This is how sexism works in Silicon Valley

[CheeringCharm]

Has this article been shared? Infuriating and depressing. I feel for her. I wish her success in her future endeavors.

***

This Is How Sexism Works in Silicon Valley My lawsuit failed. Others won’t.

By Ellen Pao

www.thecut.com/2017/08/ellen-pao-silicon-valley-sexism-reset-excerpt.html

Losing my suit hurt, but I didn’t have regrets either. I could have received millions from Kleiner if I would just have signed a non-disparagement contract; I turned it down so I could finally share my story, which I have been doing by speaking at events across the country and through Project Include — a nonprofit I co-founded to give everyone a fair shot to succeed in tech. I started it with an impressive group of women from the tech industry, many of whom shared similarly painful experiences.
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Before my suit was over, though, other women had begun to sue tech companies with public filings. One of my lawyers represented a Taiwanese woman who sued Facebook for discrimination; her suit alleged that she was given menial tasks like serving drinks to the men on the team. Another lawyer at the firm represented Whitney Wolfe, one of the co-founders at Tinder, who sued for sexual harassment. Both of those suits settled, but others, against Microsoft and Twitter, are ongoing. Some reporters even came up with a name for the phenomenon of women or minorities in tech suing or speaking up. They called it the “Pao effect.”

[CheeringCharm]

Selfishly I'm glad she decided not to sign the NDA. These men deserve to be named and shamed. Pigs.

[smock]

I'd really like to know more about why she lost her lawsuit. I know it's really hard to sue a giant company for discrimination, but it sounds like there were some blatantly illegal actions (like the interview questions). It's so frustrating, because if she lost a case like this, which seems like a slam dunk, what hope is there to use the courts to fight back against sexism in tech?

[downtoearth]

Aug 25, 2017 7:56:53 GMT -5 smock said:

I'd really like to know more about why she lost her lawsuit. I know it's really hard to sue a giant company for discrimination, but it sounds like there were some blatantly illegal actions (like the interview questions). It's so frustrating, because if she lost a case like this, which seems like a slam dunk, what hope is there to use the courts to fight back against sexism in tech?

I think this is where I ended up too. She did seem like the "perfect victim" and yet she couldn't win. I admire that she spoke out and that her new career is making it better for women and minorities in tech, but it's still so frustrating that discrimination is so impossible to prove and so prevalent (sexism, racism, and other discrimination).

[WOT?*]

Aug 25, 2017 7:56:53 GMT -5 smock said:

I'd really like to know more about why she lost her lawsuit. I know it's really hard to sue a giant company for discrimination, but it sounds like there were some blatantly illegal actions (like the interview questions). It's so frustrating, because if she lost a case like this, which seems like a slam dunk, what hope is there to use the courts to fight back against sexism in tech?

Men on juries, women with "why doesn't she deal with it like I had to? It's not *that* bad. It's a fact of life in the business world." mentalities. The money spent by the company in investigating her, making her *not* the perfect victim because of some e-mail, comment, joke, report she didn't make...while not providing full discovery in return. Her response (as noted) that she "could have been" less robotic, more personable, better on the stand and so she seemed remote and "not like somebody who would be harassed" or someone they could "relate" to. (Remember, these are "peers" who vote based on who would make a better drinking buddy.) But mostly not being able to swing enough people on the jury to her side, who were more easily swayed to the company's side than they were able to sway folks on the company side to hers. And no doubt the company had better, and well-compensated, trial and jury consultants, several times over. They could afford to wear her down and roll over her at trial. She was the perfect plaintiff (or mostly so), but they're bigger and better financed to be able to cloud over that little fact to make her appear less perfect. But mostly what I said in the first sentence (resulting in the rest of it.)

[WOT?*]

And Misogyny. Remember that gal Hillary Clinton, old "Lyin' Hillary" the corrupt ice queen? Yeah, there's that. Women are easily painted shrill, loud, aggressive, reticent...imperfect.
She was painted by the company as incompetent and unrelatable. The jury couldn't or wouldn't get over her image versus the actual facts of the case and the person.

