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Female Engineer Sues Tesla, Describing a Culture Of 'Pervasive Harassment' (theguardian.com)
A female engineer has spoken out about a discrimination lawsuit against Tesla that she filed last year. AJ Vandermeyden, 33, has accused Tesla of ignoring her claims of "pervasive harassment" and says she has suffered "mental distress" and "humiliation." From a report on The Guardian: Vandermeyden, 33, shared her story with the Guardian at a time when Silicon Valley is reeling from the explosive allegations of former Uber engineer Susan Fowler. Offering a rare public account of discrimination from a tech worker who remains employed at her company, Vandermeyden said her dedication to Tesla motivated her to advocate for fair treatment and reforms -- despite the serious risks she knows she faces for going public. "Until somebody stands up, nothing is going to change," she said in a recent interview, her first comments about a discrimination lawsuit she filed last year. "I'm an advocate of Tesla. I really do believe they are doing great things. That said, I can't turn a blind eye if there's something fundamentally wrong going on." Vandermeyden began at Tesla in 2013 and was eventually promoted to a manufacturing engineering position in the general assembly department, which consisted mostly of men and where she was paid less than male engineers whose work she directly took over, according to her complaint.
"which consisted mostly of men and where she was paid less than male engineers whose work she directly took over" This seems to imply this just because she is a woman, I'm a dude and I've been in this position myself, hell I've even been in a engineering management position and made less than the guys I was in charge of of.
Sure this all could just be because she's a woman, but there is at least a real possibility that there were other reasons contributing to her situation.
>Therese Lawless, Vandermeyden’s lawyer,
> who represented former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao in her high-profile discrimination lawsuit against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Well, we know how that turned out for Ellen.
>Vandermeyden recently took out a hefty loan to buy the cheapest version of the Model S Tesla car and has a reservation for the upcoming Model 3
So after launching a potentially very expensive lawsuit you decide to get a "hefty" loan and buy a Model S? Huh.
I was working in a print shop many years ago, and as far as I was aware there were only 2 of us in the area, both guys, and we were telling blond jokes. An hour or so later my companion and I were summoned to the department directors office and told that we had been the subject of a sexual harassment complaint for telling inappropriate joke at work. A women had let herself in the back door and was literally stealing special forms paper and had overheard us telling the jokes and complained to management. We, both guys were forced to take a sexual harassment education class and issue a formal apology to a woman who was then fired for stealing supplies. The bottom line is it is not how you intend the joke or to whom you are directing it to, but how anyone who hears it interprets it, whether you intended them to hear it or not.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
This seems just another case of a women who has had a lifetime of women's privilege deference and accommodation running into the hard truths of equality in a tough work environment. The courts will probably force the feminization of the work environment--women's privilege at work once again. The result, of course, will be the destruction eventually of an aggressively creative and forward pushing company.
E Proelio Veritas.