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."

Comments

I'm not surprised.

[generic_screenname]

As much as Slashdot likes to believe that sexism is imaginary, this behavior is pretty common in tech. Frankly, I've seen worse.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as Slashdot likes to believe that sexism is imaginary, this behavior is pretty common in tech. Frankly, I've seen worse.

OK, so you start with the strawman that "Slashdot," whoever that is, likes to believe that sexism is imaginary. But, then you say you've seen worse? I'm a software engineer in the auto industry, and I have never seen anything like what she describes. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. But, if you've seen worse, you have worked in some horrific work environments.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you don't see it since you are not the target of it.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Ly4]

But just asking?
A subordinate.
By text.
On the first day of the job.

That's not 'just asking'.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

A manager in a position of power asking their subordinate to have sex with them is absolutely sexual harassment.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[DogDude]

Wrong. A boss asking a subordinate to fuck them IS harassment.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[DutchUncle]

Asking an equal rank colleague about a date, after working together for a while, maybe. Asking about sex on the first day, like trying a pick-up up at a bar, no. Asking a subordinate, abuse of authority, period.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[gatkinso]

generic_rebuttal

Re:I'm not surprised.

[NotInHere]

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.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[fibonacci8]

You've limited the scope to "quid pro quo" sexual harassment. The article demonstrates "hostile environment" sexual harassment. There's no requirement that "compliance is made a condition of continued employment or advancement". https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/type...

Re:I'm not surprised.

[t0rkm3]

Even so, in every bit of coaching that I have ever seen, there is a requirement of: request, rebuff, request again, escalate, unless the references are "to the reasonable person" offensive in the extreme.

That also seems to follow the legal doctrine on the matter. An advance is considered normal and human (if stupid, from a manager), the repeated advance in the face of clear rejection causes the condition to rise to harassment. This goes for passive things like, a mudflap girl coffee mug, inappropriate humor, etc.

I agree that the victim should escalate early and often for their own protection and documentation, but the HR person (if they were being honest) did the right thing. If we went around firing everyone for the first inappropriate thing they ever did the manpower churn itself would be a viable alternative power source.

I'm not a lawyer, advisor, or necessarily reasonable. I'm just old enough to see this go around multiple times, sometimes having negotiated successful resolutions... sometime having quit MY JOB because of the treatment of peer and the company's response.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[serviscope_minor]

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.

2. Her first response should have been to say,

Actually I think her first response should have been to knock out his teeth. Failing that going straight to HR was entirely appropriate. Propositioning a subordinate like that is so far out of line that there is no way she is in any way responsible for trying to smooth things over.

The rest of her "explosive blog" goes on to talk about bog standard industry stuff.

The reason the industry is infested with problems like this is because of people like you. Oh sure I mean you might not actually do any of those things yourself, but you defend others that do and when the defense fails, you excuse the behaviour as "standard".

Congratulations, you are part of the problem.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Grog6]

generic_rebuttal{ .Sexism .Misogeny .SJW .gamergate .HillaryRhodamClinton .Trump .Putin .Nazis
}
END: GODWIN_EXIT

Re:I'm not surprised.

[hey!]

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.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... No.

A manager asking for sex from anyone under them is a very clear violation of any sane HR policy, not to mention any sane ethical human being.

I work at Intel. We have yearly classes telling us to Not Do This Shit. They're super clear that this sort of Shit won't be tolerated, and for that I'm super glad.

Also, you're an idiot and a terrible human being for your opinion.

Yes. "Just Asking" is a problem and creates an environment that is hostile.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[rgmoore]

the HR person (if they were being honest) did the right thing.

At least according to the article, the HR person was not being honest. They said that it was the boss's first offense and they didn't want to put it on his record because it would hurt him. But the author spoke to other women who had complained about him before she did, so it wasn't his first offense. The most generous interpretation is that they were basing the claim of first offense on his blank official record, so that he could get an infinite number of "first" offenses left off.

It goes to show why that approach is a bad one. If you don't want people to get in trouble for a first offense, make that the policy. Put the offense in their record, but give them a free pass for it when it comes time to evaluate them. But leaving something out of the record makes it possible for somebody to get an indefinite number of "first offenses". Of course it seems far more likely that there was an informal policy of protecting offenders who were otherwise high performing, and the whole thing about it being a first offense was a ruse.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[TimothyHollins]

Speaking as a student of the real sciences, when we cannot observe something we cannot make claims about it being there.