[pantsparty]

Aug 25, 2017 7:56:53 GMT -5 smock said:

I'd really like to know more about why she lost her lawsuit. I know it's really hard to sue a giant company for discrimination, but it sounds like there were some blatantly illegal actions (like the interview questions). It's so frustrating, because if she lost a case like this, which seems like a slam dunk, what hope is there to use the courts to fight back against sexism in tech?

Her attorneys didn't sound great. Telling her not to answer a question about helping other women, when she had, doesn't seem very...smart.

[CheeringCharm]

Aug 25, 2017 9:41:28 GMT -5 WOT?* said:

Aug 25, 2017 7:56:53 GMT -5 smock said:

I'd really like to know more about why she lost her lawsuit. I know it's really hard to sue a giant company for discrimination, but it sounds like there were some blatantly illegal actions (like the interview questions). It's so frustrating, because if she lost a case like this, which seems like a slam dunk, what hope is there to use the courts to fight back against sexism in tech?

Men on juries, women with "why doesn't she deal with it like I had to? It's not *that* bad. It's a fact of life in the business world." mentalities. The money spent by the company in investigating her, making her *not* the perfect victim because of some e-mail, comment, joke, report she didn't make...while not providing full discovery in return. Her response (as noted) that she "could have been" less robotic, more personable, better on the stand and so she seemed remote and "not like somebody who would be harassed" or someone they could "relate" to. (Remember, these are "peers" who vote based on who would make a better drinking buddy.) But mostly not being able to swing enough people on the jury to her side, who were more easily swayed to the company's side than they were able to sway folks on the company side to hers. And no doubt the company had better, and well-compensated, trial and jury consultants, several times over. They could afford to wear her down and roll over her at trial. She was the perfect plaintiff (or mostly so), but they're bigger and better financed to be able to cloud over that little fact to make her appear less perfect. But mostly what I said in the first sentence (resulting in the rest of it.)

This. The part where they talked about compensation stuck out to me and how the other male junior partners were making multiples of what she made. She explained how it depends on your investment picks and how you were always at the risk of having a senior partner steal your idea/investment, especially the women who were expected to play nice as women are everywhere. Whereas she said that sometimes the male junior partners were able to steal ventures away from the senior partners with no lasting hard feelings or repercussions. I 100% believe her that that happened but I can see how an accusation like that would be hard to prove in court without hard evidence.

Also this:


"In venture capital, a ton of power is concentrated in just a few people who all know one another. Tips and information are exchanged at all-male dinners, outings to Vegas, and sports events. Networks are important inside a VC firm, too. One secret of the venture-capital world is that many firms run on vote trading. A person might offer to vote in favor of investing in another partner’s investment so that partner will support his upcoming investment. Many firms, including Kleiner, also had a veto rule: Any one person could veto another member’s investment. No one ever exercised a veto while I was there, but fear of it motivated us to practice the California art of superficial collegiality, where everything seems tan and shiny on the outside but behind closed doors, people would trash your investment, block it, or send you on unending “rock fetches” — time-consuming, unproductive tasks to stall you until you gave up."


If you're on the outside of this network socially, I can see why it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make as much money as the people on the inside. There was an anecdote where she shared how her male partners chartered a $50k jet to take a ski trip together but when asked why no women were invited, said that they thought they'd feel uncomfortable staying with the men in a condo (really they couldn't have rented another condo for the women next door? Or at least ask them and let them decide for themselves). But again, that kind of thing might be hard to prove in court of law. If it's outside of office time, the men could argue that they were socializing on their own time I guess.

I don't know, to me it all clearly adds up to a very hostile work environment for women. It's extremely frustrating.

[juliej]

pandce.proboards.com/thread/583474/sexism-works-silicon-valley

Lots of views, few responses.