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With Her Blog Post About Toxic Bro-Culture at Uber, Susan Fowler Proved That One Person Can Make a Difference (recode.net)
Kara Swisher, writing for Recode: It was Lao Tzu who said that "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." In the case of complete and utter change reeling through Uber right now -- culminating in the resignation of its once untouchable CEO Travis Kalanick -- it turns out that it began with one of the most epic blog posts to be written about what happens when a hot company becomes hostage to its increasingly dysfunctional and toxic behaviors. It was clear from the moment you read the 3,000-word post by former engineer Susan Fowler about her time at the car-hailing company that nothing was going to be the same. Titled simply, "Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber," the essay deftly and surgically laid out the map that the media and others would use to prove to its out-to-lunch board and waffling investors that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had to go. In her account, Fowler was neither mean nor self-righteous, although in reading the story that she laid out about her horrible time there, it would have been completely fair for her to have taken that tone.
Being sexually propositioned on your first day by an immediate superior and then punished when you turned them down is not and never will be okay. And that has nothing to do with political correctness. These facts have been more or less confirmed by Uber themselves. If she "tried" this at a "real" company, her boss would have been fired on the spot.
I had the pleasure of meeting Susan at a conference before this all started and it saddens me that someone obviously so bright had to deal with that kind of bullshit.
Now, every pat on the butt or peck on the cheek is 'harassment'.
no, it's harassment, without scare quotes. The chivalrous thing to do is to keep your hands off your coworkers until you're invited.