I like your stuff better though, it must be really easy to write the conclusions.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re: I'm not surprised.

[DamonHD]

Really, no. The word just implies that there is a problem with something.

I use it all the time when talking about software or hardware bugs or latent ones, ie that may lead to or have already caused a problem. How on earth would that be what you claim?

If you want "dog whistles" then let's try "dog whistle" and "SJW" as loaded terms...

Rgds

Damon

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I think her first response should have been to knock out his teeth.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is sexism in action. No one - certainly not this poster - would suggest that a man should knock out a woman's teeth for propositioning him, no matter how inappropriate it might be. But violence against a man for the same cause is apparently perfectly acceptable.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Attila Dimedici]

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?

Re: I'm not surprised.

[shilly]

What are the realistic chances that this particular advance would have been wanted, given the circumstances described. How shitty a student of life do you have to be to realise that asking a subordinate for a fuck on the first day you meet them while telling them you have a partner is not going to result in you getting said fuck?

Re: I'm not surprised.

[serviscope_minor]

The problem is people like you advocating violent responses.

I think that people who can't spot hyperbole should be publically disembowled in the town square.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Calydor]

clear sexual advances like these without invitation are a clear case of sexual harassment.

So you want to ban any kind of sexual advances? I mean, do you want that people first ask before they ask about starting a relationship?

I must be incredibly old-fashioned to think that getting to know someone, talking, finding common interests etc. should precede "Hey, wanna fuck me? My girlfriend is okay with it."

Re:I'm not surprised.

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re: I'm not surprised.

[epyT-R]

Racism, of course. Yours.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Raenex]

Actually I think her first response should have been to knock out his teeth.

And then his response would have been to justifiably knock her ass out and have her thrown in jail. Yeah, yeah, "hyperbole". It's "hyperbole" like this that tries to justify people getting punched in the streets while giving interviews and others being assaulted for going to a Milo talk.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[serviscope_minor]

So you do not remember the people saying that it was "just sex"?

You can find someone who will say anything if you look hard enough. "some people said it" does not equate to me saying it and as such, it's completely irrelevant.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[epine]

Really? Then why was it OK when Bill Clinton had sex with an intern?

The price of shame — March 2015

At the age of 22, I fell in love with my boss, and at the age of 24, I learned the devastating consequences.

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.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[religionofpeas]

On the other hand, most of the really shitty jobs are done by men.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Dread_ed]

One can hope that is the case now. I will relate a situation I was very close to at one of the VERY LARGE PETROLEUM companies that started with sexism and misogyny and ended in tragedy.

In the mid 90's my father became romantically involved with a woman at work who was employed as an executive assistant in another department. As their relationship evolved she confided in him that not only was she the recipient of unwanted advances from a certain employee in the sales department, but she had heard from other female employees that they have been harassed, fondled, and even sexually assaulted by this person. Apparently his favorite tactic was to offer to take a young lady to lunch. Then he would mention having left his wallet at home and that they would stop there for a moment to get it. He would invite the young woman inside and then assault her. Management's response to this had been to move this salesperson around the US, kind of like the Catholic church did with pedophiles in their employ. This salesperson was a "high performer" and made the company significant profits, and was protected by the HR department and managers from retaliation.

My father, having a firmly defined standard of fairness and an even more deeply entrenched allergy to injustice, decided to do something about this sexual predator. Over a period of almost 2 years he managed to use the internal electronic message board at the company to rally enough employees into speaking up and the man was eventually fired. In one of the craziest twists of fate ever this person ended up in my industry, working at my company as a salesperson. My father and I have the same exact name, sans the suffix so he had to know who I was.

He also knew one of my coworkers. A stout christian woman, deeply involved in one of the largest churches in our city, and she vouched for his upright character, his beautiful wife and children, and their wonderful christian character. Then after about 4 months on the job he decided he had had enough. He left work in the middle of the day and went home with a purpose. He first killed their 19 year old nanny. It was later learned he had been having an affair with her. Then he killed his two children, 20 months and 3 months, followed by his wife, aged 36. All of them were murdered by stabbing. The police described it as a "very brutal, violent scene, lots of blood."

