glory and your 'awesome engineers' are the first under the bus when good times are over, after months on end of 60+ hour workweeks, where the management is only around for part of maybe 3 days a week. You need to find a company that has both a great team *and* good management.
If it had been an isolated incident with one manager, and switching teams fixed it, but she reports a pattern of management dysfunction that seems pervasive, at least to wherever she could go. Now it *might* be the case that her perspective by itself is skewed, but in her view of things, it was a terrible situation and she stayed *way* longer than anyone should have.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Reporting from Flyover (Chicagoland) this morning:
I ran this by some of my female tech colleagues. One of our conclusions, after some quick analysis: Extreme examples like this are more likely to occur in places like Silicon Valley, where the competitive culture and veiled acquisitiveness drive people crazy in interesting ways.
Let me ask you a simple question. Ignoring the sexism, which doesn't apply to you, read her description of the corporate culture and tell me: does this sound like a place you'd like to work?
It isn't just sexism, she describes a generally toxic work culture in which all kinds of problems can arise and persist. It's one where managers are focused on competing with each other, even to the point of undermining their supervisors; you might let a problem ride for a bit because you might need to use it against them later.
Now granted, this might not be a fair description of Uber's culture. Or her perceptions might be colored by what was a string of bad luck. But we all know places that shade this way exist. The problem of a organizations that are at the same time bureaucratic and cutthroat go way back. What she describes could be the politics of an old-time royal court.
Why? Why does this kind of culture crop up again and again in human history?
I think because ruthless internal competition offsets some of the natural lethargy of a bureaucracy. It can serve the interests of whoever is on top, at least in the short term. If you have no talent for inspiring people you can at least set them against each other. But you'd be a fool to join such an organization at the bottom, knowing what it is, if you had any alternatives.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm white. Behind the black guy's back, the shit I hear. I even had a supervisor try to get me to blame a bad defect on him - that I caused. I couldn't do it. I couldn't live with myself and in a World where a smart hard working guy gets blamed for shit he didn't do just because he was born with a certain skin color in the wrong society.
The fucker knew he was doing wrong too. And what could I really do? Bitch to HR? Remember folks, HR works FOR management. Remember that. They are NOT your friends and they are NOT there to protect you but to protect management.
So far, it has happened only once in my career. But never the less, bigoted shit like this happens and not everyone -including the victim - may be aware of it.
That doesn't seem unreasonable, but in this case the her immediate superior opened on day 1 with "I'm in an open relationship, please have sex with me". Later she finds out that HR is basically encouraging him by taking no action against a "high flyer", which explains why he (correctly) thinks he can get away with it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I think the headline and summary gives a wrong impression. Sure, sexual harassment is tolerated but the wider picture the writing paints is about dysfunctional organisation. Specifically:
1. Apparently the boss did not make sex a condition of continued employment. He's her boss. That's ALWAYS implied or always the risk.
Really? Then why was it OK when Bill Clinton had sex with an intern?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I see an allegation with no facts. Anyone working in IT understands how to make a screenshot, if not how to log a chat session. Yet no evidence is presented, and what would the easiest thing be for this person to do? Save evidence, because sexual harassment is ILLEGAL.
Your claim (repeated) that you have to be the victim to see sexual harassment on the scale she is claiming is moronic. It would be visible to at least everyone on that team. There would be more than one claim from more than one person if it was that rampant. In the event it was just her and she over-hyped the scale, she could have this thing called evidence. Yet there is no evidence, just allegations. I'll wait for the court case, and would be willing to bet a paycheck that no evidence is forthcoming.
Sorry, but there are no groups of dudes hanging around conspiring on how to fuck over, and fuck, women in the company. Quite the opposite, since the virtue signalling SJWs are rampant in SF and would have busted the boss to make a name for themselves.
You clearly didn't RTFA. She has extensive email and chat records to back up her claims. Yes, I am taking her word for it. But if you are accusing her of lying about it, it is you who need to provide evidence.
And yes, there actually are groups of dudes conspiring how to fuck women at the company. Not at every company of course. But I have seen such things at jobs I have had.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The older companies have been there and done that already. Previous incidents have honed policies about such behavior in the workplace to a fine edge.
As a result, your older companies make sure you understand they will not tolerate it. At all. Annual reviews and signed acknowledgements of said training with the threat of termination of employment for any violations pretty much keep folks civil.
It's just a matter of the new ones getting a taste of what happens when you don't have clear policies on the issue.
Watch for a zero tolerance policy to be born rather quickly ( as it should ) now that there is a spotlight on it. Will be a non-issue shortly as they will likely fire the guy in question if the allegations turn out to be true.
We're supposed to believe that because this is Uber, and because everything about Uber is evil, this is News For Nerds.
This is news for nerds. Uber is a tech company, and the people that work there are nerds. I don't like vague accusations that tech companies are "sexist" because, while they are, I don't believe they are any more sexist than non-tech companies. But in this case, the accusations are not vague. Ms Fowler has made very specific accusations against specific people, and has hard evidence to back up what she is saying. Uber's behavior in dismissing her complaints was appalling.
The larger number is the unadjusted amount. It's less of an issue because to some extent it is down to choices made, but to some extent it is also down to more systemic problems like the burden of child care tending to fall more on women than on men.
Are you claiming systematic discrimination of men? 80% of all custody awards go to women, if not a bit higher. I'd agree that we need to look at systematic problems, but the lens should not be positioned in a biased starting point. FWIW, I am a single parent and raised my kid from 10mos without any assistance or support. Even though my ex got hooked on drugs and became physically abusive after my child was born (both proven in court), it was an extremely difficult court case because I'm a man. We had to settle on joint legal custody with me having sole physical custody to make the Judge happy. She fought for money, I fought for the best interest of my child.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The price of shame — March 2015
The Republican weaponization of Clinton's misdeed was to claim that this behaviour made Bill unfit to govern. (If powerful men having extramarital affairs with young women was incompatible with leadership, well, the vast sweep of history does not so record.)
