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Facebook Sued Alleging Sex Discrimination, Harassment, Other Charges
- sinatra 12y agoWith all the sex discrimination and harassment charges, I sometimes wonder if founders get subconsciously influenced that hiring women can increase the risk of lawsuits to their companies. Not fair, I know! But you aren't thinking about fairness when it comes to your business that already has too many issues to take care of.
- nedwin 12y agoI think they're more likely thinking two different thoughts. 1. How can I hire great people? 2. How can I create a culture where women aren't discriminated against?
- iopq 12y ago3. Why is my employee taking so much maternal leave when I need her to be here?
- Crito 12y agoA possible solution to that is to mandate that all men also be given maternal (paternal?) leave when their partner has a child. It would not completely eliminate the imbalance, since of course not every woman who gives birth has a male partner, but it should at least improve the situation.
- mahouse 12y agoSo the solution is to reduce also the productivity of men? Looks more like a punishment to me.
- Crito 12y agoIt would be paid leave, and optional of course, so the men would not punished. You could perhaps claim that the corporation was being "punished", but you could claim that forcing corporations to give maternal leave in the first place is "punishing" them. A certain amount of "punishment" of corporations is to be expected. In reality, "punishment" is just "regulation that aims to modify the properties of a corporation". Manipulative, not punitive.
- mahouse 12y agoAh! But if it's optional, I can only assume a lot of men would not opt for it, while women would probably be forced to take it at least for the first few weeks. In an ideal world, from my point of view, leaves would be both equal and mandatory.
- Crito 12y ago> "I can only assume a lot of men would not opt for it," Of course. There is no silver bullet. If you are expecting one, you will be perpetually disappointed.
- mahouse 12y agoThat's why I say it should be mandatory :-)
- Crito 12y agoStill not a silver bullet. Women would still be disproportionately effected and it would further incentivize discrimination on the basis of family status. You can tweak the parameters back and forth, but every solution will be imperfect. There is also the matter of if it would be mandatory for women. If so, that would be discriminatory against women, as single women would more frequently be forced to put their careers on hold than single men. If it is mandatory for men but not women, that is also discriminatory. Currently in the US, women cannot be forced to take maternity leave: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-preg.html http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-preg.html
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- chrisBob 12y agoA company with good family leave policies shouldn't care, or even notice if you are male or female. Part of reducing discrimination should be taking away the idea that women are the only ones who can take care of a kid!
- amputect 12y agoI think it's better and more useful to ask "Why is my company so dysfunctional that I can't afford to have someone out on vacation?" Remember that the difference between someone taking maternity leave, and someone quitting, is that people come back from maternity leave. If your company is so short-staffed that you can't afford to have someone out of office on maternity leave (or paternity leave, or even just a normal long vacation that they've saved up PTO for), then what are you going to do when those same people simply quit? The net effect is the same: you are now even more understaffed, but it's a permanent problem instead of a temporary one.
- sp332 12y agoWhy would I hire extra people just in case some of them leave? I'd wait until an employee said s/he was going to leave and then hire someone to replace them.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoIf it wasn't for the regulations you wouldn't even have vacation or maternity leave. It's capitalism, when you're in competition, any value you can throw under the bus to become more competetive will go under the bus - either you'll do it, or one of your competitors. The answer to the question "why is my company so dysfunctional" is often "because it can't afford to not be".
- jiggy2011 12y agoIn a country with statutory maternity leave the maximum maternity period is much longer than the average holiday (The UK allows up to a full year). So you have to fill the gap by hiring another developer with the same skills who is happy to work on a temporary contract which might be more difficult and expensive than finding someone seeking a permanent position especially if you require rare skills. Industries where skills and certifications are more standarised don't seem to have this problem.
- chrisBob 12y agoFor comparison in the US: My wife and I recently took about 60 days of leave (paid) when our daughter was born, but paid leave is uncommon in many industries. Federal law requires the employer to let you take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave after giving birth, and does not guarantee any pre-birth leave.
- jsmthrowaway 12y agoAlways good to see the outright, unfiltered sexism make an appearance here.
- Demiurge 12y agoIf you think that the hypothetical quote implies the author agrees with it, why? When thinking about how to deal with sexist society, is it not important to understand all behaviors, illogical, immoral or sexist, in order to make things better for the disadvantaged?
- sp332 12y agoIt's not really subconscious. https://twitter.com/ebekiel/status/573627588708446208 https://twitter.com/ebekiel/status/573627588708446208 https://recode.net/2015/03/16/the-most-dangerous-meme-in-the-paokleiner-trial-now-no-one-will-hire-women/ https://recode.net/2015/03/16/the-most-dangerous-meme-in-the...
- nostromo 12y agoIt's a cruel irony that being in a protected class might make it harder to get a job.
- ivanca 12y agoYes, and if you hire -for example- black paraplegic dwarfs you are going to deal with even more discrimination lawsuits. Of course this isn't like it should be, is just the historical legacy of homogeneity on communities, is been this way for millions of years so it will take a lot time to change it.
- xienze 12y agoUpvoted, because this is the flipside to "diversity" that a lot of people fail to acknowledge. Diversity can have positive effects on your group/community/organization but it also increases the likelihood of tension that might otherwise have not existed.
- emodendroket 12y agoIf you systematically avoid hiring them you are also subject to lawsuits...
- ivanca 12y agoActually no, because for it to be systematic there must be enough cases to be noticeable, and also they must pass all aptitude tests, and sometimes that puts some people in disadvantage: for example if one of the test for a new position is heavy lifting men will be the majority of the ones being selected, you can call it discrimination but is the same way choosing only people with computer degrees is discrimination.