After killing his family the scumbag in question stabbed himself, shot himself, and drank rat poison. When these methods of ending his life did not work he drove about 70 miles outside of town, parked his car on the side of the road, and stepped out in front of a 18 wheeler cruising down the freeway, thus ending his miserable life.

I can only imagine how this situation might have developed differently if only the company he worked for had not decided to protect this awful human being from the consequences he deserved. Maybe if he had been fired right away with the first offense he would not have progressed to where he killed his entire family and then offed himself.

Whatever the conditions were that eventually led to this, the initial seed of this problem was how he viewed people, especially women, around him. This was, I am sure, exacerbated by his company defending him. Maybe in his mind he thought he was entitled to do with women as he pleased. I don't know. Whatever the reasons are, I see this as a condemnation of sexist activity of this type, as it belies a lack of concern for and malice toward others that resulted in someone killing 4 people and then themselves.

So, I would recommend to anyone who encounters this kind of activity, report it immediately. Don't feel flattered. Get evidence. Remove that person from the workplace immediately and hopefully place them in prison. You are dealing with a predator who does not care for you one bit. They see you as an object that they deserve. Something they can take, use, and discard without a flicker of emotion. Your life could be at stake. Or, maybe the lives of a couple of innocent children.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[hey!]

I'll go farther: everyone has bad days where they do things they shouldn't do. Especially in matters of the heart and loosely affiliated organs. I'm not a big fan of knee-jerk firing in response to an accusation.

It's the inevitability of this that means an organization needs to be prepared to handle problems like this, and that's the problem here: the organization, not the supervisor. If the atmosphere described here is accurate, then management and HR aren't doing their jobs.

Re:I'm not surprised.

[Shotgun]

The Republican weaponization of Clinton's misdeed was to claim that this behaviour made Bill unfit to govern.

Jeesh! Are Democrats STILL spreading that lie!?

The "weaponization" was about Bill Clinton LYING under oath about this example of sexual harassment in a court case about a previous example of sexual harassment. He lost his law license and paid a $600,000 fine for his infraction (if I'm remembering correctly).

Re:Cake or death

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article you'll learn that HR lied about this being the first offense. It was just one of many.

Re:Cake or death

[The Evil Atheist]

How quickly people jump to the guy's defence.

Re: Cake or death

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it is the HR manager that should be fired.

Re:Cake or death

[omnichad]

Well that means that the summary didn't summarize - it changed the message.

Re:Cake or death

[DogDude]

Any sane company would fire this guy immediately. Uber is liable for not getting rid of him. Hope this woman sues the shit out of them.

Re:Noob question

[PopeRatzo]

How you downvote idiological articles on ./ ?

From the Slashdot FAQ:

Q: How do you downvote idiological (!) articles on ./ ?

A: Start by not reading them. And if you do accidentally read an "idiological" article on "./", be sure to not post a comment on it, dumbfuck.

Re:A bad way to start

[DogDude]

Oh, silly AC. Any boss asking any subordinate to fuck them is harassment.

Re:Cake or death

[DogDude]

Would you advocate the same punishment if it was female looking for sex I wonder?

Yes, I would. Immediate firing, no questions asked. Completely unacceptable, and if a person doesn't know that, that's just as good reason for letting that person go. Somebody with such poor decision making skills is a liability in many ways.

Re:Cake or death

[sootman]

You and the morons who modded you up need to RTFA. Here, I'l bold the important parts so you don't have to work so hard.

Over the next few months, I began to meet more women engineers in the company. As I got to know them, and heard their stories, I was surprised that some of them had stories similar to my own. Some of the women even had stories about reporting the exact same manager I had reported, and had reported inappropriate interactions with him long before I had even joined the company. It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being "his first offense", and it certainly wasn't his last. Within a few months, he was reported once again for inappropriate behavior, and those who reported him were told it was still his "first offense".

Re:Cake or death

[whoever57]

What's wrong with that? Does she want this guy immediately fired no question asked? If it really is a first offence tell him to knock it off and move on from there,

You did not read the article, did you?

It wasn't his first offence, although HR lied about this, claiming that it was.

He didn't knock it off. Also, her career at the company was affected because she made the report.

What he did should have resulted in an instant dismissal. Retaliation should have resulted in dismissals. Covering up the prior acts by the man should have resulted in dismissals in HR.

