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by caminante 3401 days ago
I'm not following at all.

Where does it say the manager "wasn't telling male workers to wear long sleeved shirts?" Even if so, how's that sexist? To say that something's sexist because a man gets different advice than a woman with no context is unacceptable criteria for sexism.

Re: WFH, she's a junior employee (graduated in 2015) whose boss told her to "be at [her] desk to 'ensure that [she's] collaborating with the team and getting the support [she] need[s]."

She's complaining about getting reprimanded for "working from home for one hour in the morning." That sounds like she was expected to be in the office and didn't clear ahead with her manager. Why was she WFH for just one hour? How's the reprimand sexism?

Taking her claims at face value, she's not making a strong case for sexism.

2 comments

> Where does it say the manager "wasn't telling male workers to wear long sleeved shirts?" Even if so, how's that sexist? To say that something's sexist because a man gets different advice than a woman with no context is unacceptable criteria for sexism.

I'm saying she was told to wear a long sleeve shirt. I find it exceedingly unlikely a man was told the same thing and she didn't hear about it (especially as the male employees were joking about it with her, it seems likely they would have told her). Hence, only she was told that, which is a sex based (a protected class) restriction on clothing.

> She's complaining about getting reprimanded for "working from home for one hour in the morning."

Something everyone else on her team did that day. You are right we don't have enough context. But I'm saying it's (reasonably) possible. Suppose she was the only female on the team (likely) and there was a male coworker who was also a similarly experienced junior dev (possible). If she is told not to work from home, but he is allowed to, she is told to work at his desk, he can work anywhere, she is told to work on thanksgiving, he is not... that is straight up sexism. Even without those conditions the tone of the emails could have also implied it in each of those instances (to be clear those instances are all reported by her, but her coworkers actions and identities are not).

So yes, it could be just a bad manager. But it sounds like she told HR a lot of times she thought it was sexism with no response. Regardless of if it was or wasn't sexism, HR did nothing. That puts the blame on Uber, rather than just a shitty manager. And that means Uber can't say whether it was or wasn't sexism, because they didn't bother enough to care to investigate it. All of which speaks poorly of Uber.

> Taking her claims at face value, she's not making a strong case for sexism.

Agree.

It's "just" a common case of "bad" management.

I think there is a deeper problem here with HR. Uber didn't care enough to figure out whether it was sexist or not (or even care enough to do anything about it at all). That means Uber is sexist simply by not caring enough to check (regardless of whether this was or wasn't sexism).

* As always a lot of caveats apply: If sexism is defined as legally culpable discrimination of a protected class (rather than looser social definitions, or even broader sociology definitions). If we take her statements at face value.