
Female exec hired to help Magic Leap appeal to women sues for sex discrimination - drewrv
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/14/magic-leap-faces-sexual-discrimination-suit
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cbanek
Sadly, this doesn't sound far off from some situations I've been in and seen.
It's a tragic cycle.

HR at Company X - "We don't have any women. We should hire some women. I don't
really know why, I just read it in this newsletter that it's a good idea."
First female employee - "I see why you don't have any women here. I quit."
Executive at Company X - "Silly women. I told you we didn't need them after
all."

I'm honestly not sure if it's that large groups of men tend to act like jerks
toward women (which happens pretty often). Or that they become large groups of
men when the women leave, if the men were acting like jerks to them. I rarely
see a company becoming more diverse after that point, and then it seems to
feed back in on itself, as part of the culture.

There's a lot you can do that isn't quite to the point of discrimination or
harassment that can get people to leave, that's why it's such an insidious
problem. And rarely are these places a great place to work for anyone.

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brenschluss
> A new hire orientation included the unprepared advice: “in IT we have a
> saying; stay away from the Three Os: Orientals, Old People and Ovaries”.
> Campbell was told the person in question would not be giving new hire
> orientations in the future as a result, but that did not happen.

And from this Forbes article[1] :

> "All the engineers and others in predominately-male Magic Leap could
> conceive of to make the product female friendly was to produce a version in
> pink," the lawsuit said.

I can't imagine that a company like this wouldn't have many other major
dysfunctional communication/team/management problems. In my experience,
situations like this usually also come with teams people that can't deal with
productive disagreement or differing opinions.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2017/02/13/former-
ma...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2017/02/13/former-magic-leap-
executives-lawsuit-accuses-company-of-sexism-and-misleading-
marketing/#7ba391fc4323)

~~~
edblarney
"All the engineers and others in predominately-male Magic Leap could conceive
of to make the product female friendly was to produce a version in pink"

However sad, this is not grounds for a legal case.

Most of the items in the article are like this.

She's offered evidence that ML is maybe not a great place to work for women in
some ways, but none that they are acting in a discriminatory fashion.

Your first quote is particularly crude, but I don't even understand the
context - why would they stay away form 'Old People' 'Ovaries' and
'Orientals'? There are tons of Asians in tech. Obviously extremely crude, but
I don't even get the point of it.

Maybe there's more to it, or I missed something.

Seems like they need help, not to be sued.

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slackstation
> One of the three or four core apps that will ship with Magic Leap’s headset
> “is a game, ‘Dr. G.,’ that has no female heroes or lead characters”. The one
> female character in the narrative, who isn’t in the game itself, “is a busty
> woman depicted on her knees grovelling at the heroes’ feet in admiration”.

So in 2017 it's a hostile work environment if there aren't female characters
in the video game that the company is producing?

I know that not the whole suite but, it highlighted as part of it.

Are people at the Gillette going to sue because they make a whole line of
razors that are pink? Are people going to sue at fashion companies because the
clothes they make are too revealing or tight?

Are we going to bring subjective criticism of art into the courtroom not out
it own merits to society but, judging it on the basis of how it makes one of
the employees of the company feel?

I'm not saying that the whole suite it without merit. This one point was just
especially egregious to me.

~~~
whistlerbrk
People harping on these single points like the one which bothers you prevents
action from occurring and quickly muddies the water. These claims are meant to
be taken as a whole. It is about the environment that the little small things
create as a whole, not an individual event.

~~~
clickbait
The problem is that all of the points as a whole don't really amount to
anything particularly bad.

Like, sure they aren't good, but if you have skin so thin that a few immature
remarks and the lack of a gender in a video game is damaging to your life,
it's nobody's problem but your own.

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chrisbennet
I can (kind of) understand racism. If you don't grow up, go to school, etc.
with other races, they are "the unknown", "the other". I am not saying it is
good by any means but I can see how it happens.

Misogyny though? That makes no sense to me. Pretty much everyone had a mom and
a lot of people have sisters. Unless your grew up in Sparta, respecting women
should inculcated by the time you you get old enough to work with women.

~~~
tetromino_
To the contrary, I would argue it's easy to fall into misogyny.

If the few women you had in your life as a kid were awful people, you could
have subconsciously picked gender as an identifying marker of being an awful
person. Add some teenage sexual frustration and bruised ego, mix, and let stew
in your head for a few years.

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yellowapple
"A new hire orientation included the unprepared advice: “in IT we have a
saying; stay away from the Three Os: Orientals, Old People and Ovaries”. "

Oh wow. I thought my grandpa was the last person on Earth who actually still
calls Asian people "orientals". Guess he ain't alone after all.