Re:Jacobin Jeopardy

[fustakrakich]

Says right there in the mantra: *What the market will bear* Abuse, violence, cheating, lying... If the market will bear it, what's the problem? It's all perfectly good if the government stays out of it, amirite?

Re: Jacobin Jeopardy

[Entrope]

I know, right? Communism never led to any abuses ever! Neither did theocracies, anarchy, or monarchies!

This has to be a 4chan joke...

[meta-monkey]

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?

Re:This has to be a 4chan joke...

[meta-monkey]

Except the company president was the alpha. Company president. Has money. Is banging Hooters girls. Nobody's complaining about him.

In this story, though, it's our boy's wife who's got no problem finding fresh cocks to hop. He, however, seems to be begging every woman in sight...and failing. They only report to HR when it's Fred Armisen, not Tom Brady hitting on them.

Men value women differently than women value men. I saw something from Tinder that like 20% of the men on Tinder are hooking up with 80% of the women. And there was an OK Cupid study that when asked to rank women as above or below average, men ranked 50% of the women above average, and 50% of the women below average. The women ranked 80% of the men "below average." Hmmmm.

Don't work for crappy management...

[Junta]

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.

Re:What's wrong with this people?

[meta-monkey]

The problem was his wife. When she wanted an "open relationship" so she could fuck other guys he should have said "DROPPED" and found a faithful woman. Instead he said "okay..." and then went begging for sex from every other woman he encountered.

Re: Jacobin Jeopardy

[Entrope]

Ah, the old predictable "no true communism" argument. It's always hard to tell if the person advancing that claim is a shameless liar or an utter moron.

Why didn't you note that true capitalism has never been faithfully tried, either?

Re:Jacobin Jeopardy

[meta-monkey]

It really does boggle my mind that people haven't figured out that the whole system of capitalism might as well be designed to create opportunities for abuse.

It boggles my mind that people haven't figured out capitalism is the only system that introduces voluntary behavior such that one even has a hope of avoiding abuse. At least in a capitalist system when you're harassed you can quit, and inform others, and the business suffers. There's some kind of financial incentive to avoid tolerating harassment. Propensity for abuse is inherent to humanity, not the economic system.

What happens when you're sexually harassed by your commie party official? Better put out or it's gulag for you, comrade.

Re:Cake or death

[lactose99]

Considering it happened several times before, this time absolutely.

An allegation has been made.

[jcr]

And it appears that Uber is investigating said allegation. We don't have enough information to know whether it happened or not. That's what investigations are for.

After the Duke Lacross Lynching and the UVA rape hoax, I'm inclined to reserve judgement until an accusation becomes a lawsuit and is litigated.

-jcr

Re:Perhaps the constant overhype is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Why exactly would you expect to see sexism or racism that is not directed at you?

The author of the article was being harassed through text messaging. Unless you are the recipient of those messages you have zero idea what's going on.

How surprising!

[jb_nizet]

Week after week, Uber shows that it doesn't give a shit about the law, whatever the country is.

Week after week, Uber shows that it doesn't give a shit about its employees (or, as they claim, their independant drivers).

Why would Uber management give a shit about this poor woman? Why do people accept to work for Uber, given the constant reminders that Uber doesn't respect any rule, nor anyone?

Yep - racism

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Cake or death

[AmiMoJo]

This story proves you wrong. The guy who propositioned her has done it many times before, and many times since, with zero consequences. Apparently he was too valuable to the company, or they just didn't care.

The other comments also prove you wrong. People are making nuanced arguments, suggesting that merely politely asking for a date once is not a problem, for example. The world is clearly not as polarized as you think.

Sexism is just one aspect

[nyri]

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:

• There was the sexual harassment that gets all the discussion.
• One of the other sexist aspects is the fact that she was denied a transfer. This seems to be due to the some half assed policy to increase the number of women in organisation with the net effect that her transfer was blocked because her current manager wanted/needed women in his team.
• The third documented "sexist" thing is not buying leather jackets to female employees due to larger unit price. I don't think the problem here is sexual in nature. This same could have happened to fat people or any other minority group. Don't get me wrong, the company is wrong in doing this and excluding a number of people of any sort of team building exercise is really bad. Especially when it's done to save a few hundred bucks.
• The main problem with the Uber organisation seem to be the utter politicisation of all aspects of management. From the description I'm willing to guess that the organisation is filled with power hungry people, who in turn hire and promote others like them. You know the type. A corporate version of these all talk, no action politicians.

