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Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

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Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#51

Post by Kalium »

devchix wrote: post #24
Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

This aphorism that HR is there to protect the company -- I hear it all the time and it's terribly cynical, while also probably true. Why must it be this way; asked another way, why do we accept that it must be this way, that every time we engage HR it must be with the understanding that they are the adversary. Why go to HR at all, why even have HR, why not fold it all in the legal counsel's office? Why can't HR be wh…

> Why can't HR be what they purportedly say they are, with all the videos and the role-playing and the seminars that everyone hate-attends yearly?

IMO, most of HR's work isn't handling major complaints. It's doing the administration to track reviews, carrying out training, making sure benefits work correctly, ensuring expenses get paid out, organizing those training sessions, and so on.

Perhaps the reason HR doesn't get folded into Legal is because most of what HR does is not stuff Legal would do particularly well.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#52

Post by namanaggarwal »

You can never overestimate the amount of sexual harassment women faces in the tech industry.

My Fiancée kept telling me about different incidents that happened with her and I used to always brush it off saying maybe you are reading too much. Until one of her other female colleague shared the same incident. I asked her to goto HR but be prepared for the backlash to the extent of firing. And as expected HR took no action, nothing. She changed firm and then the same story with different people. And I am not talking about small companies, they are Fortune 500 companies.

This industry seriously needs people like Fowler to come forward and write about it. I encourage my Fiancée to write her experiences as well.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#53

Post by fhood »

ecmascript wrote: post #4

Cry me a river, the overwhelming majority of sexism in the IT-industry is towards men and white men in particular. Men also don't get the privilege of getting any media outcry or changes for the sexism against them. Just to give a few examples on top of my head: There has been no conferences that has been [1] shut down or postponed [2] because of the skin color or sex of the speakers. It has definately been so for me…

I'm not here to pile on, I just want to understand why this point of view is so common. I have always felt incredibly blessed by my circumstances (straight white male). Would you really rather be some other gender and/or race? Do you truly believe it would make life easier?

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#54

Post by akuchling »

wavepruner wrote: post #32
komali2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and white men in particular It's difficult for a man to experience sexism at the level a woman does for the same reason that it's nearly impossible for a white person to experience racism. Going this out of your way to "defend" white men is in direct opposition to the cause of feminism and fighting racism for a simple reason: centrism favors the status quo, and the status quo is still in 2020 that a baby born in Am…

"the status quo is still in 2020 that a baby born in America white and male is among the luckiest babies in history." Millions of these "luckiest" babies are suffering from crippling illnesses, yet they are treated like they are awash with privilege solely because they are white and male. This is racism and sexism. Disabled white men are not privileged.

The point of "privilege" is not that all white men have lives of luxury and pleasure, but that society is arranged so that people of type X get cut a certain amount of slack that non-X people don't get. Disabled white men certainly have their own struggles; disabled black men would have even more struggles.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#55

Post by wpietri »

notyourday wrote: post #35

Speaking of Uber and Susan Fowler - had the current CEO frog marched out everyone that authorized, worked on, did not block, did not fight against what she experienced especially after the publication of her post? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/books/review/susan-fowler... If not, why has not the board frog marched the current CEO out?

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. It seems like a good point. Large swathes of Uber, especially people with power, seemed ok with all sorts of ethical failings. I'd really love to know how many of those people kept their jobs.

Of course, large companies often treat major failings as PR problems. So instead of cleaning house or making other big changes, they do the minimum necessary until the heat is off. A classic in the genre is Jack Dorsey, who is extremely good at sounding sincere and contrite, promising to listen and improve until attention is elsewhere.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#56

Post by relaunched »

It's not just Uber. There is an ethos around running companies that succeed at all costs. Getting big is their God and everything else can be sacraficed. They are level 4 leaders...long-term doesn't matter. Burying things is the norm; culture, values, compliance, the law...doesn't really matter, outside of HR marketing speak.

It's hard to be a good company when you can get away with being bad, so long as the metrics still show good.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#57

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

notyourday wrote: post #35

Speaking of Uber and Susan Fowler - had the current CEO frog marched out everyone that authorized, worked on, did not block, did not fight against what she experienced especially after the publication of her post? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/books/review/susan-fowler... If not, why has not the board frog marched the current CEO out?

Such destructive cleaning of house creates the wrong incentives. Most of the people involved would have lacked either the full story or the power to do anything about it. If it's a fireable offense to be near a big scandal, the rational response isn't to start fighting against the problems you see - it's to build a massive silo to minimize the number of problems you can see.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#58

Post by [deleted] »

Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

[deleted]

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#59

Post by deeg »

lordleft wrote: post #2

That first article she wrote, exposing the culture at Uber, was profoundly upsetting and an important moment in the history of our industry. Kudos to her for standing up to one the most egregiously hostile work environments I've ever read about.

Susan Fowler is a hero; it must have taken a tremendous amount of courage to hit the 'send' button while knowing her life was going to change. My niece is about to graduate into the SDE work force and I have little doubt that the culture is incrementally better because of Fowler.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#60

Post by ythrowawhy »

Having worked at a rapidly expanding SV company during the same time frame I witnessed & experienced similar wildly juvenile & unprofessional behavior. My own experience parallels Fowler's in some disturbing ways and makes me think that the complete lack of corporate oversight or HR professionalism is rampant throughout the entire industry. Kudos to her for having the courage to go public.
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