{"id":43596,"date":"2023-10-20T15:29:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/microsoft-accused-of-sexism-as-former-female-employee-sues-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:29:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:29:46","slug":"microsoft-accused-of-sexism-as-former-female-employee-sues-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/microsoft-accused-of-sexism-as-former-female-employee-sues-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft accused of sexism as former female employee sues &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"443\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/l_l_microsoft_445.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_l_microsoft_445\"><\/div>\n<p>A former employee has filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against tech giant Microsoft, claiming the company unfairly favours men for pay and promotions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The proposed class action lawsuit, brought about by former technician Katherine Moussouris, is based on Microsoft\u2019s policy of ranking its employees to determine wages and promotions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As Reuters reports, Moussouris claims she was passed over for promotions that were eventually given to less-qualified men, and says women are routinely given lower ratings through this system because of subjective criteria.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMicrosoft systematically undervalues the efforts and achievements of its female technical employees,\u201d Adam Klein, one of the lawyers representing Moussouris, told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit is seeking to represent any female Microsoft US technical workers since 2009, and damages could exceed $5 million.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the lawsuit, Moussouris also claims she received a low bonus in retaliation for reporting sexual harassment.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Gender discrimination and a lack of diversity is a huge problem in the tech industry, and most of the big companies have recently been releasing internal statistics and pledging to do better.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft had the lowest number of female employees <a href=\"leadership\/how-tech-giants-stack-up-in-the-diversity-stakes\/2015082315365.html\">compared to all the other big tech companies that released stats<\/a>, with women comprising only 24% of its workforce.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft replied to the lawsuit in an email to <i>USA Today<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re committed to a diverse workforce, and to a workforce where all employees have the chance to succeed,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve previously reviewed the plaintiff\u2019s allegations about her specific experience and did not find anything to substantiate those claims, and we will carefully review this new compliant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i>Want to grow your business<\/i> <i>with Instagram?<\/i> <a href=\"startupschool\/\"><i>StartupSmart School can help<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former employee has filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against tech giant Microsoft, claiming the company unfairly favours men for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}