Sexism at Uber from Female Management

It was a comment based on her appearance (and assumedly how 'sexy' she was dressing). That's the reason.

If a Male manager told her she probably isn't doing well because of how she dresses (and she dresses reasonably) that would be sexism, so it's the same thing if it's another women doing it.

On the scale of sexism this isn't as bad as the other things reported about Uber (she wasn't propositioned for example), but I believe you could argue it as sexism (IANAL, you'd need to one tell you for sure).

> 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.

I would agree with you if the author of the article put forth 'insecurity' as an explanation. But she didn't; that was my interpretation of the claims presented in the story as they were written. And yes, I did take them at face value, just for the purpose of illustrating that it's plausible to wonder if there's more going on here than tank tops.

I mean, the author doesn't exhibit any behavioral awareness. The author presents one email she wrote to HR as a complaint, claims HR did nothing about it, labels her boss and HR as sexist, and says things need to change. She's more concerned with the atmosphere at Uber that allowed her complaint to be ignored than anything else.

"Tina" is preying on the author's nascent anxieties about how her male co-workers perceive her body, clothing choices, etc. It's a form of harassment that's pretty obviously tailored to the author's gender (how many men report anxieties about being taken less seriously because they show too much skin?).

The modern use of the word "sexism" includes gender-tailored harassment. It's a broader term nowadays than just "holding a belief that women are worse at X".

> What if she was the only Jainist in the group, would it be religious discrimination?

If it had to do with her religious practices, yes. If she was singled out for no other given reason and she was the only one and the decision maker had made comments on her protected class status related to it... yes (if it walks like a duck...)

> E.g. if I'm overweight

Not a protected class without a medical note classifying it as a disability. Bad example.

The better example would be a Hijab (religiously protected class, distracting clothing), which yes, she has a right to wear as long as it doesn't directly interfere with her work (e.g. assembly line or something); just saying it is distracting does not count.

Notably, sleeveless clothing is not a fireable piece of clothing unless it is for everyone. And since it seems exceedingly unlikely that this manager is saying the same thing to her male employees (especially as the male employees are joking about it, it seems likely they would have told her), it is sexist discrimination.

> It could also be jealousy, unrelated to sex.

Except no, it was pretty clear it would have to be related to her being female if that was the case (because unless the guy was bi-sexual, it's unlikely she would be getting jealous at a male coworker doing the same thing).

> 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.

Yes, but we don't have many female engineers (~15%) to ask. And many of them report sexism quite often when leaving the field entirely. Seems a bit of a chicken and an egg if it wasn't for the fact that both the chicken and the egg are very clear about the problem when asked.

You are right. It may not be sexism. And just a shitty manager. Even so, parts of it seem like they could be sexist. She is calling it sexist. And it is representative of a shitty culture either way. And the sexism charge could have been avoided by simply having better management practices. It's almost like if you don't protect your employees bad things (like sexism, racism, etc.) can happen.