- emodendroket 12y agoMaybe with the contrived example the OP offered, but classes like "women" and "nonwhite people" are pretty large.
- danso 12y ago> The suit also alleges that Hong was told that she was not integrated into her team at work “because she looks different and talks differently than other team members” and was subsequently replaced “by a less qualified, less experienced Indian male.” Uh, what does her replacement being Indian have to do with anything? Unless the implication is that most/many of the other team members are also Indian? While it's not a stretch to believe that an employee would experience discrimination for being one of the relatively few women at a tech company...are there really that few Asian/ethnically Chinese employees at Facebook? Or perhaps just in her department?
- sinatra 12y agoYes, Facebook has to have a lot of Asian employees (American definition of Asian which excludes Indians). I imagine this lawsuit is talking about her own team which may not have any other Asian team-member.
- chralieboy 12y agoMy guess is that because she is also accusing them of racial discrimination, when noting who replaced her it was relevant context. If you just say "male", people will assume it was a white male and that she was fired to make room for the patriarchy.
- the-dude 12y agoBecause Anil Wilson is of Indian ancestry. She claims the group thought she did not fit in and she was replaced with someone who did. Also, see my comment below.
- dreamweapon 12y agoUnless the implication is that most/many of the other team members are also Indian? That seems to be the implication. And yes, it may be relevant to understanding the context and merit of her claims. EDIT: Not that the replacement hire's ethnicity by itself is relevant; but it may be relevant to her claim that after she was fired, they replaced her with with someone of the dominant ethnicity within that group.
- spcoll 12y agoThe issues of diversity and equality are becoming increasingly harder to ignore for tech companies of all sizes. This is a great reminder to Facebook (and others watching) that they should care. It's an uphill battle, but one day there will be one female engineer for every male engineer, one female PM for every male PM. And no woman will be afraid to go and do her job. We're still so far from this dream...
- fizzbatter 12y agoThese (and race included) are such confusing things for me to reason about. On one hand, equality is of course the goal for everyone. However, these arbitrary numbers - "one to one", as you put it - often(always?) end up as their own special form of discrimination. It's a sad state of affairs when we must use one form of discrimination to fight another. I wish i had answers, but all i see are problems.
- irremediable 12y agoOne to one isn't an arbitrary ratio, though; it's the ratio of women to men. There are questions about positive discrimination, but I feel I have to point that out.
- ori_b 12y agoOne to one is, however, not currently the ratio of women to men who are qualified as programmers. This implies that less qualified women will have to be hired at the expense of qualified men, in the world as it is now. Shifting towards a 1:1 ratio would be nice, but that needs to be fixed by growing the talent pool, and isn't going to be solved at the hiring practice level.
- emodendroket 12y agoThere are pipeline issues too, but not exclusively.
- fizzbatter 12y ago
- the-dude 12y agoI can't find any info on the person being sued, but his firstname suggest Indian ancestry. So there seems to be this case, Ellen Pao's and Vic Gundotra at Google? Coincidence?
- discodave 12y agoUnless you have some hard evidence that Indian men are more sexist than other men then, yes, coincidence.
- the-dude 12y agoI don't have hard evidence, but a parallel story has been unfolding since about a year about the rampant and brutal rapes in ... India.
- masmullin 12y agoI think you might have just accidentally racist there. Not every male of Indian ancestry is a brutal rapist, nor should every male of Indian ancestry be singled out as a potential sexist because of brutal rapes happening in India.
- the-dude 12y agoI am not implying anything about every male of Indian ancestry. I am just pointing out that in the last 3 sexual harassment cases from SV, Indian males seem to be involved.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- slipjack 12y agoYes, but suing costs a lot of money, so people don't tend to do it because they've "interpreted wrongly" a few isolated comments. She's suing 51 people - that's a lot of co-workers who just wondered why she opted to choose a career instead of a family. (Also, asking women why they aren't staying home instead of having a family is the example HR uses when they talk about sexual discrimination. If you're working in a major corporation in America in the 21st Century, you should know that that question is not ok.)
- javert 12y agoMen treat one another like shit all the time but then when a male asks a question, probably naively and innocently, it is suddently "not ok." This is like a kind of thought policing, and it's sick.
- gress 12y agoDo you think it's good that men treat each other like shit? I think it can be just as oppressive when a stronger man treats a weaker man like shit as it is when a man treats a woman like shit. (By 'weak' in this context I am talking about power differential and not some inherent quality of the individual).
- venomsnake 12y ago> Do you think it's good that men treat each other like shit? Yes. If you can't take the heat, don't jump in the oven. Respect is something that have to be earned. I will treat anyone with disrespect (bosses, presidents and pope included) until you earn it and show you have worth as a human being.
- gress 12y agoSo you treat people as if they have no worth until they do something you like. Got it.
- itsbits 12y ago"The discrimination included, but was not limited to, plaintiff being belittled at work and asked why she did not just stay home and take care of her children; being admonished when she exercised her right under company policy to take time off to visit her child at school; being ordered to organize parties and serve drinks to male colleagues, which was not a part of her job description and not something that was requested of males with whom she worked; and being replaced by a less qualified, less experienced male." 1) Don't think any company will ever do this 2) She realised this after she got replaced? Edit: why am I getting downvotes here? People need to explain before downvoting..
- kelukelugames 12y agoINAL, A lawyer told me even if you have a legitimate case then you still try to tack on as much extra shit as possible.