Family values aside, the power imbalance creates the risk that Bill would abuse his immense power to cover up the vastly exaggerated blot on his record. The Republicans actually knew that anyone with an accurate base rate of human history / human culture would not regard his behaviour as incompatible with leadership—though a common and damning blot nevertheless, so the tactic was to escalate the stakes until Bill felt compelled to lie about it—which, unfortunately, was extremely easy to anticipate.
Lying to formal body of review is considered incompatible with leadership, sort of, incrementally, since not all that long ago. For example, it barely extends as far back as the Reagan's Iran–Contra affair. (Some people roll with family values and view Clinton's offense as the worse offense. I happen to roll with geopolitical transparency, and so I view Reagan's offense as the worse offense—he appointed those clucks, and it was his ultimate responsibility to know all the big shit).
Bill was plenty smart enough to figure out that the public perception battle would play out exactly as it did, leaving him boxed into a corner where he could—according to his established character—only choose to lie (perhaps he overestimated his power to blow off the investigation, but even there, had he succeeded, he would have mortgaged a sizeable fraction of his presidential energy in ruthlessly defending his momentary gratification).
Clearly, his judgment in this matter fell short of the mark by any standard.
However, I rate it not quite as bald as boasting about sexual harassment with a camera rolling. Whatever Bill purportedly said to Donald on the golf course (that was "far worse" in Donald's personal judgement), there was no film at eleven after the fact.
The modern world contains a lot of cameras and microphones. Trump's world has contained many cameras and microphones since way back. A prudent man in his position wouldn't be openly bragging about his magical power to get away with sexual harassment just to impress Billy Bush. And it's not like Donald didn't have a front row vantage point on Bill sinking his own boat through which to consider and amend his own standard of personal conduct. Donald had every opportunity to know better, and the penny never dropped.
So in summary, a whole lot of things are "not okay" but still the world largely spins as it has always done for thousands of years.
It's obvious you're a troll: nobody on Slashdot really believes that people who are wronged can sue for damages and actually come out ahead. Otherwise they wouldn't get so orgasmically indignant over civil forfeiture cases. However it certainly makes for a nice scapegoat so you can blame a woman for taking any action when no action is good enough in your eyes.
"She's putting it on a blog? If she had proof she would sue."
"She's suing? She's just looking for a payout instead of getting a real job."
"She's closing her twitter account because she's getting death threats/bomb threats/SWAT teams being sent to her house by people who think getting her killed by -militarized police in a fake 911 call is a hilarious joke? She must have been lying or she wouldn't have given up so easily."
Lawsuits are long, expensive, and are as likely to result in a payout as winning the lottery. Usually you settle, the company admits no wrongdoing, you go home with a paltry sum, and the lawyers make out like bandits. At the same time, you're out of a job, burning through cash for legal fees and being yelled at by dipshits on slashdot. Assuming I can engage you in good faith (which I can't, but it's a laugh) you need to get your head out of your ass if you think the legal system will ever, ever make a habit of favoring the underdog even with overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing by the rich and powerful.
Haha! You are funny! Romney and McCain are not a Conservatives, they are RINOs.
I already asked you: How many Republicans will you declare persona non grata in your refusal to admit you are repeating lies, and to be honest, declaring them to be politically incorrect in a more original [wikipedia.org] sense of the phrase?
Because it really takes some chutzpah to say that your last 3 nominees are RINOs. And their VPs.
They're just not politically correct enough for you.
Using Politifact, an extremely left wing organization, to debunk my claim is just sad.
Denying that Politifact, has shown the lack of truth in the statements of a a number of Republican leaders is pretty sad...but not uncommon, Trump actually lies about fact-checkers too.
Funny though, that the Mitch McConnell link yields mostly trues.
Oh that's even sadder. You're trying to use Politifact for a comparative analysis, which would require them to be a comprehensive examiner, a standard which would be rather hard to establish. I merely offered the evidence of untruthfulness among the right, yet refrained from what you now want to say.
Some philosopher you are.
I'd honestly have to fact check your fact checker, because as mentioned they are grossly biased and remove context to make political claims.
Oh my, the sadness continues. Not only do you not want to admit to the lies, you want to believe, desperately, that they are false in their fact-checking.
Nope, you are not paying me to be your researcher so won't happen.
You're the one who has to establish your own words, that you so pretentiously claim this excuse only makes you more laughable.
If you want to talk cash, leave contact information.
If you have to be paid to seek the truth, you will tell the truth of the highest bidder.
I don't know anyone on the Right who assumes someone is honest, even on their own team.
That would be back to the questions I asked you earlier:
How many people do you know?
How much do you read of what the right says and does?
Really, you say you don't know anyone.
We have to debate each other as much as we do the left.
Nope. Not really. You swallow all sorts of lies and deceits. You don't even like it when others point them out. Heck, you've gone so far as to disown the last 3 standard-bearers of the right.
Gowdy and Chavez question Republicans just like they do the Dems.
Nope. They have refused to have numerous investigations and inquiries, meanwhile they spend endless hours on Benghazi.
Sorry dude, you really can't keep spreading the bullshit and expecting us to believe it.
Meanwhile, the "Left" is still claiming women make 70c on the dollar.
Nope.. Nuance . exists.
You're tilting at a strawman.
I won't get into their other lies, the list is way too long and not relevant to the conversation.
Don't worry, you've made your partisan bias and hypocrisy relevant. It's really your own fault. You ego made you take a stance, and purport to superiority, but show no willingness to examine your own dirty hands.