The anonymous thing is really messed up. The manager sounds super unprofessional and shouldn't be a manager.
Sexism at Uber from Female Management
111–120 of 234 posts
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#112Surprise surprise, managers behave badly and it doesn't matter what their background is. Usually engineers have to go through rigorous interviews; maybe it's time that was stepped up for managers with better behavioural questions.
Unfortunately managers also tend to be a product of their environment. I've seen female managers/leads take extremely male-centric sexist positions on issues just because it's the way they've learned. In other words, they had become "one of the boys" and were expecting other women under them to do the same. I've come to assume it's especially true of Women on their 40s or so who have been in the tech industry for a w…
This. If you look how Uber HR "handled" all these problems by completely ignoring them, it's a large part of the problem.
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see anything that the manager is doing wrong. We can debate whether the manager is effective at her job, but it seems clear to me this is not an example of sexism. As a man, I have never had a single manager comment on the clothes I've chosen to wear at work... Or had my attire compared to a guy playing ping-pong in a speedo.
Wear some pants that clearly reveal the outline of the jewels. See what happens. Report back to us. >You also just might not be that attractive.
Pretty sure that's not appropriate work attire in a tech firm.
Pretty sure that a tank-top is.
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#114So... Tina's an asshole/jerk/bitch, but where's the sexism?! (I'm not disputing sexism in Susan Fowler's case.)
The comments about the tank top were blatant sexism. The rest just seemed like terrible management.
I'm struggling to understand how that's sexism.
Can you explain your criteria for sexism? (I'm asking in good faith.)
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#115All of those things she lists are not really sexism. The only one that even comes close is the lady telling her not to wear a tank top. Honestly, I agree too. I think tank tops are not appropriate office attire. This girl just needs to grow up and learn that her appearance does matter. I feel like her manager was actually giving her some good life advice and being real with her.
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#116> In my time there, I saw malicious fights for power, interns repeatedly putting in over 100 hours a week but only getting paid for 40
Let's repeat one more time, don't do 100 hours week, you'll never get paid for it.
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#117These are possibly fair gripes, but they're not at all uncommon in the rest of the world, even outside of tech.
'My manager doesn't respect me'. Well ... my bet is that 20% of the entire world feels this way.
'Banned from other offices'?
Most companies have many offices and they usually expect people to work primarily from their own workspace.
I worked in a fortune 50 with many offices and I was not allowed to work remotely or from some other building, unless meetings etc. That said, maybe the rule is applied unfairly? But it's conceivably entirely within the managers authority to do that.
As for the 'tank top' ... that one's tricky. But no female in my F50 work experience ever wore a tank top. There was no dress code, they just didn't do it. There are many places wherein it definitely would not be allowed. That's a tricky one ... I think it would have mostly to do with what was 'the norm' a the company, and what role is being played, in what context. But yeah, it's tricky.
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#118Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see anything that the manager is doing wrong. We can debate whether the manager is effective at her job, but it seems clear to me this is not an example of sexism. The only citation I can find relevant to the claim of sexism is that she was asked not to wear a tank-top to work. It may very well be that a tank-top is inappropriate attire at Uber's workplace. At IBM and many o…
I am with you. The manager may not be nicest person around, but I don't think they did anything wrong really. Tank tops are inappropriate office attire IMHMO and this girl does not want to accept that.
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#119Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see anything that the manager is doing wrong. We can debate whether the manager is effective at her job, but it seems clear to me this is not an example of sexism. The only citation I can find relevant to the claim of sexism is that she was asked not to wear a tank-top to work. It may very well be that a tank-top is inappropriate attire at Uber's workplace. At IBM and many o…
Read a little more carefully. The problem here isn't really "sexism", it's that "Tina" has an insecure personality that feels threatened by the people on her team, and thus is marginalizing everyone on it who sticks out in an attempt to establish dominance. You're correct that a good manager could make a comment about a tank top being inappropriate attire at a given office. But note when Tina said this: it was when t…
"that "Tina" has an insecure personality that feels threatened by the people on her team, and thus is marginalizing everyone on it who sticks out in an attempt to establish dominance."
Maybe 'Tina' is a bad boss, but to take one employees gripes and accept a face value that she has they behavioural awareness to know her boss is 'insecure' is a stretch too far.
Sometimes, people look at bold and arrogant people and say 'oh, they must be insecure', when maybe they're just plain old jerkoffs.
I see a story of a generally crappy boss, but that's not entirely uncommon in the world. In fact, it's common.
The issue I think would relate to how it's either systematic or not at Uber.
Re: Sexism at Uber from Female Management
#120So... Tina's an asshole/jerk/bitch, but where's the sexism?! (I'm not disputing sexism in Susan Fowler's case.)
The manager wasn't telling male workers to wear long sleeved shirts, so that's the most obvious one. It was also obviously the last straw. Often in stories like these the last straw seems pretty stupid compared to a larger problem. People have a breaking point but it's often a small thing that puts them over it, the straw that broke the camels back. Although the story doesn't spell out the gender of everyone on the t…
Just because she's female doesn't mean her sex is the reason. With such a sample, there are probably many distinguishing features for every one of the group. What if she was the only Jainist in the group, would it be religious discrimination?
It's also possible "inappropriate" clothing depends on the person in question. E.g. if I'm overweight and wear really tight fitting clothing, that might be more distracting than someone in good condition.
It could also be jealousy, unrelated to sex.
Everyone's assumption might be right, given Uber's culture. But this story isn't really conclusive by itself. Now if there were many female engineers with a lot of diversity among them under this manager, and only female engineers were banned from some work environments, then that'd be stronger evidence of sexism.