Astroturfing Trolls

[s.petry]

The amount of Anonymous Cowards posting the same couple lines makes it obvious. This thread is being astroturfed.

Women are making more money than men for the same job and same amount of work today, especially in cities. Stop reading a bogus 30 year old paper crafted for a narrative and check current reports. or This or This or This and of course This Interestingly most of these are LEFT leaning sites, not Right/Conservative.

PolitiFact has given you the nuts and bolts about the 77 cents statistic -- you can read the two most important works in this area here and here. Basically, there is a wage gap, but it tends to disappear when you compare women and men in the exact same jobs who have the same levels of experience and education. (emphasis mine)

Just like 60% of all College students are women, 56% of all College graduates with advanced degrees are women. Yet we continue to hear that we need more women in college.

I'm an egalitarian, not a MRA. I also happen to believe in Socrates' definition of Philosopher, who must seek truth even at their own peril. Sadly the left avoids all truth and distorts everything they can for division and agenda.

Re:Astroturfing Trolls

[kilfarsnar]

Sadly the left avoids all truth and distorts everything they can for division and agenda.

You would have done better to leave this part out. It is not the "left" that does this, but people in general. It's pretty easy to find examples of this on the right as well. They elected Donal Trump, after all. Neither side of the political divide has a monopoly on subordinating the truth to their agenda.

Re:Astroturfing Trolls

[s.petry]

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.

Donnie Downer

[s.petry]

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.

Allegedly.

After Ellen Pao, UNLV, Duke LaCrosse, and countless false police reports (resulting in legal action) about discrimination I'm waiting for evidence. Chat logs, screen shots, and email logs should be enough to prove the case. TFA reports no such evidence.

Innocence until proven guilty should have meaning to all Americans, but seems like many are fine prosecuting without evidence let alone proof.

Re:Donnie Downer

[Creedo]

After Ellen Pao, UNLV, Duke LaCrosse, and countless false police reports (resulting in legal action) about discrimination I'm waiting for evidence. Chat logs, screen shots, and email logs should be enough to prove the case. TFA reports no such evidence.

So, you post this, but don't bother to read the actual account?
From the actual account:

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.

I know, I know, they cleverly hid it behind the first link in the story.

Re:Donnie Downer

[s.petry]

There is NO, Zero, Zip, NADA Shred, of evidence provided in TFA. Her claiming to have evidence is the same exact value as her claiming she was harassed. Both are possible, but neither are demonstrated with any facts. Considering that there were plenty of alleged "facts" with the UNLV rape hoax, and the Duke Lacrosse rape hoax, and Ellen Pao's discrimination case, the fake Muslim hate crime in NYC we should _all_ be demanding and waiting for evidence prior to making assumptions. "Hands up don't shoot", Duke Lacrosse, and countless other hoaxes have ruined plenty of lives. Numerous "news" agencies were caught faking and fabricating video and audio to support the narratives.

You would guess that people would have learned their lesson already.

Re:Donnie Downer

[Half-pint HAL]

There is NO, Zero, Zip, NADA Shred, of evidence provided in TFA. ... we should _all_ be demanding and waiting for evidence prior to making assumptions. "Hands up don't shoot", Duke Lacrosse, and countless other hoaxes have ruined plenty of lives.

There is a difference between treating a complaint as "credible" and treating it as "factual". My problem here isn't that people are doubting the allegations, but that they're outright dismissing the credibility of them. They should be taken seriously, and they should be investigated, and yes, no-one should be pronouncing judgement without access to the full facts.

However, when you talk about false accusations that have ruined lives, you are presumably talking about people who named other people in their accusations, which Fowler didn't do. The only life on the line here is her own, and as someone whose career is on the rise, she has a lot to lose. No doubt there's been a spike in orders for her book (currently a best-seller on Amazon) and so there's the possibility she's doing this for short-term gain, but the damage to her reputation would be inestimable if this turned out to be false, and she would appear to be an intelligent enough person that she wouldn't risk throwing away an entire career this early on just to increase sales for a week or two.

Re:Prove it!

[kilfarsnar]

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.

Depends on the company

[nehumanuscrede]

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.

Re:Prove it!

[Half-pint HAL]

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.

