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Three Women Suing Microsoft for Bias Want To Add 8,630 Peers (bloomberg.com)
A reader shares a report: A lawsuit accusing Microsoft of discriminating against women in technical and engineering roles is poised to grow a lot bigger if it wins class-action status. With the technology sector awash in challenges to white male dominance, the three women spearheading the case against Microsoft told a Seattle federal judge they want to represent about 8,630 peers who have worked for the company since 2012. The women said their expert consultants have determined that discrimination at the Redmond, Washington-based company cost female employees more than 500 promotions and $100 million to $238 million in pay, according to Oct. 27 court filings. They also accused the software maker of maintaining "an abusive, toxic 'boy's club' atmosphere, where women are ignored, abused, or degraded." Microsoft said it strongly disagrees with the allegations, saying the filings "mischaracterize data and other information."
As a male who worked at a sausage party fortune 3 company in their "cyber defence" dept with only white males; tbh i see what they are saying. Multiple times I thought "are they really doing this? Yes they are". Racist jokes are the "black friend", making "curry" jokes around Indians, talking about which chick in xyz dept to "bang" or "her hair is JBF".... Needless to say I left that company. If a woman did bring a class action on the co I'd definitely be on their side....
They will distort reality to entitle themselves to whatever the fuck they want, paint you misogynist, and then sue you in a case with worldwide visibility.
If you had never hired them in the first place, then you wouldn't owe them anything and you wouldn't have to deal with this shit.
Seriously... you want to be treated like an equal? Take your lumps like the rest of us and stop making a big fucking stink out of the fact that you are a woman.
There is a stigma in the tech sectors, Men do coding and Women do data entry. Women who are in coding, usually need to double down on their attitude, to show that they are one of the guys. This is unfair, and often has the women, either not being proactive enough, or being too much of a bully to get the promotion. A lot of the these problems isn't overt sexism, but a combination of many subtle differences that really add up.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
like souls, lawyers don't have genders.
I actually never made a claim one way or the other in favor or against the lawsuits. However I will point out that many of these have come up and many of them have been tossed out.
is there a firm out there trying to ride the Social justice wave to the bank? I dont know. but it is a valid question to ask.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Incorrect. I know quite a few women coders. I even know a few really excellent coders who are female. They are not common, but any really excellent coder isn't common either..
Well, I've never seen anybody suggest why "systemic sexism" has been so massively successful in keeping the supposed hordes of "qualified women coders" out of programming, but failed so miserably in keeping them out of sales, marketing, law, medicine, journalism, finance, government and education. Especially when you factor in the fact that anything that even vaguely looks like systemic sexism gets you fired and blackballed immediately with no warning or review and we've been bending over backwards to put anti-systemic-sexism programs in place for at least thirty years, the power of the systemic sexism in tech is really a wonder to behold.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
From what I've heard, they have a toxic culture that makes life miserable for most of them, not just women.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"an abusive, toxic 'boy's club' atmosphere, where women are ignored, abused, or degraded." Microsoft said it strongly disagrees with the allegations, saying "we ignore, abuse and degrade underlings regardless of gender."
FTFY. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Don't ever be the first to stop applauding! I mean, booing!
Really, who comes up with this drivel?
Has anyone noticed that the CEO is not a white male? How about the top HR person? Most of management? Microsoft is FAR from being a place where white male dominance is a thing. In fact, on the team I was on for several years, it was commonly observed that the best way to not get a promotion was to be white. It didn't really matter if you were a white male or white female, you were probably getting a mediocre to poor review no matter what you had done, so that someone the same race as the director could get the promotion. If you were a female from the same part of the world and were sufficiently subservient, you might also get a promotion, but us uppity white folk were last in line (in addition to being last to leave the building every night).
There are a lot of problems with the culture of Microsoft, and racism *is* one of them, but it's certainly not white-dominant racism. The biggest difference is, as a white male, I don't have a voice if I try to claim discrimination. My recourse is pretty much limited to either "shut up and deal with it" or "find a better company to work for." So, after years of the first option, I finally took the second option. That's white male privilege at work right there... "you're a white male, so you have the privilege to shut up and take it or get the hell out."
That the problem exists and is pervasive, I have no doubts on that score. However, I don't think it's just against women, ethnic or age groups. In short, I think the problem is mainly about cronyism and the boys club. Even talented white males suffer from discrimination there, but that's deem ok because they are white and male. People joke about the pointy haired boss, but it's actually a sign of cronyism.
Honest question: I'm really curious of your opinion here: do they act and behave more "manly" than other women? by that I mean: less emotional, more no-nonsense, colder mind, focused on the task at hand, less inclined to multitask.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
$238 million for 8630 employees over 5 years comes out to about $5,500/year/employee.
That's a lot less than I would have expected for an upper limit at this early of a stage in the proceedings, when numbers are typically very optimistic in order to leave headroom for surprises as the case evolves.
I'd imagine that means their reasonable expectation of what they'll be able to show is quite a bit less than that, and maybe quite a bit less than even the $100 million (about $2,300/year/employee).
Funny how at my tech company females outperform all the males in.... vacation days taken per year.
I'd be interested to know if the males in your "tech company" are less likely to have families or hobbies or other reasons to be somewhere other than work. Or if they make their female partners do all the child- or home-related work.
I'd also be interested to know precisely what you mean by "vacation day". Do you, for example, live in some kind of backwards jurisdiction where you don't automatically get N days of paid leave per year which you must use, otherwise you are considered not to be taking workplace health and safety seriously?
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At this point....would YOU hire a woman for most any job, knowing they are likely to be looking for any good reason to sue you and your company?
If there really was a good reason for an employee or ex-employee to sue me and my company, I'd be far more worried about that possibility.
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