Tech Industry Faces Sexism Controversy Again With Ex-Uber Coder's Complaints

The tech industry is usually regarded as one of the leaders in pushing progressive platforms in the US, but even free-thinking companies are still experiencing their own issues when it comes to matters of equality. A good example is the complaints by a former employee at Uber who said that she was the subject of sexual harassments, among other things.

In a recent blog post, Susan J. Fowler detailed her work experience at Uber, which she left back in December. Fowler is a programmer that has earned the respect of the coding world, which does make anything she says worth its weight for others in her field. So when she revealed that she was being harassed and discriminated against and that Uber did nothing to alleviate her plight, it was only natural that it would spark a firestorm.

As a result of her statements, the cab hailing service and the Tech industry, in general, are now facing scrutiny with regards to persisting gender inequality. It doesn’t help that Fowler’s story is pretty typical of what women face in the workplace as well, which Uber should have been quite familiar with.

Basically, Fowler was proposed to by a person leading her team at the company, which she found inappropriate. After taking screenshots of the messages that he sent her, Fowler reported the incident to Uber’s HR. Unfortunately, the company decided that the offender’s stellar performance outweighed his clear violation of workplace ethics. As a result, they refused to do anything more than warn him about it, but what came next really paints a clear picture of how the ride-hailing company viewed women.

“I was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that,” Fowler wrote.

Uber is reportedly looking into these allegations by Fowler now, Wired reports, even bringing in former Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the issue. Considering just how cavalier the company has been with regards to similar complaints in the past, however, this might be nothing more putting on a show.