The article mentions that she does indeed have that evidence. Why does she not present this evidence? Probably because to do so might be illegal. I believe she has the legal right to retain that documentation for the sole purpose of legal action (as either defendant or complainant) and no right to publish it (as it is technically copyright of Uber as she was work-for-hire at the time).

If she was lying, Uber would most likely sue her for defamation/libel/slander in short order, and she would get burned because she wouldn't have the long trail of evidence that she mentioned in the article.

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.

She explicitly states that there was, and that she had talked to several coworkers who had experienced it.

Sorry, but there are no groups of dudes hanging around conspiring on how to fuck over, and fuck, women in the company.

It doesn't have to be a conspiracy -- negative attitudes aren't conscious.

Quite the opposite, since the virtue signalling SJWs are rampant in SF and would have busted the boss to make a name for themselves.

For example: you're sexist, but you think you're not, because you think it's all "SJWs", rather than people who have been genuinely mistreated. In this case, the woman gives a very detailed account, directly referring to matters on company record. Within an hour of picking up the phone, Uber's legal team would have had enough information to know whether this was credible or not. As Uber's official response was "conducting an internal investigation" rather than "completely baseless", I don't believe her claims can be easily dismissed at this point. And yet you believe you are taking a rational approach, even though you are disregarding the facts at hand -- attitude, not conspiracy.

Re:Perhaps the constant overhype is the problem

[ShanghaiBill]

Why exactly would you expect to see sexism or racism that is not directed at you?

Because complaints would be directed through me. I work in a tech company, and over the years, I have dealt with about a dozen complaints. The thing is, they were never about the engineers, programmers, or other nerds. They were always about the salesmen, the marketing dept, or the warehouse crew. I am sure some nerds are misogynistic jerks, but I don't think that is common, and I believe it is actually less prevalent than in most other professions. My experience is that most nerds are welcoming to female co-workers, and judge them by their ability, not their gender. Ms Fowler's description of her experience at Uber sounds terrible, but I don't think Uber is typical of tech companies or representative of "nerd culture". She also describes a lot of backstabbing and chaos at Uber that have nothing to do with sexism, so it sounds like a very dysfunctional company on many levels.

Re:Prove it!

[AK Marc]

She made s specific claim with regards to the *fact* she was harassed on her first day, and it was reported to HR her first day. If that fact-based claim is a lie, Uber should sue her. That they aren't, and haven't responded, is evidence that they don't object to her facts. Yes, silence is an admission of guilt (except in court). In fact, Uber has made confirming statements, where they are concerned. And they have explicitly not questioned the factual claims made.

And complaints bout SJWs seem to exceed the number of SJWs. Try facts, rather than yous snowflake tantrums.

Re:Disagree

[AK Marc]

I read everything I can get my hands on so that I can argue against the leftists

"I suffer confirmation bias, and I'm proud of it!"

Re:But this isn't sexism.

[Shane_Optima]

Woosh.

They bought jackets for all the male staff, but didn't for the females. That's blatent discimination and sexism from a company. Who gives a fuck what it costs? Buy them the fucking jackets, they earnt them as much as the boys.

She explicitly said they had the option to get a "male" jacket. I don't know off the top of my head what makes a leather jacket feminine vs. masculine, but I've seen a woman wearing a leather jacket from the men's section and, as long as the size is right, it looks fine. Feminine versions of clothing generally consists of being tighter or having frivolous trim or something. There's no functional reason to have a separate female version of a leather jacket except to pander to gender stereotypes. Which is itself supportive of a mild form of sexism, not a remedy for sexism. I mean granted, you can make an argument that they should get all female jackets and the men should have to adjust to those, except as I just pointed out male clothing tends towards the more utilitarian[1].

if it makes the employee's work place a nicer place to come to

That has nothing to do with anything. The issue is whether or not it is sexist to not specifically cater to a separate, stereotypical feminine aesthetic. One that's not shared by all females, for that matter. If the women showed up for their first day at work and their computers had the aforementioned hot pink with glittery flowers (without them asking for it) and their male counterparts had normal looking computers, I bet she'd be crying sexism. But it's the same thing in principle. Equality means equality, not asking for special treatment because you're been sociologically conditioned to hate leather jackets if they don't have a fringe or the buttons on the left side or come in pastel colors or whatever the hell it is that's supposed to make a leather jacket feminine.


1. Well, at least as far as jackets go. Women have a clothing advantage in most warmer contexts.